Brad's Computer Project

[Brad_c]

Hey guys I am getting ready to begin my mod... I am taking my old Pentium 3's case giving it a paint job and maybe a window, ive never done a window before maybe you guys who have could give me some tips and techniques...

Anyways I am going to begin by painting the chasis black... I havn't decided whether I should do it gloss or flat, what is your opinion?... then I want to paint the outside grey and then maybe do a cool color on the front panel... then I am getting a new mobo and everything pretty much (hdd, ram, psu ect.) and I am thinking about blue cc tube lights inside the case and blue LED fans... Any feedback would be great!!!

Here are some pics, I am still going to have to do some masking and prep...
http://img148.exs.cx/img148/8297/case20gd.jpg


http://img148.exs.cx/img148/2503/case15xw.jpg

[SLAY3R]

www.linear1.org

Has some painting tips as well as window tips.

Good luck and keep us posted. I love seeing biege machines being modded.



Don't forget about venitlation.

[Yoshi]

Well seeing the real spray gun in the pic and not spray paint im going to asume you know how to paint.
For cutting window.
Jigsaws work very good for steel cases. Use it for the rough cut and Dremel the fine details. You can get molding from quite few places auto glass shops or plastic supply are good, where you would buy acrylic/plexi etc. You can also use vinyl tubing and carefully slice it open to make your own. Or you could finish the edge nice and smnooth and use no molding place the window inside and rivet, bolt or glue in place.
just ideas...

[Brad_c]

Im about to start painting the chasis... I decided to go with flat black, I will probly do two coats depending how it goes on, and im almost sure im gonna do grey outside... more pics comming soon.

Brad

[Brad_c]

heres the chasis after I applied two coats of flat black... and dried it with the heat gun... I am very happy with the results.

http://img114.exs.cx/img114/7043/dscf17017ov.jpg

[kennyt772]

looks nice man. you might want to remove the stampings in front of the cd drives now. is the mobo tray removeable? a two peice window would be a break from the norm and maby going with red or green rather than the overused blue.

[Brad_c]

Yeah thats a good idea Ken... maybe i will go with red that would look awesome also, and I tried to get the mobo tray out before I painted but it was going to be a pain so I just left it in...

[CamH773]

looks nice brad

[kennyt772]

yeah a black interior with red light ooow the colors. also some orange maby green uv paint with a ccfl would look nice.

[automaticDEATH]

nice i like the color!
________
Hawaii marijuana dispensaries (http://hawaii.dispensaries.org/)

[Brad_c]

Thanks for the input and suggestions guys... tomarrow i think im going to start on the window and work on finishing the paint job while I wait for the goods that I ordered :D

[Brad_c]

I just painted the front of the dvd drive and the floppy drive with flat black...

http://img224.exs.cx/img224/1098/dscf17049nw.jpg

[CamH773]

looks realy nice!!

[IHCInuYasha]

Brad, let me know what your doing for a window man, I might send you some custom designs on msn.

[kennyt772]

dude you just painted the indicater led.........

[Brad_c]

hahah no ken i did put a pice of tape on it and cut it out with an exacto knife... that would be a pretty stupid mistake lol...

[IHCInuYasha]

Oh well If he did he could always try to put a new one in, maybe Red or even one of those bright white LED's in.

[IHCInuYasha]

Where Is the LED anyway? I can't even see where the tape is!

[Brad_c]

Beside the volume dial... its very small and the lighting is bad, and remember the piece of tape also got painted black... LOL

[Brad_c]

I painted the front panel and only one of the side panels for now (trying to decide on a window kit) the paint job turned out nice...

http://img56.exs.cx/img56/3439/dscf17272ox.jpg

the thing that looks like a streak across the panel is only a reflection of the light above the table... oh and yeah I did cover the LED indicators.

http://img56.exs.cx/img56/4177/dscf17266yi.jpg

[FuNkyGuY]

looks awsome, get some blue cathods! or red, but, I think they only make blue (kidding).

goodjob on painting it seems like.

[LudoTheGreat]

Very nice paint job. I think ill send ya my cases when they need painting :) Cant wait for more pics.

[IHCInuYasha]

Hmmm I KNOW there's tape on those LED's eh? lol even if there isn't, try replacing them later on. if you up for a real challenge, try putting a pulsing LED for the power LED (you may need to make a circuit for the pulsing, but it's not that difficult, I did it before)

[Brad_c]

send me your cases Jsutnoni I will give them a primo paint job :p
I got a 14 inch red cc light for the bottom...

http://img67.exs.cx/img67/6072/dscf17321wt.jpg

[Brad_c]

and a 4 LED case fan... I bought another one, better quality... should get it tomarrow. along with a few other things

http://img61.exs.cx/img61/4051/dscf17337bz.jpg


Also recieved my Motherboard, cpu 3.2ghz, heatsink, ram and harddrive
http://img67.exs.cx/img67/6628/dscf17345vn.jpg

[computerman]

sweeet, looking good brad

[kennyt772]

noice i still think u should have gotton the lanparty board tho

[automaticDEATH]

looking good. are you only adding 1 neon?
________
LovelyWendie (http://www.lovelywendie99.com/)

[Brad_c]

Well im goin to have that 14 inch one, and two red case fans... once i have the window done i can see if i need more, and I can get peoples opinion on it here... I belive there are 8 inch ones or 10??? might put one on the top ledge...

[Brad_c]

After piecing the case together I decided that I am going to paint the top flat black to match the drives and the inside... and to add some visual variety to the outside... I have decided not to do another coat on the pieces I have done because they turned out almost perfect cant find many imperfections, so I dont wanna mess it up.

http://img70.exs.cx/img70/2396/dscf17369pm.jpg

[Brad_c]

Finished painting the top flat black... turned out great, more pics comming this afternoon when the rest of my stuff comes... cant wait!!! :D

http://img131.exs.cx/img131/305/dscf17417rs.jpg

[kennyt772]

very nice man looks almost factory

[Brad_c]

The grey seems really bright in the picture cause of the flash but actually its quite dark... and the colours blend together nicely.

[kennyt772]

well can u take a pic with no flash? im in school right now so if i dont reply then i wil when i get home. i want to see that window kit go in.

[Brad_c]

Look at edited ^

[kennyt772]

ahh not bad. i would paint all the covers black to match. the panel thingy that came with ur mobo looks nice. that should look awsome once your done

[JustJon]

Very slick looking paintjob.

[LudoTheGreat]

Yeah i didnt really like how the colors looked together with the flash.Looks WAAAY better without it. Great job!

[Brad_c]

Well I have the computer together and running, all i have to do now is make a window kit and a little more painting... here is a pic, I DEFINITLY have to clean up my power cables they are everywhere!!! anyone have suggestions what I should do with them??? I tried to arrange them the best I could...

http://img69.exs.cx/img69/4566/dscf17460ud.jpg

[kennyt772]

i would put as many as possible inside the psu. the ones you wont use like the aux connector you can snip right off. if youi dont wanna put them inside the psu just shove them behind the mobo tray

[Brad_c]

you guys wont see anything of me for a week as im going to cuba... I will probably start on the window after I get home...

[IHCInuYasha]

Brad, you should sleeve them, I am not sure how you sleeve or which sleeving brand to buy or where to sleeve them, but for a fact you should definately sleeve, ask around on the forums (if your lucky the right person might see this post and reply). Hit me up on MSN Messenger, I may be able to help out. And what did you do with the DIABLO TEK PSU? Don't tell me you chucked it simply because of a power cord that didn't work.

[reeseslover531]

You could sleeve them or use wire looms

[kennyt772]

um those psus kill parts. read the reviews at tiger.

[IHCInuYasha]

Dude, you can't go by one review, I looked at reviews else where and it says they work just fine.

[Dawg21]

actually, (this will make me sound like a total noob) i didnt realize a person could use a heat gun when painting, i thought that would mess up the paint job or something...actually idk what i thought, but i didnt know u could do that

[Brad_c]

Dawg if you put the heat gun too close its will bubble the paint, keep it at a good foot or so away, oh and Brandon... too late for that psu scalped it for its fans, looked very cheap on the inside... the soldering was terrible and there was glue all over the place...

I just cut the window and gotta get some acrylic...

[IHCInuYasha]

You scrapped it!
Well I guess if it looked cheap on the inside I guess it was best not to buy it.

[IHCInuYasha]

hey I just realized that someone took away one of my sigs... to bad I wanted the other one more...

[Brad_c]

Yeesh I finally got my window cut and PAINTED... YAY! picked up my plexi last night and hopefully I will cut that soon... im considering putting a fan in the center of the window, ive got a perfect size hole saw to cut it, and a sweet fan grate to use to hold it in place...


http://img260.echo.cx/img260/7448/wp5ql.jpg



this is the stuff I have for my fan project here...


http://img260.echo.cx/img260/8052/dscf19503ki.jpg

[Brad_c]

These are the setups I could do...


This is with the piece of aluminum which my buddy made for me... that would go with the fan grate on the outside of the plexi...

http://img260.echo.cx/img260/2870/dscf19510ir.jpg



This is without the piece of aluminum only the grate being on the outside...

http://img260.echo.cx/img260/4720/dscf19522fp.jpg

[hacking_in2002]

Better with the aluminum,cool case,keep it up.......

[IHCInuYasha]

Show them the rivets

[Brad_c]

Ive decided not to use rivets... too much extra work, and i dont have anything else on the case that is chrome... im gonna use PL Glue, strong stuff man

[kennyt772]

sweet brad its nice to see such a kool project come together

[Brad_c]

Well... IM FINALLY FINISHED!!!

heres the window mod...
http://img260.echo.cx/img260/6168/dscf19531fv.jpg

http://img260.echo.cx/img260/5997/dscf19571jk.jpg

next im gonna buy a new monitor, keyboard and mouse, and then a killer graphics card...

Thanks for all your replies and suggestions...
Good Luck with all your mods!!!

[kennyt772]

awsoime ness!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[crazykidz]

awsoime ness!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
VERY NICE WORD CREATION! :cool:

brad gj. i like the 3.5 bay device! did you make that? thats very creative :D

[legoalert33]

thats great.
my only oppinion is that you should paint the empty drive fronts to match the floppy and cdrom

[kennyt772]

he didnt make it it came with the mobo.......eeerrrr yeah he made it lol i told him to lolololol

[IHCInuYasha]

FYI He isn't done until he gets the cathode back, his inverter messed up. Or did he keep that a secret. And Brad, You were asking earlier about neater wiring, well answer is: SLEEVING! it's the pretty much the only thing you can do at this point. Time consuming..... Well not really if you know how to do it right. So what you doing with the 800 mhz p3?

[kennyt772]

giving it to me ofcourse right brad *nudgenudge*

[skoota_logic]

wow brad thats awsome good job

[Brad_c]

Ugh thanks for reminding me IHC... so many wires! maybe ill make a server out of that P3 or something so Ken can steal all my movies...lol

[Brad_c]

finnaly got my warranty replaced cc light today...



http://img242.echo.cx/img242/4307/dscf19597kz.jpg



Next I gotta get to arranging the wires better...

[kennyt772]

yeah we need to figure something out for sharing files brad

[Brad_c]

I just did some wire re-arranging with electrical tape... now i wanna get mesh sleeving to slide overtop, anyone know where to buy that???



http://img260.echo.cx/img260/521/dscf19604tn.jpg

[CamH773]

that looks awesome

[kennyt772]

brad thats tits man. pure awsomeness

[Brad_c]

Well i just got my new monitor... it's a Samsung SyncMaster 17 inch, and a Logitech mouse and Cicero keyboard...

http://img84.echo.cx/img84/2011/dscf19676aa.jpg

[crazykidz]

that looks sick.. how much was the monitor???

[IHCInuYasha]

is it just me, or does your power and hdd LED's not work?

[IHCInuYasha]

No matter, that still looks awesome

[kennyt772]

double postage???? dude brad that is frickin awsome. wat is up with the PWR and HDD leds????

[Brad_c]

the monitor was $310 cnd, and yes IHC you have noticed yet another flaw with my computer, for some reason the LEDs only work during boot... i dunno. no biggie

looks like im pretty much done this project... me sad

[J-Hood]

I applaude, but now the task is to paint the silver of the keyboard/mouse to match the grey color of the case. And yeah, like people have already said, the drives will look a lot better if they're all black, and stealthed of course. Great job tho, must be nice to have an airbrush, it's killing me painting my case with a rattle can, one mistake and you have to sand down a coat.

[Brad_c]

Yeah im gonna tackle the keyoard tomarrow... painting it grey. the mouse is already entirely black so im gonna leave it at that, and now with more people saying i should paint the drive bay covers i think i will when i get a chance...