Got a New Case!

Thanks, Jack!

Ok, here are my calculations: a WD Black (the only HDD I will use inside a computer) draws up to 10.7 watts under full load. 10.7 divided by 12 = 0.892A, rounded up to 0.9A. Since at least one of the drives will be an SSD, which runs on 5v, only eight HDDs need to be included in the calculation. 8 x 0.9A = 7.2A. I used a voltage drop calculator online to calculate the voltage drop for #14AWG at 7.5A, 12v, and a run of 2' (this was an estimated length since I did the calculations before making the cable) and got the following results.

Voltage drop: 0.076
Voltage drop percentage: 0.63%
Voltage at the end: 11.924

I could have easily gotten away with #16 AWG with these results...

Voltage drop: 0.12
Voltage drop percentage: 1.00%
Voltage at the end: 11.88

...but, as I said, I already the #14 AWG on hand and hadn't had any problems with crimping pins on it before.

I wanted to keep the voltage drop as low a possible to avoid having a HDD drop out briefly while another one spins up. That's also the reason why the two hot swap bays will get their own cables (although both cables will feed from the same plug at the PSU; I'll have to do a splice and solder job on that cable to avoid problems with the pins); I've read reviews on the Antec EasySATA swap bay I'm using where people had problems with drives dropping out when a drive was inserted unless the bay had its own cable.

The only time all my HDDs will be under full load at the same time will be when booting up. Avoiding voltage drop as much as possible may help them to last longer since they would have to work harder to spin up if the voltage drops too much.

Granted, the figures I'm working with are very conservative but it's far easier to over-engineer now than to have to redo things later.

As far as making your cables goes, it took me over 12 hours to make this cable up; at that rate, you couldn't afford me.

Thanks for the answer.
Somehow I new you did your homework.

I have never made a wiring harness for a computer but have made many for autos through the years. I have made them for cars and truck in a Dealership and also for old cars and kit cars.

None of them wanted to pay for all the time it took. They seem to think it's like changing oil or doing a brake job.

They would look at me, What took you so long it can't take that much time.
I finally got where I wouldn't take those kinds of jobs.

My song and dance was: No pay no way.

Well, I'm still steaming a bit from yesterday. I woke up for a while this morning, then went back to bed for a while. A little while ago, I finally put the rubber pads on the case feet. These are actually from a Corsair 300R. They actually fit better than the original case feet pads and all four are rubber; the original pads were rubber on the front and slick plastic on the rear.



I then decided to put some devices in the 5.25" cage and put the front cover on. I have a spare ODD and hot swap bay so I installed those (I'll keep the ones in my present rig for spares) to make making up the cables for them easier.

I've always wanted one of those little drawer thingies one can mount in a 5.25" bay for some time to keep my USB sticks in instead of having to hunt for them in my desk drawer but never had a spare bay to put one in. Well, I do now and I got one. When I started to put in the screws, Murphy's idiot law kicked in again and I lost the first screw; The little bugger just crawled out from under the screw driver even though it was secured by the clip used for starting screws and I couldn't find the stupid thing to save my life. Of course, it wasn't a standard M3x5 screw, which I have plenty of. It was a little sheet metal screw. Fortunately, I kept the ones I replaced for the HDD cage base and one was just a hair longer than the one I lost. It fit fine despite being longer. Still, it was darned annoying.

Here is a shot of the case with the front panel, filter, and devices installed. I haven't removed the protective film on the ODD and the drawer and won't for now. The ODD and the drawer are pretty shiny and I'm considering taking some really fine sandpaper to them to kill some of that shine and duplicate the brushed aluminum finish of the case front panel.



Here is what the front looks like without the front filter.



I almost forgot to take a picture of the drawer and I had already lugged the case to hallway where I've been stashing it when not working on it (it's a shorter distance to lug that boat anchor) so I snapped a quick pic from there.



I'm not going to do anymore work today (I need to put my ample asset in bed early tonight) and I will be running errands tomorrow so I probably won't get much done tomorrow. PerformancePCs hasn't shipped my pin order yet so I'm out of luck there.

I had the front, top, and rear fans running the other day and I was surprised to hear how quiet they were even when running full tilt. I haven't run the side fans yet.

Good update on the progress Jeannie. The drawer is a great idea.

Jeannie do you have a spare shinny plastic that you can test the sandpaper removing the shine trick?
Front of the case is not a place to make a cosmetic mistake.

For me taking a day off of doing things to the build and just sitting back and looking at the build.
Piece of paper and pencil at hand and make little notes.
I like this
I might try this
I don't like this
What if I did this
ECT.

Doing this also helps the mind while waiting for parts to be delivered.
It also gives me time to look at a few videos online of customized cases.
At times I pick up a few ideas.

I see you still have the Corsair emblem on the front of the case as a reminder.

Britton30 said:

Good update on the progress Jeannie. The drawer is a great idea.

Thanks, Gary! I saw that drawer online several years ago and have been lusting for it ever since but never had had an empty 5.25" bay to put one in until now. Stupid as it sounds, I'm almost giddy over it. It's pretty slick; just push on the front to open it and push again to latch it.

Keeping USB drives in it is a good idea, mine sorta kinda 'float' around my desk. I don't know if 13 (so far) of them would fit in there.

Layback Bear said:

Jeannie do you have a spare shinny plastic that you can test the sandpaper removing the shine trick?
Front of the case is not a place to make a cosmetic mistake.

For me taking a day off of doing things to the build and just sitting back and looking at the build.
Piece of paper and pencil at hand and make little notes.
I like this
I might try this
I don't like this
What if I did this
ECT.

Doing this also helps the mind while waiting for parts to be delivered.
It also gives me time to look at a few videos online of customized cases.
At times I pick up a few ideas.

I see you still have the Corsair emblem on the front of the case as a reminder.

Good advice, Jack. I have a similar thought process except I use a Word doc to put my notes on (my handwriting sucks and paper can get lost so easily...and general does). I also can easily paste pictures in my notes that way. The one exception is if I wake up in the middle of the night with an idea or I get one while watching TV from bed, I keep a pad and pen in the nightstand by my bed and will write it down there, then later transfer it to my computer.

The little tray inside the drawer is removable and the bottom of it has the same finish as the face of the drawer so I planned on trying out the sandpaper there first to make sure I have the correct grit, etc. that will match the brushed look of the case front. The ODD has faint horizontal lines on it so a vertical brushed look there wouldn't look quite right there; I plan to just use a really fine sandpaper to just kill most of the gloss. The swap bay has a coarse matt finish to it and I would probably be best off leaving it alone.

The Corsair badge is in a slight recess in the mesh and removing the badge would expose that recess which then look like something was missing. The Corsair badge is smaller than the one molded into the front of my current Antec case and that one hasn't bothered me any plus the Corsair badge isn't unattractive or gaudy so it's going to stay.

Britton30 said:

Keeping USB drives in it is a good idea, mine sorta kinda 'float' around my desk. I don't know if 13 (so far) of them would fit in there.

Actually, I think they would. I don't have nearly that many in my desk. I keep a few in my purse along with extra camera cards (including the old ones I don't use anymore except to loan people I'm giving photos to; being old and slow, I won't lose any sleep if they take a long time to get back to me or if I never see them again), and a few more in my notebook's case. I don't use USB sticks very much anymore. I have plenty of 2.5" HDDs and, with the 2.5" swap bay in my current case, the top bay in the new case, and the cute little 2.5" docks I have for my notebook, I find 2.5" HDDs—I have plenty of them not in use otherwise—to be more convenient unless I'm just transferring a file or two.

After a rough night, I got up this morning with horrendous allergy attack that kept me laid up the rest of the morning. This afternoon, I decided to test the left side panel fans and decide if I want to use white or black filter material. The fans acted really wonky; troubleshooting revealed the problem was the fan hub. A trace had lifted from the PCB, had broken, and was intermittently shorting out to the adjacent trace, tripping the internal protection in the PSU and obfuscating the real problem. I had this happen on another hub on my first case and the only way to permanently fix it was to replace it so I ordered a couple more.

I ran into another problem when I tried to install the side panel; it wouldn't fit. The stiffening brace to keep the panel from flexing was hitting the 140mm rear fan. I tried to flatten it out but it wouldn't bend the way I wanted so I cut it out and covered the area under it with more acoustic foam (easier than painting). It now fits.

The offending fan. The arrow points at the part of the fan that was interfering with the case side brace.



The arrow here points at the brace that was bumping into the fan. The cut out area is just above it.




The next two shots show the side filters with pieces of white paper simulating white filter material and with black filter material.





I'm leaning strongly for black; the white is a bit too stark for my tastes which surprised me since the white of the top and rear fans look fine to me.

I also did a little rearranging in my bedroom today to make some more room to walk past the larger case. I also pulled the night stand the present computer is on farther from the wall to simulate where the front of the new case will be so I can start getting used to it. I had to knock off after that because the little bit of dust I stirred up set my misbegotten allergies off again.