Got a New Case!

Golden said:

Will it be finished soon?

Not real soon. I have a few little niggling details to sort out over the next few days, such as swapping out the connector on the rear fan—I'll get it tomorrow—and installing it, installing the feet, the front cover, and deciding what color filter material to use on the front, bottom, and side filters, the worst being to make a shroud to cover the PSU and the cables coming out of it (the aluminum to make it from won't be in until Tuesday due to the holiday this weekend). Then I get to start work on making or modifying the PSU cables. My new PSU has some nice cables, except for the SATA power and 4 pin Moles cables, so I'll probably be able to use some, such as the 24 pin cable, as is. The PCI-e cables have two terminal connectors on each one so I'll have to label the wires and pull the pins on the one going to my GPU so I can do a sanitary job of snipping off the extra connector. If I ever upgrade GPU to one that needs two connectors, I'll either "liberate" a second cable of its extra connector or just go ahead and use one cable with both connectors. I will have to make new SATA power cables—the stock ones totally suck—and a new 4 pin Molex cable to feed my sound card. I'll tack on a 4 pin Molex connector onto the SATA power cable going to the ODD in case I ever decide to install the internal card reader I'm using now (it's a bit of a reach to get to right now and I have a USB 3.0 external reader I can put on my desk where it's easier to get to; I also want to free up the PCI-e socket the internal reader is using).

Still, I'm a huge amount farther along than I had originally thought I would be. I was expecting the entire job to take six months. I will stretch the job out a bit so our "monsoon" will have begun and humidity levels will be higher. Right now, the air is so dry (it has been as low a 4% and has averaged 10% or less recently), I can't walk two feet and touch ground without drawing a long, fat, blue spark (and I HATE that!!!) so I don't want to be handling any electronics until the air gets a wee bit moister.

ZaLiTH said:

Golden said:

Will it be finished soon?

I love the casual nature of the question... As though things like this were ever actually "finished".

LOL! Methinks by "finished", himself meant "up and running".

Well, I just hit a snag (mutter, mutter, mumble, mumble). I had finished salvaging connector bodies from some cables I already had and was removing the extra connector on one of the new PSU's PCI-e cables when I slipped and broke my pin removal tool. After removing several dozen pins I break it. AUGH!. And right before a holiday weekend. I ordered a couple more but I won't see them before Tuesday (I was too cheap to spend $60 for overnight delivery).

That's not being cheap, that's practical.
Is it a hollow metal tube? Maybe a metal ball point pen refill would work. Hardware store might have tiny metal tubing.

Britton30 said:

That's not being cheap, that's practical.
Is it a hollow metal tube? Maybe a metal ball point pen refill would work. Hardware store might have tiny metal tubing.

You're thinking of a Molex pin extractor. THAT on would be a tough one to break. No, the one I broke was the one that has two flat little prongs on the end.

Shows what (little) I know. They look like a small version of Molex.

This is the set I have.


The top one is for removing ATX pins, such as the ones in PCI-e PSU cables or that plug into a PSU. That was the one I broke.

The next one is (I recently learned) for removing pins from hooded male fan connectors. It also can be used on female fan connectors but can remove only one pin at a time which can be a bit tedious.

The third on from the top is for removing female fan pins. It's the slickest one of the bunch since it can remove up to four pins at once.

The bottom one is for removing pins from four pin Molex connectors. The small end is used to remove male pins and the large end is for removing female pins.

Good set. They look very MacGuyver-esque. I fiddles with fan and front panel connectors using a tiny sharp blade tip to release the terminal. I broke a fair amount of them though.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

Edit: I saw somewhere that DEMCIfilter claims their filters restrict airflow 20%. I assume that's before they get dusty.

20% before dust sounds about right. The thing I loved the most about the filters though was how easy they were to clean. Remove, rinse, hang and they dried quick too.

Britton30 said:

I've installed many fans backwards myself. Better to find it now though.

That's why I always triple check the arrows on the fans before installation now.

I remember once back on my haf I spent some considerable time installing 4x1200m on the side panel, taping all the wires in a nice neat bundle and direction only to discover all four were on backwards... done it a few other times, but that one I remember well :)