Got a New Case!

[Britton30]

Thanks, yup I understand it.

 

[Layback Bear]

Jeannie did you ever get the front cover texture the way you want it?

If not maybe Scotch Bright will work for you.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Here are the pictures I promised of the Siamese (conjoined?) cable from Hell.

This shot shows the leg of the cable (see white arrow) leading to the 3.5" swap bay I added. I haven't tied it down yet because there will other cables in the area.



This shot shows where the cable goes to.



This is a shot of the leg of the cable (it runs between the two arrows) going to the cable coming from the built-in swap bay. (I have no idea how that horizontal black line got in the picture. )



Here is where the Siamese cable plugs into the PSU. The upper arrow points to the leg going to the 3.5" swap bay and the lower arrow points to the leg going to the built-in swap bay's cable.

 

[Layback Bear]

It's coming together. The cables look even better when installed.
Great job.

 

[Britton30]

Time well spent Jeannie. Much better than countin' flowers on the wall, playing Solitaire till dawn with a deck of fifty-one, or smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Thanks, Jack and Gary. Gary, you are giving your age away.

I forgot to mention, I can still get my hand at the back thumbscrew for the third HDD cage although 'tis a wee bit snug.

 

[NoN]

Yeah, right! I'll do that.

All seriousness aside, I needed to do something about the super shiny front of the storage drawer. I had thought of sanding the front to emulate the brushed aluminum finish. I tried testing that on the bottom of the little tray that goes in the drawer. The texture worked out great but the color was a bit too brown for even my old colorblind eyes. I tried using a wee bit of furniture polish to try to bring the black (or extremely dark brown; it looks black to me) back out. That didn't work so cleaned the furniture polish off, resanded it, and tried coloring it with a large black felt pen. The color came out just right but it looked a bit blotchy. Ok, scratch sanding (pardon the pun) and back to ye olde drawing board.

I took one of the 5.25" bay blank covers and tried soaking it overnight in a small tray of 91% isopropyl alcohol to see if I could remove the brushed aluminum inlay. It took some alternate gentle prying with my fingers and more soaking to get it off but off it did come. I soaked the aluminum itself for another hour or so to soften the adhesive some more, then scraped the adhesive off with my old driver's license (it was handy; I have no idea why they gave that back to me since it's no longer legal).

After thoroughly cleaning up the aluminum, I put some double sided cellophane tape on the backside of the aluminum, then stuck the aluminum to the front of the drawer. It fit perfectly on the top and bottom (that was a pleasant surprise) but it was a tad short on the ends (I was expecting that considering how the bay cover was made). It's a bit proud of the swap bay above it as well as being a smidge too short but it should look OK once I put the front panel back on (I removed it so I could get at things a bit better while doing the cable management and fabrication).

Here is what a bay blank cover looks like.

View attachment 320829

Since the brushed aluminum front is inlaid, the top, bottom, and side should be a tad short.

Here is the drawer with the aluminum piece attached. Note that the aluminum is a bit short on the ends but doesn't look much different than the bay cover did (I used the bay cover to prop the drawer up so it could be seen better).

View attachment 320830

This shot, with flash, gives a better idea of how the texture of the brushed aluminum looks even though the color is washed out by the flash.

View attachment 320841

After I posted last night, I put in clips to corral the 8-pin CPU power cable and the SATA power cable for the top swap bay and tied down the 24-pin cable using twist ties (I prefer those to zip ties), then called it a night (even though, technically, it was morning). I didn't get enough sleep last night this morning so I'm going to eat a light, early lunch and take a short nap.

Hey Lady...seeing continuing the hard work! Much onto wiring, isn't it ?

I too made some homework today.

I had since a while the Scythe "Kama Cabinet Pro Aluminium Silver" and wasn't too happy of the brushed & shiny front, decided to modd it a little for a more agressive looking.

Sanded the front of the drawer & painted it with a semi-gloss spray black paint with three coats and added some black mat hexagon screws.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...Hey Lady...seeing continuing the hard work! Much onto wiring, isn't it ?

I too made some homework today.

I had since a while the Scythe "Kama Cabinet Pro Aluminium Silver" and wasn't too happy of the brushed & shiny front, decided to modd it a little for a more agressive looking.

Sanded the front of the drawer & painted it with a semi-gloss spray black paint with three coats and added some black mat hexagon screws.

Nice job on the drawer front. Much classier than what I did.

 

[NoN]

...Hey Lady...seeing continuing the hard work! Much onto wiring, isn't it ?

I too made some homework today.

I had since a while the Scythe "Kama Cabinet Pro Aluminium Silver" and wasn't too happy of the brushed & shiny front, decided to modd it a little for a more agressive looking.

Sanded the front of the drawer & painted it with a semi-gloss spray black paint with three coats and added some black mat hexagon screws.

Nice job on the drawer front. Much classier than what I did.

Nah... yours is plain brushed and looks also classier. You just could polish better with very very thin sandpaper and maybe try a varnish coating to protect it (from finger prints).

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...Hey Lady...seeing continuing the hard work! Much onto wiring, isn't it ?

I too made some homework today.

I had since a while the Scythe "Kama Cabinet Pro Aluminium Silver" and wasn't too happy of the brushed & shiny front, decided to modd it a little for a more agressive looking.

Sanded the front of the drawer & painted it with a semi-gloss spray black paint with three coats and added some black mat hexagon screws.

Nice job on the drawer front. Much classier than what I did.

Nah... yours is plain brushed and looks also classier. You just could polish better with very very thin sandpaper and maybe try a varnish coating to protect it (from finger prints).

Thanks but no can do. The aluminum 5.25" bay cover insert is anodized aluminum so the color is way too thin for sanding. Since it matches the rest of the case front cover, clear coating it would kill that match. If I find I have problems with fingerprints on the drawer front, I have a small black stick-on plastic "foot" knocking about somewhere I can put on the front for my finger to push against.

 

[NoN]

Ha! Forgot about anodized...true it can't be sanded without ripping that color.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Ha! Forgot about anodized...true it can't be sanded without ripping that color.

I don't recall mentioning it so you're good.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I'm back with another thrilling episode of epic tale of my case mods (I've been all night with my asinine allergies after waking up at 1 AM with a hot "flash" so forgive me if I come across a little loopy; 'tis mostly because I am).

I picked up the DEMCIfilters from my mail service yesterday. I will never order directly from them again unless I need a custom one made. It took less time for them to go across the Atlantic from South Africa to New York, then to my mail service here in AZ than it did for the to fill the order (and they were stock filters) and to get them the heck out of South Africa. Yeesh!

Since I couldn't sleep, I decided to tackle cutting the filter material from the filters and gluing it into the top filter housings of the side fan filters. I was able to use the base of a spare filter housing to mark an outline on the filter material and I could see it well enough until I tried to get my scissors up to the line; then the bloody line would disappear on me. Arrgh! After racking my three remaining brain cells for a while, I figured out how I could cut the filter mesh to size.

This is what the DEMCIfilter looks like.



This what the filter base looks like.



I traced an outline of the filter base on a sheet of 8 12" x 11" white paper.



'Tis a bit hard to see in this photo but I put down some double sided cellophane tape on the outline of the filter base.



I then stuck the DEMCIfilter to the tape.



The line is now much easier to see for cutting and the filter mesh will be easier to handle.

This shot shows the first cut. The frame and mesh were easily cut with an old pair of sewing scissors I keep knocking about for abusive use.



Here is the filter mesh completely cut out. I cut just inside the outline.



This shows the filter mesh, still stuck to the paper, dropped into the filter cover (the original foam filter is alongside). I was expecting to have to do a wee bit of trimming of the filter mesh to get it to fit but I got it right the first time (thank you God!).



I had a bit of "fun" peeling the paper off the filter material (or is it the other way around?). The hard part was getting it started. Once I was able to get an edge lifted, the mesh easily pulled off the tape.

This shot shows the mesh inside the filter cover and glued down with brush on Krazyglue. I'm going to let both filters dry for a few hours to make sure they don't get stuck to their bases, then I'll put them on the side fan filter bases. I don't know if I'll use the original foam with them or not. What I'll probably do is try one fan without the foam and the other one with the foam and see what results I get. If the foam isn't picking up any dust the mesh misses, I would rather not use it since it will additionally restrict air flow.



I still need to do the front panel filter and the PSU filter. I forgot to order a DEMCIfilter for the PSU filter so I'll order whatever I can find from FrozenCPU or PerformancePCs.

My misbegotten nose has settled down and I'm nodding off so I need to put my ample asset between the sheets.

 

[Britton30]

Good job on cutting that difficult material.
Good night Irene err, Jeannie.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Thanks, Gary! I just finished ordering the remaining filter before I could forget it. I'm now off (and have been for years) to dreamland.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

After a four hour nap, I tackled the front filter assembly. Here is what the front filter looks like.





This photo shows how the front metal mesh is secured to the plastic filter frame with metal tabs. The tab on the right has already been lifted for removing the metal mesh.



Here, the filter assembly has been disassembled. The original filter mesh is laying in the center across the filter frame and the metal mesh.



This shot shows the difference between the original filter mesh on the left and the finer mesh of the DEMCIfilter on the right. You can click on this picture to get better detail.



I used pretty much the same technique that I used on the side fan filters. Instead of tracing an outline around the filter frame, however, I had to measure and layout the size of the mesh since it needs to be a bit smaller than the outside of the frame and the original mesh was sloppily cut. I used the double sided cellophane tape again only, this time, I left one corner untaped to make peeling the cut filter off the paper much easier.



And this is what the filter looks like after all has been said and done. The original mesh hadn't been glued in but I didn't trust that for the new mesh since it is much more flexible than the original mesh so I secured it to the frame with a dot of glue on each of the corners and the intersections of the cross pieces.



These awful, asinine allergies are annihilating me so I'm putting my ample asset back to bed (please pardon my awful alliteration affinity).

 

[Britton30]

You're just Espousing Elucidation Jeannie, I like the one pic which is higher resolution, I wish they all were. Some I'd like to zoom in on details.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Thanks, Gary (I think)! Since you asked, I'll quit shrinking the pictures so much.

 

[Britton30]

Yup you were being concise in an explanation.
Urban Dictionary: Eschew Obfuscation, Espouse Elucidation

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Finally, a cable that didn't drive me batty wacky! This little jewel feeds both optical drives and the Molex connector on the MOBO that provides some extra juice to the PCI-e. 'Twas a bit tedious but no real problems.

I started by cutting the wires and stripping for the Molex pins and the two SATA power punch-down connectors. One of the wires will have to be cut off downstream of the SATA power connectors since the Molex connector uses only four pins but I waited until I had the punch-down connectors installed to reduce confusion (I confuse easily).



This is one of the pins for the Molex connector on the end of the cable. I went ahead and did all five so I wouldn't have to fight with crimping them later. I have plenty of pins so I could afford to lose one. The crimps went almost textbook perfect on these pins.



I used one of the cute, little vice grips I recently bought on a day trip to hold the punch-down connector so it wouldn't rock on my while punching down the wire. Normally, the conductor and insulation gets punched down into the connector but #16 is a little large for these connectors so I had to strip the insulation from the wire where it gets punched down into the connector.



I found my four pin fan pin removal tool is the perfect size for punching down the wires.



Here, three wires have been punched down...



...and the rest are punched down here. The connector gets a little cap that goes over the top of the wires to keep them in place.



Here, both connectors are finished.



This is the completed cable. The crimps I made for the pins for the ATX connector that plugs into the PSU looked like heck but they passed the pull test and no one will see how bad they are, so I'm not going not worry about it.



This is what the cable looks like where it is plugged into the ODDs. The Molex connector on the end of the cable will connect to the MOBO once I swap it into the case.



This is where the cable plugs into the PSU. I can still get my fat, grubby, little paw in there to unscrew the thumbscrew on the HDD cage should I ever need to. That whole area and the PSU are going to be covered by a shroud so I'm not worried too much about the rats' nest.



This is the backside of the case (duh) showing how the cable is routed there. I have it temporarily tied down for now.



I also tested the new fan hub and the side fans today and one of the side fans was acting a wee bit wonky on me. I tracked the problem down to a fan connector pin that wasn't getting a good grip in the pin it was supposed to connect to on the hub. I pulled the pin and made a few adjustments, then put it back in the connector body. It looks a bit funny if one looks really close (like anyone ever will) but it works just fine so I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

Btw, Gary, are the pictures big enough for you?