Really this was done over the course of Sat. and Sun. I bought a $20.00 case at Tiger Direct, which has since went up to $36.00, I spent $13.00 on paint, primer and clear coat for a total of $43.00. Two days making it my own, grinding, cutting, sanding, priming, painting and clear coating this thing. I cut the two 120mm (4-1/2″) stamped out from the factory grills. You know the kind, holding back more air than a little bit not to mention collecting dust. This thing even came with front USB, firewire, speaker out and microphone plugs, two 120mm fan ports, a side snorkel which I modified with a round 80mm (3-1/2″) fan off a heat sink for an LGA 775 CPU that a friend gave me after I changed out his stock cooler for a Thermaltake Big Typhoon. That made the specialty round fan free, I like free. See, the problem with the snorkel was that the manufacture made it an odd size so you cannot use a 60, 70, 80, 92, or 120mm fans. All of them being too large or too small, I know, I have all these fans in stock, many of them but none fit. I liked the snorkel, it had to stay but I wanted it to be active not passive. Besides, my CFM was a little more out going than in-coming before I added the 80mm fan, and IMHO that is not optimal, I would much rather have my case with a little pressure vs. vacuum any day. The closest fan was an 80mm but the screw holes would not line up no matter what I tried, nor did changing brands or different shaped fans of the same size. I wanted a way to leave the stock size hole, snorkel and screw holes (Although they had rubber push-ins securing the snorkel, I replaced them with stainless steel fan screws to support the added weight of an 80mm fan) where they were so I would not have to sand and paint the side cover, even though I did end up clear coating them 3 times. Enter the round fan, the solution was simple cut the tabs from the round fan, dremel tool them off and file/sand till smooth. Take the fan and place it inside the snorkel! NICE. It worked out perfectly. The fan will draw air through the side of the case were the ambient air is the coolest, down the tube to the fan which then spills it directly over the 60mm x 35mm high performance CPU HSF. (Heat Sink and Fan).
I prepared the chassis well with all cutting, grinding and sanding of bare metal being done before using the magnets and high air pressure to remove the metal shavings, wiping it down with clean soft rags moistened with alcohol, primed with high grade sandable primer, lightly sanded and primed again to smooth things out, then painted the chassis 3 times and clear coated the chassis 3 times. The top and two side panels were left the blue metallic flake but clear coated 3 times too. The chassis was painted yellow. The front bezel was clear coated as well. You can see all of this take place from the photos which I will have captions so you can better understand what I was going for and how I arrived there with only on minor screw up that I later fixed. The bezel was modded too, cutting out excess plastic that was restricting airflow. After it was cut out I went ahead and filed it down flat and straight before hitting it with a specially made dremel tool. I purposely dug a trench into my fine grinding stone attachment so as to get a even steady smooth flow of air, not to mention so it at least does not look like a rookie did it.
I set a heavy duty 3 speed fan up in the work area window and placed a brand new house heater air filter behind it to catch the paint mist as it was sucked towards the window. I have to say that this worked out great. I had none of the sticky nose hairs when it was complete. Before spraying and especially with the moving air I moistened the floor with a hand sprayer to keep the dust down. One other thing of interest is I caught the Ultra fan commander on sale for $10.00 on Tiger Direct. It controls seven fans, has four temp gauges with UV reactive cables and a killer looking lit up front LCD panel. The UV cables are the benefit of other people as I did not put a window in just yet. Because I am going to water cool this rig, I may have a side door mod coming up. I’m thinking about building a water tank inside it for the cooling rig I want to build up. No kits for me. For one it’s fun to do things for myself, and I am a poor bugger right now. Who was it that said: “Necessity breeds invention”?
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pictures I know I had fun doing this mod, it turned out awesome for what it started out as and the very low budget it was accomplished on. Check it out here.
