Traced, cut and wet sanded a piece of acrylic to fit the window.



Instead of smoked glass acrylic, I am using tint. Smoked glass plexi is definitely better, but its more expensive. Another advantage of tint is that I can easily change the shade if I dont like it, without cutting acrylic all over again. Currently I am using the darkest tint I can find, I think its 15 ~ 20% VLT. Let see how it goes. If its too dark, I will change it later on.



Done for the left and right window.

I have drilled and fitted 2 more components to the front of the case:

Switch



Power Inlet



This is for something interesting that I have planned. Coming Soon.

Well, the surgery is complete. Time to put the finishing touches to this case.

Now, its time for the patience killer, painting. This are the paints that I am going to use. Its my first time using plastidip, and when I tested it.... well... I always thought that plastidip feels like the soft touch paint that some manufacturers use. I was wrong, it feels more like latex gloves. Not sure if I am going to use it for the project.



Planted all the screws on cereal boxes for easy spraying and to prevent paint on screw treads.



Washers and nuts as well, on masking tape.

Spraying is done. Nice Matt Black finish:)




Top Radiator cover turned out nicely:)



This post has been edited by Oretega: Dec 12 2013, 01:43 AM

Case pieces wet sanded, washed with dish washing soap, hair-drier dried and now priming (going for 2 coats).



It takes 48 hours for the primer to completely cure. Brought it in to my room, and wait to dry for 2 days.



The black one below are fiber glass and aluminum sticks, painted directly, don't think it needs a primer.



Well, that's a day worth of work, Time to sleep.

OK, now for the plastics. The plastics on this case is covered with bitfenix soft touch coating. If I am right, its a polyurethane coating, and its hard for paint to stick on them. I tried several chemicals to remove the coating, but none are effective. In the end, the best way I find is to slowly scratch them off with a razor blade and finish with spirit and scouring pad.

Before:


After:


I have done the same with the top and bottom plastics. It took me a few nights just to get rid of the coating.

All plastics have been coated with a plastic primer. Hope it sticks well, as this plastic flexes and I wouldn't want the paint to crack.



If all goes well, I might be finishing the paint job by next week:)

nice stuff you got there, man. May I know what is it that you do for a living? you're an engineer is it?

Haha, used to study E&E Engineering. Working a different job now:)

same as me do on my acrylic panel it cost rm10
but the bad side about this tint ... gelap jee

How u get plasti dip & rustoleum in Malaysia?

And make sure leave rustoleum paint to dry around 48 hours, that sucker is one annoying paint to dry

Wow, that's dark... I wanted the acrylic panel to only able to see through when the LEDs inside is on. I don't want mirror tint. Erm, let see how it goes after the case and led lights are ready first. I am going to use led strips to light the insides up, hopefully it's bright enough to give the insides a good shine:) If not, I am going to test using a lighter tint.

Haha, unfortunately, I got them all at ace hardware. Not many colors available. I suggest going to ace hardware @ ikano power center. More colour options there.

Yup, I did a test b4 I spray my case. The metal primer takes forever to dry. My guess is that it is an oil based primer. It currently has almost one week drying time d. No worries:)

All panels finally painted, but made a mess on the floor. Next time if I ever need to spray paint to a case, I would just bring it to a car painter:P

I have used wine red and black night paint color.

wow that looks really sweet! your picture with the attention to the steps and details will create a lot of attention here. Keep it up and make sure its finished!

I am going to sleeve wires using paracord, and I choose a black with white stripes.


Before and after on corsair AF120 fans:


The most fascinating effect on this paracord

Its a reflective paracord!

This post has been edited by Oretega: Dec 27 2013, 08:19 PM

Keep up the good work bro. Very interesting project to follow.

As for the inside Lighting, though I read that Bitfenix LED Strips are more reliable than the LED strips you can get from car accessories shops, I will take my chances. Cars run on 12V which is the same as what can be provided from the PSU, I feel there is no issue there.



This is the circuit diagram for the pump bypass I am planning to make. I have designed this circuit as simple as I can to minimize faults. I initially wanted to design the circuit with over voltage and current protection, along with an adjustable voltage regulator to control the pump+fans, but as my lecturer used to say, don't make it so complicated.

I am going to rely on the ASUS Fan Xpert 2 for fan and pump controls.

I have seen and watched how water is filled into the watercooling system by shorting the PSU 'on wire' with 'ground' temporarily to cycle the water in from reservoir to loop. I do not want to pull out the socket from my MB to PSU every time I want to fill water into the loop. There is also another way which is to pull the pump power socket out and link it to an external power source. I agree with the method of using external power source, but once I have already done my cable management, it might be hard to unplugging my pump's molex power connector.

What the circuit does is simple, once I connect an external power supply to the port I made at the front panel the 2 relays activate in order to disconnect the PWM+TACH pins (My Pump has PWM. Model: MCP35X) and divert pump power from PSU to external power. With the help of the switch I made at the front panel, I can control the pump at will. I have not decided if I want to use a 10k variable resistor to control the pump, as its inefficient.

Relays, Switches, Resistors and Connectors. I guess it cant be any simpler than this.



If you have any suggestions, comments or a better alternative, please tell me:) I know this circuit can be improved more:)

This post has been edited by Oretega: Dec 27 2013, 09:32 PM

Unfortunately, I was stuck along the way with a bad paint job. The rust-oleum metallic paint is peeling off. Maybe its because I have left the primer on too long and didn't sand it before basecoat. That set me back quite a bit.

Starting to get Lazy on my project :sigh: and I have to start the painstaking job of removing the paint. I used abro paint remover to remove the paint. Wirebrush and sand to remove as much paint and powder coat as i can. The paint remover did a quite a good job.



I thought of some improvements on the way, and thus added some zinc plates to cover the holes that were at the front panel to prevent air from leaking in. Used metal epoxy to stick them in. Hope this stuff sticks well.



Filling the holes with epoxy.



Half dry, cut it with a Metal Window Safety Sticker Scraper.

I am going to give rust-oleum another try, this time, on a more proper setup. I have decided to forgo metallic and go on with gloss paint. Lazy to put primer, going for a all in one paint.



Taking it sub-seriously, my own DIY personal paint booth with filters and fan.



I have decided to use arduino (because I am getting lazy) in my PC compared to making my own relay circuit (with a prototyping shield as well). With arduino, I can even make LED lights glow and change program on the fly, maybe more