Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh it's good to be back. I couldn't access Photobucket for the past 3-4 weeks. That's y I've been totally inactive in the forum. Finally managed to get into my Photobucket so I quickly uploaded sum pix before I get stuck n cant access Photobucket again. It must be the Streamyx 4m upgrading thingy in my area causing all these probs I haf with US websites.

Anyway, here's a quick simple mod I did a while back. The owner dropped his case on a rock of all things. Fell right smack on the left side panel. The whole left side aluminum panel got so badly damaged that it cudn b fitted back onto the case. So he needed me to make a whole new panel out of acrylic for him. He wanted it to haf a glowing dragon on the panel too. So here goes.


He sent me this pic of the dragon he wanted.










Stripping down the case.











Masked n marked the top panel for a 120mm blowhole. This case is difficult for top blowhole coz it has a USB panel up there originally. U can c the USB thingy under the masking tape. I had to follow the straight line of the USB thingy coz any further back n it'll obstruct the PSU. So I decided that a square blowhole was the only way to make a 120mm fan fit up there.












Top blowhole done. Covered the hole with honeycomb mesh for more airflow. I tried the normal mesh with small holes but this honeycomb looks better so I decided on the honeycomb. Look carefully at this pic n u'll c that the front door part is a different shade of silver. This is because I was asked to repaint the whole front panel in gloss silver. The original Thermaltake paint is really bad quality, very rough finish n doesn't shine at all. The front part I painted is now so glossy n smooth that u can c the shades of silver r totally off. Oh well, mebe it'll come back again for a full respray in total gloss silver.










This is the part of the front panel I repainted in gloss silver. Also painted the slot covers in matt black.











N here's the Tribal Dragon acrylic panel I made. Fully assembled on the case. The way the panel mounts onto the case is exactly like the original Thermaltake side panel. Slide on n lock with screws on the back. Took me about a week to figure out the best way to do this.









Voila! Here's how the dragon's gonna look once the owner receives his LEDs for the back of the mobo tray. I put the panel in front of my blue CCFLs to show how it shud look once the LEDs r in.








Hopefully the owner will be kind enuf to post up sum pix of his complete rig once he installs everything back inside including the LEDs to light up the dragon.

This post has been edited by ianho: May 29 2007, 02:31 AM

Finally a new casemod!!! no more bore dom!
very nice touch for the dragon..

Absolutely awesome. cheers!

Cool.
Luckily this one doesn't require us to wait for updates.
Uncle, was curious on the conditions of the wrecked side panel. Can upload a photo on that?

how do u install the normal sliding mechanism for the side window uncle? cut the rail from the original window and attach it to the acrylic?

Awesome mod. I am molesting it everyday. lol.
But too bad now no time to fix the things inside, very very busy

Wrecked side panel wasn't given to me. It was left at home. Mebe Hypermax will b kind enuf to show us the horror show pix.








Nope. Everything on the panel is fully custom made from scratch. No ready made parts on it at all.







Aiyoooooo. How u can tahan not to get everything up n running. Sumore ur Shuttle case now so hot in this blazing hot weather.

hey uncle, how did you position the CCFL ? right in the middle or at the corners ??

this idea took so long to implement


after seeing this, i think i must really make a pulsating circuit to pair up with the LED......

let the dragon have a warm red-ish heart beat at the middle

i believe uncle just use the CCFL light directly inside from his KIng Kong.. thats why the CCFL looks so even..

Crap, that looks totally awesome man. Imagine if you had those light changing LEDs or you would pair of several LEDs, white, blue and red and you get a dragon which changes colour...

Impressive work... I wonder how much you charge for that.

nice.......just in single page thread and...walla....finish allready....hope can do it to my Atrix casing.....

I have banished the wrecked panel in my dungeon, cannot even bare the sight of it, makes me wanna cry

Yup, you are right, my shuttle is giving me a big headache right now with the thermal issue. Yesterday my comp hanged 3 times consecutively while idle.

Eh bro, now waiting for your superbright LED
Will contact you soon once i am free to setup my rig.

This post has been edited by hypermax: May 29 2007, 12:02 PM

how did you do that uncle the dragon so cool it must must be fun if i can did it at my own case and i see there is a ATP3 cooooool.

the dragon look so spiky....its tounge so long tho....scary yet cool

wow.. the dragon is so lovely ... I bet u have spent so much of time in getting it ready to drop our jaws ...

Anyway how long it took to get it done ??

Does this mean that the whole sidepanel is made out of acrylic only? How do you spray the paint on it anyway for the dragon to look so nice..Anyway, great job and handwork there..

It took me only 1 day to do the Dragon panel. It's just the thinking n experimenting before actually getting to the point where I can make the actual panel. The thinking n experimenting part took about a week.



Yes, the whole Dragon panel is made out of acrylic.

hmm ??

U mean the dragon is a layer of decal paste over the acrylic panel ??

plz uncle no more poisoning luring .... tell us how's done .... PLZ PLZ PLZ

if me.. to make something like uncle did.. just masked the dragon shape onto the inner side of the acrylic and spray on the same side.. then when u pull out the mask.. tadaa..

maybe uncle did some fogging effect to makes the dragon image mid-transparent like that.. either directly sanded on the window itself or attached another sanded-dragon-shaped acrylic.. but its must be a hassle to cut out the dragon shape from acrylic..

impressive work as always
anyways how is the acrylic attached to the case?

This is good, really really good.
How i wish i have the skill like you do uncle.

But, i don't have to worry anymore d, because starting from today, my rig is casingless!

LOL..if everyone do it like this, uncle will be out of job and hobby..

the dragon is freaking awesome...
now waiting for the owner to post the rest of the pix..

All finished or active worklogs bumped to avoid deletion.

Uncle, kasi tuition lol

While i am waiting for the LED from AllnGap to power up my dragon , i did a few experiments by mounting the dragon panel on the other side where the multicolor LED made by AllnGap is situated. I had to mount it upside down as the panel is not designed for this side. Anyway, here are some pics.

This post has been edited by hypermax: Jun 11 2007, 08:04 PM

Phwoarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Very bright. When allnGap's super turbo xenon LEDs go in it'll b blinding.

This post has been edited by ianho: Jun 11 2007, 08:00 PM

Very bright indeed. If you see carefully, the middle part of the dragon is brighter than the rest. This is due to the improper placement of the led, as i have to mount the panel upside down.

This is just lovely along with the neat cable management u have got there...

Anyway the side panel is made of acrylic with a layer of vinyl on it and cut out the dragon design right ?

yo, uncle ianho, i have a question.

the side panel, you made it sliding type just like chapalang casing (i dont know expensive casing looks like) or just screw it right from aside?

i wonder if its sliding type, how do you made a screw hole to fit the hole at the back?

Yup. Full acrylic panel with frosting on the dragon.

hmm does this project belongs to uncle ian or hypermax? i would like use the dragon design for my own laptop modding... to whom should i ask?

idea and casing belongs to hypermax. Uncle ianho do the work.. i think u shud ask from uncle.

Now i think for this casing price..how much?

The idea and the casing are mine. But the dragon is not my design. I found it in the internet. If you want PM me your email and i can send the dragon pic to you.

whoa!! dragon with bling-bling effect. cool la. cuunnn

uncle the dragon was be hand cutting or laser ..

whoaa...
the green n white led really brings the dragon spirit to it
ooo nice work as usual. perhaps my future rig will have full dragon with wings

laser cutting is somehow n understatement for ian's work of art, i gez...

Mine is a chinese dragon, so no wings. lol.

Wow...nice dragon especially with red led...like red dragon..

how much does it cost ?
i would like to do someting like this on my panel but with a different design...

Phewwwwwwwwwww. This has been such a hectic period. Only now I'm starting to settle down from all teh festive celebrations of xmas, new year, CNY n all those holidays. I've been away for so long I havent even had time to update my projects. The pics have just been sitting in my HDD all this while. Anyway, here's 1 I did a while back. Tribal Dragon finally came back for a complete paintjob. I removed all the panels n proceeded to paint the top, side n bottom panels to gloss silver to match the front door n panel which I painted last time.

Here's the paint after everything is done. No more orange peel effect of the stock Thermaltake paint which was really horrible.












All panels painted n case is assembled.














Here's how it looks like with everything done. Red lights used for a menacing dragon fire look.













Lights off, dark shot.












Aiyaaaaa, updating this halfway then Photobucket goes kaput on me again. I'll just post this up 1st then.

This post has been edited by ianho: Feb 29 2008, 03:11 PM

After finishing up the case, it was decided that the standard clear plastic for the window is just too cheap looking n ugly. Thermaltake uses a really cheap type of plastic for the window. It's distorted n scratches easily n also has the ugly Thermaltake logo on it. Thos who r using big tower HSF will also find that the 90mm fan mount on the window will obstruct the HSF. The idea was to remove it completely n replace the window with proper industrial grade acrylic for a crystal clear window.



Sooooooo, let's get started with a blank piece of acrylic. I've already started cutting out the shape in this pic.













Rough cut is complete.















After that, I drilled the holes for the pop rivet mountings.
















Lining it up with the original window to make sure I got everything right.













Finishing it all up with the good ol file.















Voila! Nice clear window is done.










That's it for the silver dragon. Next up will be a black dragon. I'm sorting out the pics right now. The black dragon shud b up in a while.

Is the Tsunami consider light in weight?

nice job ian woooow got black dragon summo waiting ur pic :droll:

Ya it's very light but the structure n build quality is not good. Very flimsy materials used,



Hehe. Black dragon been upgraded. No more Thermaltake. Black dragon will be based on a Lian Li.


Here's a quick pic of the stock black dragon.

wow more nicer on LL dont hv pic when u do cutting on the dragon ian?

Under RM300 range casing which would u pick?

Only one word to describe your mod.... AWESOME!!!!!

I think this is not the place to ask this question. Try asking here.

This post has been edited by hypermax: Mar 1 2008, 10:31 PM

sorry2 was too drooled to reply fast.

The dragon very yeng.

looking forward wif that black casing + dragon