Green Flame

My last personal mod, Ultra Sweet has been sitting by the side lines for a little while now. When I started it, I had planned on setting it up so that I could easily change the looks of it as I go. Each year I head out for a LAN event and like taking something fresh with me. This year wasn’t going to be any different. I thought I would do my second version of the mod. So to change things up I will be loosing the smoked plexi and moving toward aluminum for the panels with a little twist.

With Ultra recently releasing the case that this started from, I figured it was time to get it done. This one is slated to make its showing at this years NVISION 2008 event in late August. So while I was at it, I planned on doing some advertising at the same time :D. So I spent a little time working up a few sponsors for the build (have to go big or not go at all right?).

Current sponsors are:
BFG Tech9800 GX2, ES 800 PSU
Asus P5N-T Deluxe
MNPCTech parts carried over from Ultra Sweet.
DragonModz Lighting.
Lamptron Lighting.

You can see the full worklog at Modders-Inc.com.

Normally, AmericanFreak and I head down to QuakeCon for our yearly LAN event. This year due to some issues we decided to head over to NVISION 2008 instead. We are working with NVIDIA and CPU Magazine on the Case Mod Competition at the event and will be doing a modding workshop to cover some of the basics of our fun hobby.

So to start things off I did a photochop on one of the pics of Ultra Sweet.

I started out spending a little time photoshopping up three of the 5 panels.

Top Panel

Right Panel

Left Panel

I’m not sure yet what I am doing on the front panel. It will be close to the mockup, but might see a few modifications as well. I wasn’t sure if I would be cutting the panels by hand or having them laser/water cut. After checking with a few places around here locally, I decided to do them by hand on the ol scroll saw.

Once I knew the plan was locked in, I ordered 4 sheets of 24“x24“x0.10” 6061 Aluminum from Online Metals. At the same time I ordered the UV Green plexi from Delvies Plastics along with some components from Performance PC’s. Everything arrived a couple of weeks ago. I was looking into having the aluminum all cut via waterjet or laser. After getting a few prices, I decided that I would tough it out and do it all by hand Very Happy. I will get more satisfaction out of it that way in the end.

Before I started on the cutting, I knew I would be eating up a lot of Dremel disks and Scroll Saw blades. Cutting plexi or the standard case side panel normally isn’t to bad and doesn’t use up a lot of materials if its done correctly. This aluminum is just under 1/8” and will easily eat them up pretty quick. The size of the panel and the design of the cuts will also make things a little tougher. So I ordered in some extra blades and disks just to make sure I had enough to get me through. Running out and buying a couple of packs at the local Lowes (30 minutes away) everytime I needed more would start to get a little costly.

While I was at it, I decided I wanted to make this as easy as possible (knowing that all the cutting would eventually be a pain in the arse). I picked up my first Dremel (I normally use either a Craftsman or a Die Grinder for cutting) along with a Flex-Shaft.

On with the modding we go. I took my photoshopped scaled images and removed as much of the color as I could. Simply leaving the outline of each of the panels. I then pulled the images up in Paint (yup, I actually used Paint) and printed the images out to scale. This would allow me to simply tape the stencils to the panels and cut on the lines (can’t get much simpler than that).

So I start out by dremeling out the main size of the panels, leaving a little room for adjustments. The frame I am using is not 100% square, which means I will have to work them a little before polishing them.

The above photo shows the Scroll Saw setup and you can see one of the blanks for the first 92mm fan grill. To cut this thick aluminum sheet, I run the speed on the scroll saw as slow as it will go and I take my time. Applying to much pressure will cause you to snap a blade, and cutting it to fast will heat the blade and the metal up causing the same outcome.

Here we can see the outer shape of the first logo/grill cut. The next part will be the hardest of them all. Cutting the center out and cutting the letters. On the first grill I cut the center section out first and then used that blank to do the letters one at a time. With these being so small that proved to be a pain in the ass. So on the second grill I decided to cut the letters first which would give me a larger piece to hold on to.

Here we have one of the F letters from a grill. You can see that it’s definitely not perfect. A little time with a file and some sanding and polishing, it will look perfect.

Before I get to far ahead. I actually thought about doing the logos/grills with thinner material and cut one logo to get an idea. It took me all of a few seconds to decide that I wanted to use the thicker materal.

Before cutting the centers and letters, I figured I better pull out a 92mm fan and make sure my sizing was right.

Here we can see the final 92mm grills cut. For those wondering how I plan to hold the BFG letters in the center. They will be epoxied to the mesh that will be behind them.

On the next 4 pieces, I didn’t snap a lot of pictures. Pretty much the same process took place. I laid out my stencils and started cutting the aluminum. I cut the top, front, rear, and mobo tray panels all back to back over a three – four day span.

As I fit the panels I spent a little time filing the edges to clean them up a bit. The hardest panel so far was the rear. It gets sandwiched between the main frame rails and the rear frame. It has a tone of notches on it which all needed to be cut fairly close so that the edges wouldn’t show from the rear of the case. The case is originally meant to be a ATX layout, but as you can see I run it in a BTX layout. In doing this I wanted to make the mobo tray and PSU mounting as adjustable as the main frame was. I took a little extra time to drill the mobo tray and install the PSU mount in both configurations, which will allow me to flip the case back to ATX at any point.

Once I had the top panel cut, I decided to cut the plexi for it and do some fitting to make sure my color choice was going to come out as I planned. I was going to mount the plexi via some doublesided tape. I originally installed the plexi with a few strips of tape to see how well it would hold over a couple of days. Well, it didn’t hold to well. I then decided seeing that this would be shipped to Cali for the trip, I didn’t want to chance having a panel drop out and do any damage. I then drilled and tapped the plexi and installed the upper grill.

Next up was cutting and fitting the front 120mm logo/grill. I backed it with some plexi to give it a little extra color. This one was a little easier to cut out because it was larger.

For a little change in the process, I decided to do a little polishing on one of the 92mm grills. To make polishing a little easier this time around, I picked up a bench grinder and set up a couple of polishing pads on it. This definitely made that process 1000 times better.

Then come another one of the tough chores… Cutting the flames on the side panel. These panels are just over 18.750” on both sides which made things a little harder to do. The scroll saw has a 16” clearance, which meant that I would have to adjust things a little. What I decided to do was simple. I cut the long runs on the flames and then I flipped the blade on the scroll saw around (pull the material out rather than pushing it in). This would give me more room to turn the panel as I cut the flames. The excess material still on the panel will then be removed with the ol Dremel.

Page 3 to come.

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