Defyant's Light Blade "It's still cool to air cool ! "

Defyant's Light Blade

I'm pretty much 70% done with modding my workshop and after recently adding my prised DIY bookshelf clone speakers and a triple monitor setup to the work space i decided that the stock PC cases just wern't doing it for me....
So after getting my hands on a massive stack of white plex ive decided to go nuts and do a quick scratch build.

The mod was mostly inspired but gnome /insolent mods amazing scratch build Deep blue (formerly G-Frame)
case mod. If you havn't see it pop over to Bittech and check out his amazing work.

Anyways..... The sell.

I wanted this build to be a case i can make copies of so it's pretty much ganna be really basic and all done from templates.

I want to have half a dozen templates i can pull out and cut a case glue it up and pass it on.

So while i'd love to go all disco on this one it's ganna be pretty boring soz.


The area's to the top left and right of the screen is what i'm hoping to add some sexiness too!









Like all Defyant mods of late this one starts with a pile of scrap plex!



Then it's time to start making a mess in my new office and cut 7 equal size panels.



The design is pretty random chosen cause it fits in the spot and i always want to do a D shaped PC mod.






Decided to add a little more shape to keep it interesting.




And then just because this is a sickness make 6 more of em!






All that work just to throw away the middle.....



It was @ this point i decided to make things a bit easier on my self and knock up a quick cutting table rather than use the scroll saw.

An old piece of laminated wood and retired jigsaw get a reprieve.





For the 10 mins of setup work this little table will cut 10 times faster than my scroll saw without the hassle of detaching the blade for every cut.....






Literally 5 mins later these were all cut ready for router profiling.....




Profiling is a simple job of making your template and then using that to make copies.


The ruff cut has straight edges double sided to the the clean cut lines









Process is repeated 6 more times but using the first as the template,





Last but not least is to profile the outer as well.




This gives me 7 pretty exact copies.





Next is to cut up what will be the case... simple 4 wall box.

I was going to use the same white plex but decided to try some frosted to get a bit of contrast.





And just a qik mock up to show where this is all going.






I may add an extra outer blade or 2 yet... looks a bit "chunky" with just the six.



Plenty of room for 140mm fans too



Found a bunch of this up in the stockpile.... i'll cut some up and see how the blades look around the blue.

 

Fuck me man that's impressive, wanna come design my home theatre

 

Next I'm still toying with ideas for the motherboard backplate/psu cover... wanna try and keep the blade theme on the inside as well initially i was going to bend one up but getting it to work with the extra blades was looking to be a pain, so ive made it in section.

The sides and inner vents are cut and profiled.





Next is the add a top, this will act as the PSU cover and the mother board tray.






Adding in the vents, i think like the outer blades i may cut a couple more as it looks a bit gappy....






The MB template is a 170 x 170 cut out, so you can see it fit with plenty of room around the sides.




All that white is starting to loose contrast..... i'm hoping to add some basic highlights. But im really liking the supa clean sterile look

 

Cheers mate that sounds like the ultimate mod to me

 

sweet as D

 

How do you go with dust and cleaning up in that sexy workshop?

 

Cheers Mic

Cheers mate im pretty anal about it nowadays.. dust is pretty good, the bucket loads of snow from all the router work get a bit much tho

 

Man that is such an awesome design, love all your designs!

 

Internal vacuum system mod?

 

Had a spare few hours today so got to work on some hole making... 8 of em... i did these in pairs to have 2 x matching sets.





With the holes done i can finally glue the inner housing and add the first slider panel to the front fans..




All this white is making it bit tricky to photo but if you look close there is a channel to hold the fan panel in place.






This will allow for easy fan changes and keep the front of the case clean by hiding the screws.






Next is to glue in the second channel for the top this will allow for the quick install/swap of the Rad fan combo.









Then to add the rad for a test fit.







Mesh will be shaped and added to the top between the rad and slider mount plate.




Adding 7 for a quick look ..... i may cut 2 more and try 9

 

Always impressed by how clean your work is. Acrylic is so unforgiving.

 

That's clean and original, I like it.

All your work is super clean though!

 

How is this workspace a reality. Looks like something from a sci-fi render...

 

Cheers mate tyvm Your right about it being unforgiving , i only do these builds when i have tons of it to spare

Cheers mate tyvm years ago i used to be able to mod in any old sh!t hole....now it's become an obsession to keep a clean shop!

LOL cheers mate ty if i could only render like that i'd be happy

Smallish update today

Still toying around with the psu cover / motherboard tray.

The original idea was to make it as simple as poss, but i decided i wanted somewhere to mount the SSD drives and be able to make them quick swapable.

It starts with a pretty basic design, to give it some contrast i'll cut out where the SSD's will sit and add some frosted plex as a led back light.






Next is to add some cut outs so the power and data cables can connect






Then over to the Line bender









A snug fit!



For the sides i'm keeping the design again pretty simple , this can be back lit and logo patern added later.



With frosted insert added and glued to the upper section.



In full light the contrast when back lit is pretty nice,



With the lights off it gets a bit disco... i may tone it down abit so only the inserts around the HDD's and sides light up...

Will see how this looks when ive decided what side window i'll use.





Cheers

 

Just a small update today , worked on finishing the psu cover/mb tray this will allow me to mark and cut the new rear back panel.

First up is to add the other side, the panel is ruff cut and glued, then trimmed up on the router to give a clean flush fit.



As with all the routed edges a 45 degree angle is added



The infill panel is marked and ruff cut









I'm really tempted to ditch the water on this build and go for a really air cooler maybe with a modded one!

But its time to mark drill and thread the mounts for the MB... I'll be porting over my hardware from my current shop pc.

Pretty modest specs but good enuf for basic workshop tasks.





Some very exciting threading action!



Brass standoffs .... Very exciting



This should be just enough height to pass cables through.




With the board in position the rear io can be marked and cut





Then straight edged and clean cut on the router.




The same is done for the VGA card and once again the edges are 45 degree cut...... hard to believe such a nice small board has sag.... I'll add a rubber mount.







Hopefully a big update tomorrow

 

coming along sweetly

 

Thanks Mic

Still a ways to go on the back panel !

And now that have fully decided that " It's still cool to air cool " i'll be adding a rear exhaust port as well

Actually i was toying around with the idea of adding some LL120's to the existing cpu air cooler and after taking this pic i was 100% sold on the new direction !

Air cooled it will be



Anyways back to the rear panel...

I'll be using the low profile SFX-L 700 for power duties and for this will need to add a custom size opening for the rear.



The easiest way to transfer this is with some scrap clear plex....







This can be used as a template and transferred to the back panel. A ruff cut is done on the jigsaw





Then, again over to the router








The template is labelled and can be put away in the "templates" bin for later use.



Next is to allow the PSU some breathable air

For this a simple 120mm hole is added to the floor panel of the case.

A ruff cut once again



Then for the hole im using an old panel from Disco this will make for a quik hole job.







Next is to cut out a small lip or edge, this is to allow some good old fashioned mesh to be inlaid... This is 15year old MNPC mesh ! sent over to me from Bill back in the old HP modding days...

It's sentimental to me from special mod i never finished and for that reason i'm leaving it orange........






To shape the mesh the old 1/4 rubber tapper come out




A trim and a test fit before some glue is added to hold the grill in place






Then some foam strip is stuck down around the edges to help seal and vibration.






Im hoping the LL-140's will show up tomorrow and i can finish the inner casing.

 

Got a nice little package in the mail today as you can see by the newly populated wall enuf RGB for more than one pc




The best part is this now allows me to really get things moving along.

This whole mod really is based around those 140mm LL's and now it's Air cooled a big change in direction..... Air flow direction!

The first thing thing was to ditch those butt ugly orange fans and have a gander @ how the new Corsairs will look..




And i gotta say it's given me wood!



Time to mod.

Remember those old old retro cases that used to have a duct port from the side of the case that never really aligned up with anything inside.....?

Im'a make once of those but this one will align up and will help with air flow.

It starts with some 130mm frosted plex tube and a ruff cut out of 8mm plex.



Next is some geometry......




Next some ruff cutting and gluing





The messy overhang is clean off with the flush trim






And we have something that's really hard to photograph......



That really hard to photograph thing is screwed to the back panel



That's ruff cut and once again flush trimmed.




And a round over bit is used to give the outer edge a nice rounded exit hole.




With the change to air cooling a new top panel is made ,

Your prolly thinking "ok enuf with the ruff cut pics".... but i gotta pad this log some how



And presto ! magik and ive added some sexy edges.







And the new box can be glued togther




And a couple of Moody light shots!!!!







I suppose i best show the flow!


I'll leave the back open for now as not to impede flow in any way... The slightly over size 130mm port still uses the same bolt pattern as a standard 120 fan so if down the track i decide to go back to water i can swap the port with a fan.








The side shot shows the cpu should never starve for fresh air.



and one more shot just cause i love how those 140's look



:dremel:

 

Woot! finally making progress with this thing.... i'm hoping can put this mod to bed tomorrow and get on with my new speakers

Anyways with a bit more cutting and gluing the outer blades are done and dusted 9 in total.





Those stickers really erk me... im thinking some old skool defyant style turbines....



I'm still deciding weather i want to go with smoked windows or clear plex.... I like the contrast but really wanted to be able to see in and through easy.

 

Skipping right ahead

Got the hardware in and fired it up for the light show! Still deciding if i will go for clear or tinted side and top,,, leaning towards clear for now as it will keep it sterile looking.

But the beauty of this case is it's blank canvas and there's plenty of time to play around with it