| Customizing the YY Cube |
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I started out thinking of painting the interior bright red, and actually got some paint sprayed. Then I backed off and took stock. Before I knew it, I had changed my mind. This case needed to be cobalt blue inside. That's the color most dominant in our house, and I wanted my new cube to fit in. The black motherboard with all the fancy cooling heatsinks and such will look good against the blue background and the Hercules GeForce3 is all blue in color. So that everyone can see these cool innards, I plan to install some windows in the case, and light the interior with blue cold cathode lighting for that "alien technology" look. For the final icing on the cake, I'll probably switch all the front panel LED's to blue, and get some blue electroluminescent cable installed underneath the case so blue light spills out from below.
I'm planning considerable fan capacity to keep the system cool, but I'm ordering silent fans so it is very quiet. I have in mind trying to position a case fan so I don't have to cover up my lovely Zalman CPU cooler with its own fan too. There has also been some thinking about doing some styling highlights with some sort of carbon fiber material ala my Porsche Turbo S.
I'd love to customize the front panel in some way, but I haven't quite figured out the details yet. I think that if I do the front, I'll proceed in two stages. First, I'll get the whole sucker running good with just the work I mention above. Then, if I'm still having fun with it, I'll try to kick it up another notch with a custom front panel.
I have a couple of potential ideas for the front panel. The first would involve fabricating a brushed stainless panel and having a 3rd party airbrush a Nottebohm-esque design onto it. The second would involve fabricating a panel that sandwiches a printed transparency between 2 pieces of plexi and backlights that. I would probably create a design on the PC and inkjet that onto the transparency. Being able to backlight as well as change the design at will are two attractive aspects of that approach. As I say, this will have to wait until I mostly have the box up and running.
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Painting My painting plans are pretty tame, but I'll walk you through them anyway. Basically, I want a case that's black on the outside and blue on the inside. Follow along as I use spray paint to accomplish this transformation. |
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| Here's a YY Cube that some Brits modified that is similar to where I'm headed. I hope mine comes out as nice. You can see a nice ducted fan on the front, side window, and a fan on top to directly cool the cpu. |
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Here's the stuff I'm using for the project--gas mask, rubbing alcohol, black, primer and spraypaint, drop cloth, masking paper, masking tape (2 widths), and rubber gloves. Note the red paint has been dropped in favor of blue... |
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| I've laid out the drop cloth on a table and put the case on top of it. |  |
| Before we can get far, we have to disassemble the case as far as possible. I removed everything that wasn't welded in there. This will make it easier to paint, and will produce a more professional looking job. If you want to paint the drive bays and so on, it'll be easier to do that with them out of the case too. I use the muffin pan on top to keep all the parts straight, a trick I learned while building Heathkits long ago. |  |
| Now its time to break out the rubbing alcohol. I use it to remove oils and other impurities from the case. If you don't get the metal good and clean, the paint has a hard time sticking to it well and it'll show. I wear the gloves not because I'm afraid to get alcohol on my hands, but to avoid accidentally putting any skin oils back on the metal. Just rub it down with a paper towel soaked in the alcohol. Be sure to clear out any little bits of towel that snag on the chassis. |  |
| Now its time to mask the case so that the inside color won't get on the outside. Be sure to cover all the fan holes, and any other holes in the case from the outside tightly! I failed to do this the first time and some overspray from inside got on the outside. We want to make sure that if we blew up a gallon of paint in the room the residue would only find bare metal on the case to settle on. |  |
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Okay, first we spray on a coat of primer. This will give our nice gloss paint something to get its teeth into. I used a red primer so that any chipping would (hopefully) be a little less obvious. As you can see, I didn't remove the power switch, reset switch, or speaker. They're held on by little metal tabs that I was worried I might break off if I tried. So, the wires got a little overspray. You really have to work the spray can around in here to get all the little nooks and crannies. Go slow and don't overdo it, using multiple coats if necessary. If you spray too much you'll see drips and runs. I got a few, so be careful. Also, go at the case from as many angles as possible to help the spray get in there everywhere. Be especially diligent about the angle it will be viewed at, though. |
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| I waited about an hour and a half for the primer to set up and then shot a coat of red. Same admonitions about the paint. Plan to use 2 or 3 coats, so don't spray too heavily and avoid those drips and runs. The extra coats will look better, and they should provide a little durability too. |  |
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Cutting Holes There's no way to make this story come out looking like I did everything just right because I didn't. As I said above, when I saw the red, and did some more thinking, I decided that what I really wanted was blue. I decided a few other things too. For example, I wanted to shoot some test shots of the blue on the side panels to make sure I really like the change. I also wanted to finish all the cutting on the main case before I tried to paint any more. Therefore, let us get on with the cutting, chopping, and general sheet metal mayhem that has to be done before I can get back to painting. But don't forget what you learned up there, because I'm gonna do the same thing all over again! |
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Before I completely lose the feel of the painting moment, let me show you the test shots I did of the blue I want to use. Actually, as you can see, there are two different blues here. I learn, albeit slowly. Rather than bet the farm on one shade, I bought two shades from the same manufacturer. Before spraying the blues, I laid down some flat white, with the idea being to brighten it a little. I'm trying to capture the feel of the cobalt blues seen throughout my house. I've placed a photo of one of our Nottebohm paintings right below so you can get the idea. Its hard to tell here, but the darker blue matches a lot better. However, after polling numerous people, including some who actually have some artistic talent, I've decided to go for the lighter shade. The consensus is that it will be inside the case and will darken no matter what I do. Best, not to start out too dark in the beginning, therefore. For contrast, my brother, who is also building a YY Cube, wants to try bright yellow inside his case. It sure does pop! But enough of zis lovemakink... Bring on the power tools! |
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Oh no! I've created a huge gaping hole in my beautiful YY Cube! What now!!! Actually, this turned out more or less okay. Notice how I used masking tape to protect the case during cutting and to allow me to draw a template onto it. Keep reading to see how I created this manhole-sized opening and what I will do with it.
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You can see all three fan incisions I've made so far, along with the tool that made 'em--my trusty Dremel with reinforced cut-off wheel. The hole in front is for a 120mm fan that will blow through directly on the electronics. Look at the size of that hole! Look at the size of that fan! Holy mackerel, Andy! Towards the bottom of the picture you can see where I sliced off the old drilled-hole fan openings to get them completely opened up for better airflow and less noise. I used the cutoff wheel to get as close as I could here and then I chucked up an 80 grit sanding drum to clean up the holes. Since I'll be putting rubber trim around the edge, they don't have to be perfect, just decent. This work is painfully slow, and you have to make sure you really measure everything carefully. I found it easy to create a template on the masking tape before I did any cutting or drilling. Trust me, if I can do this, you probably could to. Just be careful. Those power tools are dangerous! |
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You say your tooth hurts? Must be a cavity. Just relax and I'll have it fixed in a jiffy! My Makita right-angle drill made short work of the mounting holes. I didn't really need a right-angle drill for this job, but I had it kicking around from some car customization I did years ago and its a real pleasure to use. |
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That big 120mm is now mounted (temporarily) on the front of the case so I can see how it fits, and generally admire my work. Its very important to stop frequently and admire your work! As you can see, it fits, but I'd hate to fit something much bigger in here. Still, this fan should do a nice job cooling things off. It will be blowing into the case. Notice that the case is suddenly white! I've been conducting painting experiments trying to get the old red covered up. There was some incompatibility between the paints (two different manufacturers were used, a no-no!), so I had some cracking and bleeding through that took several coats of flat white together with some sanding to clean up. I think I have it about under control now, which means if I can ever get done cutting on the case I can clean it up and start shooting my lovely shades of blue. |
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Here's the two 80mm fans on back mounted temporarily. I used allen head black anodized hardware to make it look more spiffy. Again, I'll be fitting rubber trim around the edges so they don't have to be perfect. I've also got some cool "hurricane" grills on order from www.pcmods.com to make it even cooler. |
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Here you can see the 4 main cooling fans for the system. The one resting on top has not yet been installed. I've got to get one more set of fan holes to drilled before I can get back to painting the case. You can see about where it will sit, however. It'll suck air up and out of the case (because heat rises) directly through the Zalman cooler's heat sink. Air should whistle in the bottom, cool the PCI cards a bit without getting to warm, and then shoot up through the Zalman heatsink to blow a bunch of heat out of the cpu. I'm planning to test the cooling quite a bit, and may add some baffling or another fan if needed to keep things under control. I want the quietest possible cooling that lets me see the pretty Zalman (factory installs cover it up) and that keeps things from overheating.
Zalman coolers: they are so beautiful! |
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