The Computer Case Project

Installation

Externals

The exhaust fan was fitted with the fan grill. The grill is attached by a combination of preassure force and some wood glue. Maybe not the prettiest or strongest method in technical terms, but it will do the job. The idea with the wood glue on the grill is also that it's supposed not to be impossible to remove if needed. The feet are aluminum cupboard handles. Since they come in six-packs (I have no idea why) we had two left over. These were perfect for attaching to the top of the case as lifting handles.

Internals

First fitted some basic parts to see how it all fit. The PSU, fans and drive cages were installed. The front panel buttons and the activity LEDs were added as well. And yes, the 5.12" bay is duct taped. The super glue just didn't hold it together. Duct tape did a much better job.

We wondered if the four small screws through the MDF would hold the fairly heavy Forton/Source PSU without extra internal support (as you see in many regular ATX cases), but the PSU was held very firmly in place and the MDF showed no signs of stress. Now it sort of looks like it floats inside the case.

The rest of the hardware was quite easy to fit as well, as the case is quite roomy. There were some problems routing the cables to the harddisks (four disks, 3 ATA, 1 SATA), so it looks a bit cluttered, but it works.

Side Panel

The side panel was to be fitted with a window to show off the blue glow from the CCFL and the PSU inside. We didn't want a convensional big square window, and anything advanced like a tribal or other picture type cutout was a bit too much as we were now working against the clock to get the case down before the christmas holidays were over. We decided on doing the same pattern we did on the front of the case, the silver tripod.

The pattern was cut out quite easily (despite the subzero degrees outside, note the gloves). The outside of the panel was painted black and the inside and the cut surfaces were painted silver. A piece of plexi was cut to size and screwed onto the side panel.