[Build Log] Batgirl

[diluzio91]

That's right... Another mod... This time it's for my wife's PC. It's going to be a little simpler, but it's still going to be Liquid cooled, and should be pretty sweet when it's all finished. The colors and themes are all picked and approved by my wife, so yall just sit back and enjoy the ride

 

The case: 

 

NZXT Noctis 450 in black. The lighting on this case is pretty crazy, and we're going to be using almost none of it. 

 

 

The Inspiration: 

 

Bat girl is one of my wife's all time favorite super heros, and after seeing my Iron Man build she got a little jealous, and challenged me to design a Bat Girl themed build for her. 

 

The break down is like this. 

 

The build will be taking advantage of the "armor" look of the noctis 450 case, and will bring in elements from the bat family franchise. The "armor" will be coated in 3m Carbon Fiber vinyl on the outside, while the interior will be done in Metallic purple. Various Die cut vinyl and other bits and bobs will be added as the build unfolds. 

 

 

The top panel of the case taken off

 

 

The Armor stripped off and ready for the Vinyl to be applied when it arrives. 

 

 

Finally the mesh is removed from the panels as part of the prep work on the case. 

 

 

Since the parts for this build will be coming from my old desktop I can confidently share the specs of this build as follows:

 

i7 3770@4ghz

Asrock Z77 Board

16gb Memory

Corsair HX850 PSU

EVGA Classified 780Ti

Full liquid loop

2x 250gb SSD's

 

[Zefues]

Looking really nice. Followed!

[DarkBlade2117]

The lighting,,what about the NZXT logo? You could get some plastic cut outs to make it yellow,instead of red

Followed

[diluzio91]

The lighting,,what about the NZXT logo? You could get some plastic cut outs to make it yellow,instead of red

Followed

 

Oh it's already happening, Drilling and cutting and all the fun stuff has already begun. Mwahaha. 

[DarkBlade2117]

Oh it's already happening, Drilling and cutting and all the fun stuff has already begun. Mwahaha.

Mwahahah

[diluzio91]

Mwahahah

 

[DarkBlade2117]

This is pure gold

[Graffix3001]

Looking forward to what you do in this build. I'm also working on two of these cases as well. FOLLOWING!!!

[rjfaber91]

I'm not even remotely interested in the whole Batman universe, but after seeing what you did on the Iron Man build, I cannot wait to see what this one's going to be like. Followed!

[diluzio91]

Got some more work done today. 

 

Step one, Remove the front side of the HDD cage

 

 

Now we need to cover that hole... 

 

 

Convient placement of the screw holes makes it easy to secure the new back plane to it's holder. 

 

 

Modification to the PSU cover to make it look a little more complete

 

 

And bending the cover to shape... Easier than it looks with a good heat gun

 

 

A better view of how it will look here. 

 

 

Here's what it looks like now... All the guts have dissapeared!!! 

 

 

Guts in the garage for paint, Primer done in this photo

 

 

First coat of the purple laid down

 

 

It's pretty dark out so I tried to get a good image with my cell phone's flash of the purple paint. It's deeper in person and sparkles like crazy. My wife came out in a mask to check the paint but threatened physical harm if I took a picture of her doing QA for her build. 

 

 

And last but not least I got the first part wrapped with the grey CF. My black and yellow vinyls are in the mail, so it'll be a bit before I can start doing the big panels. 

 

 

Thanks for watching!!

[DarkBlade2117]

That's amazing @diluzio91 What are you doing with the mesh for from when first taking it out? Or maybe I missed something. When I get this case I plan on doing slight modifications to add more red to it but is the mesh spray paintable?

[diluzio91]

It looks pretty easy to paint, I'll be leaving it the stock glossy black color for this mod, as it's more of an accent to the rest of the carbon fiber "armor". Getting the mesh out is just a matter of removing screws till your hands go numb, pulling the plastic off, and bending the mesh tabs to release it from the frame. 

[DarkBlade2117]

It looks pretty easy to paint, I'll be leaving it the stock glossy black color for this mod, as it's more of an accent to the rest of the carbon fiber "armor". Getting the mesh out is just a matter of removing screws till your hands go numb, pulling the plastic off, and bending the mesh tabs to release it from the frame.

Obvious iBuyPowers design but to me it's so simple and so nice. There was to much black to begin with and the red just makes it POP but getting it out won't bother me assuming a can of spray paint would be nice.( ignore the red LEDs and ibuypower logo inside the case )

This may look nice with your mod like spray painting it that dark purple but you said you'd like to leave it black

[diluzio91]

Obvious iBuyPowers design but to me it's so simple and so nice. There was to much black to begin with and the red just makes it POP but getting it out won't bother me assuming a can of spray paint would be nice.( ignore the red LEDs and ibuypower logo inside the case )

This may look nice with your mod like spray painting it that dark purple but you said you'd like to leave it black

 

I've done the Mesh painted before, this case you have to think of how bat girl operates. On the outside she's tough, and a member of the bat family, but she's also light hearted and goofy on the inside, which you can see with the feminine accents to her costume and her usual demeanor in the comics. So we're going to have a bright cheery inside with a more serious and dark outside. The effect should be pretty cool. 

[DarkBlade2117]

I've done the Mesh painted before, this case you have to think of how bat girl operates. On the outside she's tough, and a member of the bat family, but she's also light hearted and goofy on the inside, which you can see with the feminine accents to her costume and her usual demeanor in the comics. So we're going to have a bright cheery inside with a more serious and dark outside. The effect should be pretty cool.

That's awesome, can't wait until it's finished

[diluzio91]

Lots of work got done today. 

 

First up, everything was riveted back together. 

 

 

Then we Marked out the lines for the new enlarged window

 

 

Did a quick repair with some epoxy where I slipped with my cut off wheel. 

 

 

My assistant met the UPS guy and brought up the vinyl for this case. Now we're getting started for real. 

 

 

First, the window panel got covered (Bubbles have been worked out by now, it takes about an hour after application for any bubbles to go away on their own.)

 

 

Armor Plates wrapped up

 

 

And installed again with the Mesh filters

 

 

All plates and panels covered and installed on the case

 

 

Front shot of the effect

 

 

At this point my assistant got bored and watched some videos on how to make cupcakes... 

 

 

Next we tackled the front panel... 

 

 

Bat girl action in progress!

 

 

The decal is split on the two different plates, the effect is actually pretty cool. 

 

 

Now time to work on the back panel. The Batgirl Silhouette started in this picture. 

 

 

My Assistant (wife in case you didn't guess) decided she didn't like the letters so she removed them. 

 

 

Closer to being finished, but it's missing something...

 

 

Adding bats completes the look for sure. 

 

 

Floor plate is installed now

 

 

and I'll leave you with a shot of where we left off until we have some more parts come in. 

 

 

Thanks as always for watching guys! If you have any questions let me know!

[KeeghanM]

That is some beautiful work Diluzio! I would love to do a full case mod like this one day!

[ALXAndy]

The front panel carbon pattern doesn't match perfectly and the batman logo on the side is on a rectangle which kinda sticks out.

 

Other than that I am quite surprisingly impressed with this and like the colour scheme.

[Necrodead]

Awesome dude! I love carbon fiber vinyl as a way to mod cases. Espically with the armored look of that case.

[diluzio91]

Just a small update today. 

 

I need to figure out how to cover the blue Alpha Cool Logo and the Blue Ram... 

 

[19_blackie_73]

 

Just a small update today. 

 

I need to figure out how to cover the blue Alpha Cool Logo and the Blue Ram... 

 

 

paint the ram and the logo with the color of the case

[diluzio91]

paint the ram and the logo with the color of the case

 

Yeah, sorry about the lack of description with this post, I was all screwed up from having to go to work at 4AM (Went to bed at 1 and was called in for an emergency server issue). I was super out of it, and after a good nights rest I've got it all planned out and actually have energy to work on the case again. I was trying to force myself to make some progress on this case yesterday and it really wasn't happening. 

[Thorium19]

Wow, this looks really cool! And in a case I like as well, even better. Are you adding a dye to the coolant? and if so, what colour? (I'm assuming either purple black or yellow)

[diluzio91]

Wow, this looks really cool! And in a case I like as well, even better. Are you adding a dye to the coolant? and if so, what colour? (I'm assuming either purple black or yellow)

 

I'll be using mayhem's pastel yellow

[diluzio91]

Got a ton of work done today including all the cable management for what I have... But first things first. 

 

This looks easier than it was, but look! Yellow Alphacool Logos!!

 

 

To achieve this I took a picture of the logo on the radiator (the logos I found online were slightly different dimensions) photoshopped everrything but the blue away, then imported it into illustrator. After pulling it into illustrator and cleaning up the vectors I exported it to a Gigantic .png file (the only file my  vinyl cutter can use that's not it's own format) and after measuring the logos I printed up 4 sets, starting at .255 inches and increasing by .01 inch incriments. then it was just a matter of finding the best match for the original lettering. 

 

Here's the result 

 

 

Next I put the Memory into a sacrificial motherboard and hit it up with some plasti dip. 

 

 

While the dip was drying I installed the floor for the pump to mount to. 

 

 

 

permanently attached the pump and res at the same time my phone's camera forgot how to focus.

 

 

Lots of bending... I found out that a jigsaw with a metal blade on it makes cutting PETG tubing stupidly easy...

 

One crazy looking bend per build is going to be my new motto.

 

 

with the bend in place

 

 

I re-arranged the loop for a little cleaner run on the tubing. 

 

 

Then I started on the back... Now the point of this build was to re-use parts I had on hand.... Part of that was my Non modular PSU... Cable management time!!!

 

 

I used yellow zip ties... they work with the theme

 

 

zip zip zip zip... 

 

 

 

SSD's mounted to the back, all the cables tied in place, LED controller tucked away at the back. 

 

 

Finally the front view. Lights installed, tubes installed... now we're just waiting on the drain system, fluid, another front fan, and cable extensions. 

 

 

 

That reminds me... I have to get the window to the laser cutter...