Luciel

Here’s my suggestion:
 
First, keep individual PCs. You don’t want the server going down affecting all users completely.
 
I would get a centralized server, and run Active Directory (or open source equivalent if you want). 
 
I would create user accounts in AD for every employee. 
 
Then, on the server, create a file share, and use AD Group Policies to map the file share to each user. Bonus points if you redirect documents to a separate home folder for each account. 
 
You can configure security, etc, for each user account and for different folders on the file share. 
 
That way, all data is still stored on the server (and thus a central backup point). 
 
But also if the server goes down, you can still run local cached logins on each PC.

Hello Everyone,
Small update today, it´s been my birthday weekend and well, you shouldn´t use powertools when... not sober so no work this weekend. So, got a couple of hours in of work today, not much though, measuring hole placements and so on. I wasn´t going to show anything until they where all done but I really felt like seeing how it looks.
Before that however, got the card reader in place, so that´s done.

So, after I did the holes I started getting everything togueter for a mock shot, because of this have in mind the holes exposed wood needs to be painted, nothing is held down by screws so parts might look somewhat out of placement and so on, this is purely so you get an idea of how the cables could look once done, at least on the right side of the module (just one set of hdds and the m-atx mobo).
As I started, I was so glad I got the idea for the trap door, sooo many cables, and this is only a part of the whole lot!

And here are a few closeups of the lot, enjoy





And that´s it! Will try to get some work done tomorrow though no promises, a lot of "real-life" work to catch up to from 3 days off.
And as always...
...thanks for reading!

Hello Everyone,
Small update today, it´s been my birthday weekend and well, you shouldn´t use powertools when... not sober so no work this weekend. So, got a couple of hours in of work today, not much though, measuring hole placements and so on. I wasn´t going to show anything until they where all done but I really felt like seeing how it looks.
Before that however, got the card reader in place, so that´s done.

So, after I did the holes I started getting everything togueter for a mock shot, because of this have in mind the holes exposed wood needs to be painted, nothing is held down by screws so parts might look somewhat out of placement and so on, this is purely so you get an idea of how the cables could look once done, at least on the right side of the module (just one set of hdds and the m-atx mobo).
As I started, I was so glad I got the idea for the trap door, sooo many cables, and this is only a part of the whole lot!

And here are a few closeups of the lot, enjoy





And that´s it! Will try to get some work done tomorrow though no promises, a lot of "real-life" work to catch up to from 3 days off.
And as always...
...thanks for reading!

Cheers Hikaru, everyonce in a while I do indeed, though the cost of shipping your PSU around the world might not be worth it though
-------------------
Hi Everyone,
Today´s update isn´t much of a work update as such, but rather an update on materials as I haven´t had much time these last few days. Unfortunately my compressor died the other day, it was 6 and a half years old and to be honest it was never very good, I´m convinced it leaked air as it could never hold a full load within the tank, had no pressure control (so it was useless for smaller sprayguns) neither did it have an auto on/off depending on the quantity of air within it´s tank which was a pain in the rear, I bought it when I first started painting and it´s what happens when you buy something without knowing any better.
So, I went down to the same shop I always go for paint supplies (sure I could´ve provably bought the following cheaper online but it´s a local shop, not part of a chain and they´ve always been extremely good to me, hell if it wasn´t for them existing I wouldn´t know what to do so I like to support them) and got myself a spanking brand new compressor, this time round however with all the bells and whistles.


For the same price I could´ve gotten a 50ltr one, with the same specs all round but it was simply to big for the space I have allocated for it, plus fact is I don´t need it to hold so much air at any given time. So I mounted the wheels on it and placed it where the old one used to live, just outside my "paintbooth". I was going to install the tubing I have from the old one but the fittings where different!

So had to go back to the shop (thankfully, it´s only a 5 min drive from where I live) and get some new fittings, I figured for the price I might as well also get some new tubing (what you also see in the picture are some measuring cups I use for mixing the paint components, I change them once a year or so as they get rather dirty after many paint sessions and it´s increasingly harder to read the measurements on them)...

...and just as I was about to leave... the owner knows I´ve been keeping an eye on 2 sprayguns they have there (a mini and a detailing one) but I couldn´t really justify the price since I already had some (even though they weren´t exactly expensive) so he mentioned that they are now the last two and they are end of line models so I could have them at cost price if I wanted (love this shop!) so I figured... what the hell...PLUS it is my BIRTHDAY on Sunday the 13th and of course while I was at it I figured I needed some new suplies aniway (I was going to get them next week, but while I was there I figured I´d get the lot as I know when I buy a certain amount of stuff they give me a further discount) so...

And the spanking new sprayguns! (I´m veeeery happy right now!)


While I was out, a package arrived (love the feeling of coming home to even more goodies).

Cables, cables and more cables, all the cables and extensions I ordered and need for this project.

At one point when I started this project I thought about sleeving but, to be honest I´m not a huge fan of sleeving and just looking at the amount of cables gives me a headache plus the fact is, you´re going to see next to none of them once installed so, figured, no point.
Anyhow, next thing I decided is I´m going to install a small kvm switch on the back of the module. You see the servers are going to be connected to a TV i have on the wall above where the module will live, so, not just a server, but as I mentioned at the beggining of this project, also a media center and streamer. Don´t really need the KVM as all the files and storage will be on the M-ATX, but I already had it laying about, never really used it much so figured, hell if I ever can´t access the servers remotely at least this way I can see what´s going on without having to move the module to plug a monitor in the back. So, haven´t fitted it on yet nor have I decided it I will get rid of the enclosure it comes with but, just so you get an idea of where it will go:


Lastly, but no less important. I was taking some measurements to cut the opening for the 80mm fan. While doing so I realised, as I mentioned in a previous post that I could fit two. I also realised the cpu heatsink that I was going to use for the M-ATX is to tall! So started looking for a smaller one online and though... I can fit 2x 80mm fans... I have spare fittings... I have some tubing... I have a spare basic cpu block... I have a spare small reservoir... hell I´m not going to buy a new heatsink, instead I´ll get a 2x80mm radiator, sure it´s a small but it´s only cooling a very low end 1155 cpu so what the hell and so I did. I bought the only one I could find which wasn´t to expensive (there are not that many 2x80mm models out there), 57€ with shipping, not to bad! It´s an Alphacool NexXxoS XT45 Full Copper 80mm Dual and should arrive at some point next week.

Anyhow, for an update without any actual work progress, it certainly has turned a few things around and... crap I just realised I don´t have any decent 80mm fans laying about...!!
That´s all for today folks and as always...
...thanks for reading!

Cheers Hikaru, everyonce in a while I do indeed, though the cost of shipping your PSU around the world might not be worth it though
-------------------
Hi Everyone,
Today´s update isn´t much of a work update as such, but rather an update on materials as I haven´t had much time these last few days. Unfortunately my compressor died the other day, it was 6 and a half years old and to be honest it was never very good, I´m convinced it leaked air as it could never hold a full load within the tank, had no pressure control (so it was useless for smaller sprayguns) neither did it have an auto on/off depending on the quantity of air within it´s tank which was a pain in the rear, I bought it when I first started painting and it´s what happens when you buy something without knowing any better.
So, I went down to the same shop I always go for paint supplies (sure I could´ve provably bought the following cheaper online but it´s a local shop, not part of a chain and they´ve always been extremely good to me, hell if it wasn´t for them existing I wouldn´t know what to do so I like to support them) and got myself a spanking brand new compressor, this time round however with all the bells and whistles.


For the same price I could´ve gotten a 50ltr one, with the same specs all round but it was simply to big for the space I have allocated for it, plus fact is I don´t need it to hold so much air at any given time. So I mounted the wheels on it and placed it where the old one used to live, just outside my "paintbooth". I was going to install the tubing I have from the old one but the fittings where different!

So had to go back to the shop (thankfully, it´s only a 5 min drive from where I live) and get some new fittings, I figured for the price I might as well also get some new tubing (what you also see in the picture are some measuring cups I use for mixing the paint components, I change them once a year or so as they get rather dirty after many paint sessions and it´s increasingly harder to read the measurements on them)...

...and just as I was about to leave... the owner knows I´ve been keeping an eye on 2 sprayguns they have there (a mini and a detailing one) but I couldn´t really justify the price since I already had some (even though they weren´t exactly expensive) so he mentioned that they are now the last two and they are end of line models so I could have them at cost price if I wanted (love this shop!) so I figured... what the hell...PLUS it is my BIRTHDAY on Sunday the 13th and of course while I was at it I figured I needed some new suplies aniway (I was going to get them next week, but while I was there I figured I´d get the lot as I know when I buy a certain amount of stuff they give me a further discount) so...

And the spanking new sprayguns! (I´m veeeery happy right now!)


While I was out, a package arrived (love the feeling of coming home to even more goodies).

Cables, cables and more cables, all the cables and extensions I ordered and need for this project.

At one point when I started this project I thought about sleeving but, to be honest I´m not a huge fan of sleeving and just looking at the amount of cables gives me a headache plus the fact is, you´re going to see next to none of them once installed so, figured, no point.
Anyhow, next thing I decided is I´m going to install a small kvm switch on the back of the module. You see the servers are going to be connected to a TV i have on the wall above where the module will live, so, not just a server, but as I mentioned at the beggining of this project, also a media center and streamer. Don´t really need the KVM as all the files and storage will be on the M-ATX, but I already had it laying about, never really used it much so figured, hell if I ever can´t access the servers remotely at least this way I can see what´s going on without having to move the module to plug a monitor in the back. So, haven´t fitted it on yet nor have I decided it I will get rid of the enclosure it comes with but, just so you get an idea of where it will go:


Lastly, but no less important. I was taking some measurements to cut the opening for the 80mm fan. While doing so I realised, as I mentioned in a previous post that I could fit two. I also realised the cpu heatsink that I was going to use for the M-ATX is to tall! So started looking for a smaller one online and though... I can fit 2x 80mm fans... I have spare fittings... I have some tubing... I have a spare basic cpu block... I have a spare small reservoir... hell I´m not going to buy a new heatsink, instead I´ll get a 2x80mm radiator, sure it´s a small but it´s only cooling a very low end 1155 cpu so what the hell and so I did. I bought the only one I could find which wasn´t to expensive (there are not that many 2x80mm models out there), 57€ with shipping, not to bad! It´s an Alphacool NexXxoS XT45 Full Copper 80mm Dual and should arrive at some point next week.

Anyhow, for an update without any actual work progress, it certainly has turned a few things around and... crap I just realised I don´t have any decent 80mm fans laying about...!!
That´s all for today folks and as always...
...thanks for reading!

Cheers guys! She was extremely happy with the result, I think the cable management took me as long if not longer than the paintjob itself!

Hi Everyone,
Today I started painting bits and pieces.

While those dried out I figured I´d get started on the front, while not pictured I had already taken care of paiting the exposed wood colour bits (except where the switches go as those would be completely covered aniway. So, the first and only thing I had ready to be installed is the controller. Being this a server, it only seemed right to use the Lamptron CM615 for remote access (through my main PC) on the same LAN.



Originally I was going to make some mounts for the frontal devices but figured It would just mean more visible screws so instead I opted to use hot glue instead. So went ahead and mounted the lamptron.


Nice fit
Now that the painted bits where dry I figured I´d mount them (note the little detail on the X-Fi, same as the HDDs).
.


Figured I´d put the back in place to see how it looks (note that the screws of the M-ATX mount are not in place on the back, this is because I´m not finished with the back, they are on the ITX mount because if you remember it´s two pieces rather than just one.

Following the theme, I did something special with the PSU (Also, photo number 100!)



I decided this is where an 80mm intake fan will be located (may add 2 as it means it will also be ready for a 160mm rad if in the future I want to upgrade to liquid cooling).

And lastly, this will be the possition of an SFX PSU that will power the itx board (obviously, needs to be painted).
.
You may notice the fan of the ATX PSU is pointed towards the wall. There will be a piece of metal or wood blocking the air spreading to the rest of the case and a mesh aperture on the back panel to allow the air to flow. By doing this, none of the heat created by the PSU stays in the module.
Anyhow, that´s about it for today and as always...
...thanks for reading!

Hi Everyone,

So I thought I´d share some of my older, completed proyects while you wait for new updates on the Crimson Server Desk Module proyect.This specific one happened while I was workingin the Nº2 Tutorial Project, it was one of the readers who asked me if I could build a simple mod, same case, and she provided the hardware from her current PC, so I did. very simple and short post and no worklog was intended but instead used it as an example of what could be done by following the Nº2 tutorial project, enjoy!
 
---------------------------
 
Post 1

As some of you know, at the time of posting this I´m also working on the tutorial project: nº2, it is however because of that project that this one came around. One of the readers in one of the forums really liked it and she decided she wanted something similar, using the same brand and model basic case, but with a "normal" window, and matt pastel green and white with a little detailing on the opposite side.

So for the last four days I´ve been doing it, it´s now been given to her, the client and she seemed over the moon happy with it, so that makes me happy : )

I won´t go in to much detail because really, there´s not much detail, it´s a minimalistic mod with simple every day hardware, somehow however, I had a lot of fun doing it, I found it quite relaxing to be honest.

So here goes, 18 photos from start to finish (most of the actual finished case but hey).





































The flower detailing was done with a fine brush, I´d like to thank my sister for helping me with that.

Took me quite a while to find the right kind of matt clear lacquer so it wouldn´t shine whatsoever or reflect anything which is what she wanted, turns out that´s quite hard to find in acril based paints but did eventually find it, and I love the stuff!

Anyhow, the whole thing took just about 8 hours in 4 days (a couple of hours a day) from start to finish.

Thanks for reading/watching! : )

Cheers guys
Will let you know how the temps are, though by working with rackmounts, I´d imagine they get better temps due to preassure in the airflow specially when using highrpm fans as they tend to do on servers (deltas and whatnot) no?
--------------
Very small update today, not so much that I had little time but rather than in order to show these picks, the process takes considerable time. So, first thing´s first, finished the 2.5 drives (2x hdds & 2x SSDs)


Took the back panel off and did the cutouts for both mobos, after that I painted the wood-color bits so they don´t stick out as much, I didn´t have any wood paint at hand so used the paint I normally use, because it is water based the wood sucks it in and doesn´t leave as deep of a colour, but I think the tone difference looks good so going to leave it like that. Didn´t attach it back with screws yet as I still have to do the PSU and a couple of other cutouts so made no sense to screw it back in but, I did put it in possition for a couple of pickies.


It goes without saying that I will be painting the metal parts of those cards so as to match the I/O plate. I didn´t do the X-Fi card in red today, it was like that from another project (it´s also a different tone of red than the one I´m using on this project) and while I like it, I will be doing something else paint wise with it, just thought I´d mount the hardware to see how it looked
And that´s it! More tomorrow and as always...
...thanks for reading!

Cheers guys
Will let you know how the temps are, though by working with rackmounts, I´d imagine they get better temps due to preassure in the airflow specially when using highrpm fans as they tend to do on servers (deltas and whatnot) no?
--------------
Very small update today, not so much that I had little time but rather than in order to show these picks, the process takes considerable time. So, first thing´s first, finished the 2.5 drives (2x hdds & 2x SSDs)


Took the back panel off and did the cutouts for both mobos, after that I painted the wood-color bits so they don´t stick out as much, I didn´t have any wood paint at hand so used the paint I normally use, because it is water based the wood sucks it in and doesn´t leave as deep of a colour, but I think the tone difference looks good so going to leave it like that. Didn´t attach it back with screws yet as I still have to do the PSU and a couple of other cutouts so made no sense to screw it back in but, I did put it in possition for a couple of pickies.


It goes without saying that I will be painting the metal parts of those cards so as to match the I/O plate. I didn´t do the X-Fi card in red today, it was like that from another project (it´s also a different tone of red than the one I´m using on this project) and while I like it, I will be doing something else paint wise with it, just thought I´d mount the hardware to see how it looked
And that´s it! More tomorrow and as always...
...thanks for reading!

Cheers guys
Will let you know how the temps are, though by working with rackmounts, I´d imagine they get better temps due to preassure in the airflow specially when using highrpm fans as they tend to do on servers (deltas and whatnot) no?
--------------
Very small update today, not so much that I had little time but rather than in order to show these picks, the process takes considerable time. So, first thing´s first, finished the 2.5 drives (2x hdds & 2x SSDs)


Took the back panel off and did the cutouts for both mobos, after that I painted the wood-color bits so they don´t stick out as much, I didn´t have any wood paint at hand so used the paint I normally use, because it is water based the wood sucks it in and doesn´t leave as deep of a colour, but I think the tone difference looks good so going to leave it like that. Didn´t attach it back with screws yet as I still have to do the PSU and a couple of other cutouts so made no sense to screw it back in but, I did put it in possition for a couple of pickies.


It goes without saying that I will be painting the metal parts of those cards so as to match the I/O plate. I didn´t do the X-Fi card in red today, it was like that from another project (it´s also a different tone of red than the one I´m using on this project) and while I like it, I will be doing something else paint wise with it, just thought I´d mount the hardware to see how it looked
And that´s it! More tomorrow and as always...
...thanks for reading!

Hi Everyone,
First of all, White Rabbits and happy April Fools day to all
I was really looking forward to getting some work done on this over the weekend, unfortunately on Saturday afternoon I burned my left hand, nothing hospital serious but definately meant that I wasn´t going to be doing much if not at all over the weekend in terms of this project. Today however I was tired of "taking it easy" so I did a bit of "easy" work, don´t get to excited however, nothing flashy about this update but things that needed doing
Firstly I recicled another old case for a base and I/O plate mount for the ITX board, this case was from the P4 era, so as you can imagine, it was awfully dirty as well, but did the same as with the previous one and got the parts cleaned up. Unfortunately this case did not have both sections put togueter as the previous one, but nothing I can´t work around.

More leftovers for the scrap metal pile.

Next step was to fix the other mounting to both the surface and back panel of the module.



Next step was to mark its surroundings so I can start measuring where to cut (I need to, obviously, take the back panel of the module off in order to cut it).

But I can´t start with that until I get the other mount ready (and a couple of other components that will be featured hopefully in the next update), which meant painting. I also took the opportunity to do the 2.5 drives and the I/O plate for the ITX board. So I took out the mix ratios I wrote down for that special matte/glossy black mixture and got it done.

And that´s all for today folks, as always...
...thanks for reading!

Hi Everyone,

So I thought I´d share some of my older, completed proyects while you wait for new updates on the Crimson Server Desk Module proyect.This specific one happened while I was workingin the Nº2 Tutorial Project, it was one of the readers who asked me if I could build a simple mod, same case, and she provided the hardware from her current PC, so I did. very simple and short post and no worklog was intended but instead used it as an example of what could be done by following the Nº2 tutorial project, enjoy!
 
---------------------------
 
Post 1

As some of you know, at the time of posting this I´m also working on the tutorial project: nº2, it is however because of that project that this one came around. One of the readers in one of the forums really liked it and she decided she wanted something similar, using the same brand and model basic case, but with a "normal" window, and matt pastel green and white with a little detailing on the opposite side.

So for the last four days I´ve been doing it, it´s now been given to her, the client and she seemed over the moon happy with it, so that makes me happy : )

I won´t go in to much detail because really, there´s not much detail, it´s a minimalistic mod with simple every day hardware, somehow however, I had a lot of fun doing it, I found it quite relaxing to be honest.

So here goes, 18 photos from start to finish (most of the actual finished case but hey).





































The flower detailing was done with a fine brush, I´d like to thank my sister for helping me with that.

Took me quite a while to find the right kind of matt clear lacquer so it wouldn´t shine whatsoever or reflect anything which is what she wanted, turns out that´s quite hard to find in acril based paints but did eventually find it, and I love the stuff!

Anyhow, the whole thing took just about 8 hours in 4 days (a couple of hours a day) from start to finish.

Thanks for reading/watching! : )

Hi Everyone,
 
So I thought I´d share some of my older, completed proyectos while you wait for new updates on the Crimson Server Desk Module proyect. This was the first worklog I ever did, it´s a few years old now but it´s where it all started for me, granted it´s quite rough round the edges compared to my more modern work but nevertheless, it was the first of the 3 "Mod in a Week" concept projects, I hope you enjoy it
 
------------------------
 
Post 1
As the title says, I have decided to do a full project (mostly painting) in a week. I will be using my first ever non-beige computer case that recently came back to my possesion. (I had given the pc to my sister around 8 years ago and she finally got a new one). I originally bought the case around 10 years ago and was my first self built PC.
You might be asking, But Luciel, why use that old piece of crap when you could be using an awesome modern case? Well, I would say nostalgia and a way of getting back to my roots and "upgrading" them to my current skills.
I have no idea of what the case´s brand or model is, I bought it in a computer fair in the UK back then when the whole pre-modded case market was starting.
The idea came to me last night (or, this night if you´re picky about it technically being the same day) when I was lying in bed from 3am till 7am with no success in sleeping (Spain) is bloody hot right now at nights. So I decided to get up, get down to my workbench and start it up.
I will continue the log as soon as I upload the pictures (on a rather embarrasingly slow connection here) and detail everything I´ve been doing. Enough to say I have dismantled the old crappy hardware inside it (although the ASUS A7N8X-E was pretty epic bac then) and the case itself, cleaned it as best I could (the age really shows) and will proceed to sand it as soon as the shops open ( it´´s 8.45am here) and I can get some sanding paper! and prepare it for paint which hopefully I will start today.
The hardware that´s going to be used in this build is the following:
eVGA 790i Ultra SLI
Q6600
4x2 DDR3 1600 Corsair ram (yes I know it will create a bottleneck, but this are second hand parts I have laying about).
2x GTX275
3x Seagate SATA2 750Gb
1x dvd rewriter
1x memory card reader
Thermaltake bigwater b770 CPU wc system
SB X-FI platinum pro
I will also be ordering an MCP water block as the mcp in this board gets notoriously hot in SLI configs (right under one of the cards)
I will also be painting the gpus, sound card, hdds, and dvd drive casing to go with the design.
This system will be replacing my current main PC (the fallout case project shown in this sites case gallery, which, if anyone´s interested I´ll be selling, just the case) As my P67 asus board is being RMA´d so will be using the LGA 775 for now, and I will sorely miss my i5 2500k).
Again, I will be updating this thread with info and pictures of the whole process as the day goes by (I need to buy everything needed this morning as my car will be in the garage for a week getting fixed and re-sprayed).
As a last message for now, I encourage anyone to try the one week mod challenge, It´s not my first time and it can be a lot of fun : ) (even if its just to ebay it afterwards).
Thanks in advanced for all comments and suggestions : =)
Post 2
It´s now 11am, I just got back from leaving the car at the garage, and apparently I may get it back before the end of the week (awesome)! But more importantly, I got back from buying the paint, and other supplies I needed for this project.
So, here it goes (excuse the crappy camera, I have already asked a friend for his much better camera that he will bring down tomorrow):
I went down to my work-area and, admitedly, I hadn´t been down there for a while, as most computer related work I´ve done in my room recently as I´ve had nothing major. Problem with this kind of thing is that, if you need to store something, you end up putting it there and thing, ah I´ll sort it out when I need space to work (lol, yeah right).


So, rather than actually try and sort things out (it´s 7.30am!!!!!!!!) I figured I´d just "relocate" stuff off the workbench.
Sorted...

So here is the case, with the original pc still in it, now, as you can see, it´s not in the best of shapes and it´s had a hell of a lot of use and while it has been taken more or less care off, 10 years doesn´t do any favours to a pc tower.







So, first thing, dismantle the whole thing and... most likely throw away that old hardware, most of it is on it´s way out aniway.

Dirty, let´s clean the whole thing up.

Well, that´s as clean as it´s going to get, at least the chasis, I will be sanding (is that the right word?) down all the panels and getting them ready for painting. I shall be doing this as soon as I press submit reply on this post.
On the side window I have opted to get rid of the acrylic, which is in really bad shape (brown with smoke and scratched to hell). I could replace it with some left over acrylic I had from another project, but I´m really liking the idea of mesh (i´ve used it before for a sidepanel and loved the look, the only downside is that the insides aren´t as visible as with acrylic, although I guess I could try and find some really fine mesh, any suggestions on this?
Until later!
Post 3
It´s 11.45am,
I have finished sanding all the parts, I hate sanding, plus I could never get it quite right when there where imperfections in the original paint to begin with ¬¬ (removing them), I had to use some dissolvant to remove the sticky pads left behind the original neons (back when they where actually neons, as opposed to cold cathodes or leds). The fumes... weeeeeeeeeeeee


Ok, it´s 13.30pm, nearly time for lunch here, and I have now given the 3 coats of the base color (in this case, black) to all the parts of the case (a big thanks go to whoever invented fast drying acrylic car paint, a bit more expensive than normal acrylic, but totally worthied if you don´t like waiting for paint to dry, and let´s face it, who does).




Right well, I think I deserved lunch, plus, I really needed fresh air after that, awfull fumessssssssssss, plus, stake for lunch, :cool:
After lunch I will proceed with the next stage of painting.
Post 4
It´s 15.00pm,
I´ve now prepped and base-coated 2 of the devices in the case, the dvd rewriter and the memory card reader (with bluetooth, because, everything is better with bluetooth).





I am currently preparing the case, as a whole for exterior painting (using masking tape from the inside on any holes so paint does not get inside the case).


Short update due to me having to come up for the backplate of the mobo, might as well paint it with the case since I´m at it (rather than having to paint it seperately later).
Post 5
It´s 16.30pm,
I have assembled the case, taped the stripes I want to remain black (more on that at a later point),


and given 2 coats of the radioactive green (surprise! or not if you guessed due to the mobo design, if so, kudos!), here´s the first coat, to which I, before anything, added a few loose drops (squirter cap) of alloy silver, and while the pictures, due to ****ty camera just show blobs of paint, I assure you, the end result is random drops of extra shiny radioactiveness.



Post 6
And the second coat:




As you can see, this is why I used a black undercoat, because if I had used white, it would look pale and matt as seen on the masking tape. However the problem with this is that, also as you can see, it still has a few coats to go, acrylic paint needs loads of coats to become one solid (or like I´m aiming for here, almost solid color, and since it´s a dual layer color (this color includes an extra base coat and the color itself) it takes twice as long to dry, so 25 min between coats.
Post 7
It´s 17.45pm
I have now given everything 7 coats (yup, 7) I can´t believe it took that much to actually get to the final color in an even way (I decided to go fully even, as the shades I tried didn´t quite live to my expectations with this color).





I really hate how this camera doesn´t do it justice, it kind of makes it look matt, when it´s completely metallic but ok.
I will now give it one hour to settle, I will then proceed to give it 3 coats of clear lacquer, normally I will only give it two, but considering the ammount of coats it needed, I feel it really needs a third, this whole process should take about an hour, once dried (another 30 minutes on top) I will remove all the masking tape and take pictures with a much better camera so you guys can see the real final result on the paint outside. While there´s a few details I want to add on the black parts (the stripes, again, more on that when it´s done) at least you´ll get an idea of the final look of the paintjob side.
If, and I stress the if part, I feel like it, I will begin the cable management and add the mobo.
Things to come:
Cable management
I really should buy green sleeving.
Painting the GPU casing in that same green (remember, the interior remains black, so it will give a nice contrast).
Re-assemble the front panel, I have decided to keep the original black X on the front as a nostalgia part of the original case, however, since the logo is gone, I will find out where I can order a new one (different one from the original).
Buy 2 led flat green bulbs to replace the blue ones in the frontal detail.
Painting the Water Cooling pump and radiator.
Buy an acrylic cpu waterblock
Buy an acrylic mcp waterblock
I had though on painting the ram coolers but because I can´t detach them of the ram itself, I´m not going to risk it, they will have to remain silver.
Paint the top half (the safe part) of the 3 hdds.
More cable management (yay).
Paint the casing of the SB X-Fi
I´m proably forgetting something (oh right, more cable management) but this is all I can think of right now, do make suggestions.
Thanks again for watching/reading about this fun, but hectic, project.
Post 8
It´s 14.00pm
It´s taken me a while to update as I had a crysis, it seems that a part of the masking tape on the front side hadn´t stack down well so paint got under, so i had to re-do the coats on the surroundings + lacquer in order to fix it, but all well now!


And the rest of the parts:




Time for lunch and I have to go out afterwards, but for this evening I will get rid of all the masking tape on the case, assemble it, and do cable management + mobo.
Post 9
It´s 22.00,
The exterior of the case, aside from a couple of details, is done and all pictures from now on are taken with the better camera, notice the difference? Also, the inside of the case is NOT stained, that´s just a reflection, don´t worry : )


I´ve managed to save the plexy for now, until I can order a new one (using heat to clean really hard stains and fix most scratches).


Now painting the 3 HDDs (again, just the safe side), the casing for the front end of the x-fi, the casing for the WC pump and the mobo heatsink.

Also, the current look of the gpus without cooler (being painted), one of the GPU coolers and the mobo without mobo heatsink (being painted).

Feeling tired but I think I´ll prob do a bit more before dinner, it seems I´ll be using the laptop tonight.
Post 10
It´s 00.25am
A quick update before I get some dinner and go to bed.
HDDs are finished.


So is the sound card frontal unit.


And here a preview of how the case looks with the psu, dvd rewriter, memory card reader and sound card frontal unit in it.


See you tomorrow!
Post 11
It´s Wednesday the 1st of June (White Rabbits!) 13.00
Today, after a day withouth sleep and another falling KO way to early and therefore waking up at 6.00am, I finally had a good night sleep. So I woke up at 11 and went straight to business. In the last 2 hours, I have finished all the painting in this project, now all that´s left is putting it all togueter in the case!
First, the ASUS EN GTX 275:


The Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum Fatality

The eVGA 790i Ultra SLI nForce motherboard

The water pump in it´s frontal casing

And finally for now, what´s behind the front door of the case.

That´s it for now, see you in a couple of hours with more updates, if nothing bad happens, I think I could finish the project today, so really it should be "Mod in 3 days" : )
Post 12
It´s 18.00
Things are starting to take final shape... (in order of progress)




Cable management in a case that´s 10 year old, not designed for this or this hardware or liquid cooling is a complete and utter :banana::banana::banana::banana::banana:, also, wish I had cable sleeves.
Next update, should be the final picks (if all goes well that is).
Post 13
Project is finished, and while it was a week project, somehow managed to do it in 3 days.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Mod in a Week // Giving new life to and old mod, newly renamed to "Acid Burn", enjoy.
PS: You´ll notice that depending on the pick, it´s one shade or another, this is because in some I didn´t use the flash so the leds would show up, so the real color are the ones with flash (i.e. the greener green).




















Thank you all for reading and watching as the mod went from start to finish, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did doing it and I´ll be happy to answer any questions about it and the process.
I will at some point post new picks are the are some minor alterations I will eventually do when I can get to it, for now, my feet hurt to much

6th Day - Thursday 01-12-11 - Update 1

1st of the month, white rabbits!

cough*cough*ahem... aniway!

As I mentioned yesterday, the wireless keyboard and mouse arrived. I could´ve gone for something fancier but to be honest I really like the standard logitech oem combo, it´s cheap, great quality, sturdy and lasts just about forever. So here we go, keyboard sanded down, masked and ready for painting:



First layer done:





And the same process as with the rest, darkening, particles, and... rust! I´d never though I´d say this, but, I really really really like the whole rusty look it´s turning out to have (originally I planned for only a bit).













And now I´d like to thank everyone on every forum this is posted who helped me out with suggestions for the front of the case.

I ended up mixing two suggestions, one was rusted out front and the other one was olive green light coat with a light coat of the yellow I used on the rest of the case on top, so here you have the result:







More later today, thanks for reading!

//

6th Day - Thursday 01-12-11 - Update 2

This for me is quite simply, the cherry on top:





Took me about 2 and half to 3 hours to get it just right, to get that look like it´s been stamped on the case rather than painted (in my oppinion aniway), hope you guys like it!

Tomorrow starts the final day (ends mid-day saturday), and as of now, all the modifying and painting is finished so tomorrow I will be assembling it all togueter (ps: didn´t take pictures but the psu, dvd rw and hd have been painted black, it´s almost my signature thing to paint all possible components so... nothing fancy, just mainly so no ugly grey bits to see through the openings) and taking loads of pictures of the final look which will conclude succesfully the "Mod in a Week" challenge.

Thanks for reading : )

/////////

7th Day - Friday 02-12-11

Assembly took longer than I thought it would but almost there, the following pictures are the process, because I had to remove the HDD cage from bellow to install the monitor´s hardware and hide cables I had to dismantle the memory card reader to take out the pcb and cut the frontal plastic part that goes with it. Once done and used silicone glue to put them togueter and again to attach it to the case (as you will see in one of the pictures), this allowed me to install the hdd where that would normally go (i.e. enough space to do so now). The cathodes are barely visible but are at the top and on the right side. Also due to popular demand, I replaced the cpu cooler with another exactly the same one, modified the 775 adaptor so I could shift it half a centimetre to right so I´d be able to rotate the cooler to a possition where the heatpipes are pointing up and down as opposed to the side so it doesn´t prevent me from installing both modules of ram:























Now I just have to mount the screen, make sure it works and I can take some sweet final pictures, all done by tomorrow at around 6-7pm gmt+1 in order to meet the one week challenge.

Thanks for reading!

//////////

Update

Project is now completed however I have ran in to a problem with the mounted screen, it doesn´t seem to be getting power, I´ve checked the usual culprits to no avail and I dont currently own a voltimetre which is unconveniente. Going to dismantle the screen´s hw and test it on a wooden bench, maybe it´s shorting out. Because I want the final picks to show an image I will wait to upload them till I get this fixed between today and monday.

------------------------------------------

Update:

Fixed the screen, one of the cables must´ve cought somewhere and was damaged, severing the link between the screen´s psu and the lcd panel. So I cut that section off and soldered new cable to both ends, works fine now. Took me hours of looking and trying stuff till I saw the small brake in the cable and of course later I had to put it all togueter in the case again.

Aniway, I´m knakered and now I have to go some event to be social which I don´t really feel like but promised I would so... Aniway, I will set it all up for a shoot tomorrow to get a nice gallery of final pictures.

//////////

Final Pictures - Set 1

Hi everyone!

Right, as promised, here is a first set of the final pictures. I say first set because I´m not happy with them, light conditions, the need to use flash and reflections on the case by nearby windows, the table (that was a dumb idea) and so on, make the project look different, they make it look shiny (which is not), they distort the colors, you can barely see the green glow, etc

The point is, because I´m out of time right now I give you these just as a preview of some nicer final pictures which I will take at the modding event starting tuesday. Regardless, I hope you enjoy them : )



















That´s it for now, I´m going to get it ready (install the OS, drivers, and so on, and pack it so it´s ready for tuesday. Once that´s out of the way I will start the final stage on Project: AIO AL and Project: Diabolo in the hopes of having them ready for tuesday as well.

This concludes the "Mod in a Week" challenge (for the second time, anyone remember my first one or has it been forgotten already? ) and I hope you enjoyed reading and watching as much as I did doing it.

Thanks for reading!

//

just thought I´d add that Fallout Cause SP won 1st price at the Future Arena Modding competition (casemod section)



//

As promised, set 2 of the final pictures, the ones I consider the true final pictures. As you´ll notice there´s a fan on the cpu cooler, this is because I have just gotten back from the modding event and because it was on 24h for 6 days, I didnt feel comftable leaving it with no cooling whatsoever being on for such a long time.

Thank you everyone for reading and I can now trully say this project is completed, enjoy:

6th Day - Thursday 01-12-11 - Update 1

1st of the month, white rabbits!

cough*cough*ahem... aniway!

As I mentioned yesterday, the wireless keyboard and mouse arrived. I could´ve gone for something fancier but to be honest I really like the standard logitech oem combo, it´s cheap, great quality, sturdy and lasts just about forever. So here we go, keyboard sanded down, masked and ready for painting:



First layer done:





And the same process as with the rest, darkening, particles, and... rust! I´d never though I´d say this, but, I really really really like the whole rusty look it´s turning out to have (originally I planned for only a bit).













And now I´d like to thank everyone on every forum this is posted who helped me out with suggestions for the front of the case.

I ended up mixing two suggestions, one was rusted out front and the other one was olive green light coat with a light coat of the yellow I used on the rest of the case on top, so here you have the result:







More later today, thanks for reading!

//

6th Day - Thursday 01-12-11 - Update 2

This for me is quite simply, the cherry on top:





Took me about 2 and half to 3 hours to get it just right, to get that look like it´s been stamped on the case rather than painted (in my oppinion aniway), hope you guys like it!

Tomorrow starts the final day (ends mid-day saturday), and as of now, all the modifying and painting is finished so tomorrow I will be assembling it all togueter (ps: didn´t take pictures but the psu, dvd rw and hd have been painted black, it´s almost my signature thing to paint all possible components so... nothing fancy, just mainly so no ugly grey bits to see through the openings) and taking loads of pictures of the final look which will conclude succesfully the "Mod in a Week" challenge.

Thanks for reading : )

/////////

7th Day - Friday 02-12-11

Assembly took longer than I thought it would but almost there, the following pictures are the process, because I had to remove the HDD cage from bellow to install the monitor´s hardware and hide cables I had to dismantle the memory card reader to take out the pcb and cut the frontal plastic part that goes with it. Once done and used silicone glue to put them togueter and again to attach it to the case (as you will see in one of the pictures), this allowed me to install the hdd where that would normally go (i.e. enough space to do so now). The cathodes are barely visible but are at the top and on the right side. Also due to popular demand, I replaced the cpu cooler with another exactly the same one, modified the 775 adaptor so I could shift it half a centimetre to right so I´d be able to rotate the cooler to a possition where the heatpipes are pointing up and down as opposed to the side so it doesn´t prevent me from installing both modules of ram:























Now I just have to mount the screen, make sure it works and I can take some sweet final pictures, all done by tomorrow at around 6-7pm gmt+1 in order to meet the one week challenge.

Thanks for reading!

//////////

Update

Project is now completed however I have ran in to a problem with the mounted screen, it doesn´t seem to be getting power, I´ve checked the usual culprits to no avail and I dont currently own a voltimetre which is unconveniente. Going to dismantle the screen´s hw and test it on a wooden bench, maybe it´s shorting out. Because I want the final picks to show an image I will wait to upload them till I get this fixed between today and monday.

------------------------------------------

Update:

Fixed the screen, one of the cables must´ve cought somewhere and was damaged, severing the link between the screen´s psu and the lcd panel. So I cut that section off and soldered new cable to both ends, works fine now. Took me hours of looking and trying stuff till I saw the small brake in the cable and of course later I had to put it all togueter in the case again.

Aniway, I´m knakered and now I have to go some event to be social which I don´t really feel like but promised I would so... Aniway, I will set it all up for a shoot tomorrow to get a nice gallery of final pictures.

//////////

Final Pictures - Set 1

Hi everyone!

Right, as promised, here is a first set of the final pictures. I say first set because I´m not happy with them, light conditions, the need to use flash and reflections on the case by nearby windows, the table (that was a dumb idea) and so on, make the project look different, they make it look shiny (which is not), they distort the colors, you can barely see the green glow, etc

The point is, because I´m out of time right now I give you these just as a preview of some nicer final pictures which I will take at the modding event starting tuesday. Regardless, I hope you enjoy them : )



















That´s it for now, I´m going to get it ready (install the OS, drivers, and so on, and pack it so it´s ready for tuesday. Once that´s out of the way I will start the final stage on Project: AIO AL and Project: Diabolo in the hopes of having them ready for tuesday as well.

This concludes the "Mod in a Week" challenge (for the second time, anyone remember my first one or has it been forgotten already? ) and I hope you enjoyed reading and watching as much as I did doing it.

Thanks for reading!

//

just thought I´d add that Fallout Cause SP won 1st price at the Future Arena Modding competition (casemod section)



//

As promised, set 2 of the final pictures, the ones I consider the true final pictures. As you´ll notice there´s a fan on the cpu cooler, this is because I have just gotten back from the modding event and because it was on 24h for 6 days, I didnt feel comftable leaving it with no cooling whatsoever being on for such a long time.

Thank you everyone for reading and I can now trully say this project is completed, enjoy:

6th Day - Thursday 01-12-11 - Update 1

1st of the month, white rabbits!

cough*cough*ahem... aniway!

As I mentioned yesterday, the wireless keyboard and mouse arrived. I could´ve gone for something fancier but to be honest I really like the standard logitech oem combo, it´s cheap, great quality, sturdy and lasts just about forever. So here we go, keyboard sanded down, masked and ready for painting:



First layer done:





And the same process as with the rest, darkening, particles, and... rust! I´d never though I´d say this, but, I really really really like the whole rusty look it´s turning out to have (originally I planned for only a bit).













And now I´d like to thank everyone on every forum this is posted who helped me out with suggestions for the front of the case.

I ended up mixing two suggestions, one was rusted out front and the other one was olive green light coat with a light coat of the yellow I used on the rest of the case on top, so here you have the result:







More later today, thanks for reading!

//

6th Day - Thursday 01-12-11 - Update 2

This for me is quite simply, the cherry on top:





Took me about 2 and half to 3 hours to get it just right, to get that look like it´s been stamped on the case rather than painted (in my oppinion aniway), hope you guys like it!

Tomorrow starts the final day (ends mid-day saturday), and as of now, all the modifying and painting is finished so tomorrow I will be assembling it all togueter (ps: didn´t take pictures but the psu, dvd rw and hd have been painted black, it´s almost my signature thing to paint all possible components so... nothing fancy, just mainly so no ugly grey bits to see through the openings) and taking loads of pictures of the final look which will conclude succesfully the "Mod in a Week" challenge.

Thanks for reading : )

/////////

7th Day - Friday 02-12-11

Assembly took longer than I thought it would but almost there, the following pictures are the process, because I had to remove the HDD cage from bellow to install the monitor´s hardware and hide cables I had to dismantle the memory card reader to take out the pcb and cut the frontal plastic part that goes with it. Once done and used silicone glue to put them togueter and again to attach it to the case (as you will see in one of the pictures), this allowed me to install the hdd where that would normally go (i.e. enough space to do so now). The cathodes are barely visible but are at the top and on the right side. Also due to popular demand, I replaced the cpu cooler with another exactly the same one, modified the 775 adaptor so I could shift it half a centimetre to right so I´d be able to rotate the cooler to a possition where the heatpipes are pointing up and down as opposed to the side so it doesn´t prevent me from installing both modules of ram:























Now I just have to mount the screen, make sure it works and I can take some sweet final pictures, all done by tomorrow at around 6-7pm gmt+1 in order to meet the one week challenge.

Thanks for reading!

//////////

Update

Project is now completed however I have ran in to a problem with the mounted screen, it doesn´t seem to be getting power, I´ve checked the usual culprits to no avail and I dont currently own a voltimetre which is unconveniente. Going to dismantle the screen´s hw and test it on a wooden bench, maybe it´s shorting out. Because I want the final picks to show an image I will wait to upload them till I get this fixed between today and monday.

------------------------------------------

Update:

Fixed the screen, one of the cables must´ve cought somewhere and was damaged, severing the link between the screen´s psu and the lcd panel. So I cut that section off and soldered new cable to both ends, works fine now. Took me hours of looking and trying stuff till I saw the small brake in the cable and of course later I had to put it all togueter in the case again.

Aniway, I´m knakered and now I have to go some event to be social which I don´t really feel like but promised I would so... Aniway, I will set it all up for a shoot tomorrow to get a nice gallery of final pictures.

//////////

Final Pictures - Set 1

Hi everyone!

Right, as promised, here is a first set of the final pictures. I say first set because I´m not happy with them, light conditions, the need to use flash and reflections on the case by nearby windows, the table (that was a dumb idea) and so on, make the project look different, they make it look shiny (which is not), they distort the colors, you can barely see the green glow, etc

The point is, because I´m out of time right now I give you these just as a preview of some nicer final pictures which I will take at the modding event starting tuesday. Regardless, I hope you enjoy them : )



















That´s it for now, I´m going to get it ready (install the OS, drivers, and so on, and pack it so it´s ready for tuesday. Once that´s out of the way I will start the final stage on Project: AIO AL and Project: Diabolo in the hopes of having them ready for tuesday as well.

This concludes the "Mod in a Week" challenge (for the second time, anyone remember my first one or has it been forgotten already? ) and I hope you enjoyed reading and watching as much as I did doing it.

Thanks for reading!

//

just thought I´d add that Fallout Cause SP won 1st price at the Future Arena Modding competition (casemod section)



//

As promised, set 2 of the final pictures, the ones I consider the true final pictures. As you´ll notice there´s a fan on the cpu cooler, this is because I have just gotten back from the modding event and because it was on 24h for 6 days, I didnt feel comftable leaving it with no cooling whatsoever being on for such a long time.

Thank you everyone for reading and I can now trully say this project is completed, enjoy:

Post 15
Hi Guys,
I tried my best, I´m sure you all know from my hectic updates these last almost 3 weeks that I´ve been working every second I get free on the project. Unfortunately it was not enough. The reason for starting so late was waiting for parts to arrive and basically financially being able to buy all the materials, paints, etc I needed to make this truelly unique.
The fact is I´m about 1-3 days short worth of work on detailing, fixing some last minute issues (that always pop up) and so on to be happy with the final result.
That said, I have made it as presentable as posible to be able to participate in the competition I started this for.
As you can see some parts are missing like the wood trimmings (that´s what those holes in the metal are for), some modifications to make everything fit better, and a few other things, also theres 2 very small leaks on 2 different fittings on the radiator side of the case which I need to fix.
And a long list of "small things to do".
Goes without saying I am finishing the project, but since the hectic deadline is now over I will be taking my sweet time, and making sure everything is as perfect as my skills allow it to be.
Aniway, here are the pictures of how it looks right now.









Post 16
Hi Everyone,
After almost a year since I started the project, it is now Finished.
Since October I´ve been adding paint effects, ink effects, done some detail changes, added missing details and essentially obsessed over there damned thing. Following the original idea I did 2 casings, one for the psu and one for the gpus, unfortunately I just wasn´t happy with them, I felt they changed the overall look to much. I never wanted it to look clean as it simply doesn´t fit the post-apocalyptic style so in the end I opted for a rough way around it. The last 4 PSU connectors are bare and inked cabling for the GPUs. I´m sure quite a few of you would´ve proffered casings but I feel this way is what suits the style of the project best.
I also pretty much "coated" the whole thing with a mix of inks that took me a month to get right for a more old-n-gritty feel as while I was very happy with how the faux wood effect turned out, I felt it didn´t much the rest of the oxidized copper effects, this slight effect ink helps blend these two together and really make it look like it´s been around for a hundred years. If you compare these final pictures to the previous update pictures you´ll find you can´t exactly point why, but you´ll understand what I mean (or at least I hope you will )
I also realise there´s no SLI bridge, this is simply because I´ve misplaced mine and didn´t want to wait till I ordered a new one to make the final pictures as I didn´t feel it was that important and... I really needed to end this stage of my life.
APASF is the project I´ve always wanted to do ever since I started painting and modding and while there are somethings that NOW I may have done differently, I´m extremely happy with the final outcome, I´m also relieved it´s over, it's taken a huge toll on me and in the end, it was more of an obligation and obsession rather than something I enjoyed doing as sad as that may sound.
I´d like to thank my sponsors for being so patient with it as it´s taken 6 months more than I originally thought it would and of course for being there with me all the way.
Right, without further wait, here is the final shoot of APASF "A Post-Apocalyptic Steampunk Future".



















Thank you all for reading through this long worklog during what for me has been the hardest project I´ve ever done!
Until next time,
Luciel

Cheers Hikaru, all previous completed worklogs are now posted on here and about the job... it´s ok

Hi Everyone,

So I thought I´d share some of my older, completed proyects while you wait for new updates on the Crimson Server Desk Module proyect. Here´s another short and sweet one, it was a small pressent I did for my then partner for her birthday, enjoy!
 
Post 1

Hi Everyone,

I wasn´t planning on doing a worklog on this project as it was made as a pressent for the missus who loved her playstation 2 to play the tekken games but unfortunately it broke a few months back. So for her birthday I decided I would buy one and combine it with her other passion, corsets.

Now I´ve never owned a PS2 before nor have I opened one so I had to look it up and so on. Luckily I quickly found out that they are quite simple to take apart so that made my life easier. I also found out that the plastic they are made out is rather bad, and it was extremely hard to sand it down to get smooth edges. I´m not entirely happy with how the back window cut came out but I am extremely happy on how the final thing looked.

So here are 27 pictures from start to finish, most of them from the finish as I didn´t plan to do a worklog out of it, I hope you enjoy them, thanks for reading.

PS: The missus was delighted and loves her birthday pressie : )

Friday: Day 5 of 7
Bunch of problems today. Unfortunately neither the ASUS motherboard nor the CM PSU made it in time so I´m having to use alternative parts. Gigabyte had sponsored a motherboard for a different project so I contacted them and ask them if it´d be ok for me to use it with this project, they said sure so I went ahead with it and well, it seems to go hand in hand...


However I´m most likely going to have to shave off the mobo´s heatsink as it´s just a bit to tall to allow the rad to fit in the case. I do have a slimline rad which fits just fine but it seems to be leaking so I can´t trust it.
The PSU is more of a decision than an issue, I´ve got a brand new Corsair TX650 but I´m thinking it´s going to cut it short for a GTX560 Ti SLI setup, while I do have an NZXT HALE90 (850w) it´s going to be a pain as that´s within my main PC so it means taking the whole thing apart to get it out. So I decided for now to go with the Corsair, took it apart, and started to paint it.


Also started customizing the EK 360 rad.

So I´m going to take the chance to say thanks as all these products where either sponsored or winnings from previous project.
First of all, massive thanks to Gigabyte, I could have been in serious trouble if it wasn´t for you guys!

Thanks Corsair for the TX650!

Thanks Mayhems for the coolant!

a Special mention for Kingston. 2x 240Gb HyperX SSDs + 16Gb 1866Mhz DDR HyperX ram!

Thanks to Lamptron for the FC10!

So. I´ve now done all I can do before sticking all the HW in, so that´s what I´m doing on Day 6 and hell, if possible even finish this project on day 6, so you know, I can sleep on Sunday (that´d be nice).
Thanks for reading!
Saturday: Day 6 of 7
Though technically today is Sunday, I couldnt post yesterdays update as I had to source some parts from my everyday pc so I had no PC to post from.
I will reply to all comments on Monday evening when I´m setup at the Campus Party event (hopefully everything arrives in one piece, gulp.
Right so, more issues. The radiator was stuffed, leaking and while fixable I didn´t have the time and I had to bring my PC to the workshop aniway so figured I´d just use its rad instead. So, sourced the radiator from the main pc, cpu, ram and harddrives and the build went on, luckily from here on, only small fixable-on-the-spot issues where encounted.
Let the cabeling and tinkering begin!



Gave the final coat of copper to the PSU and lackered afterwards.


In it goes along with the rest of the parts.




Fingers crossed for a problem-free boot...


Success!!!! It even recognised my raid array from my previous setup (different mobo)! All hdds, ssds and devices detected.
And that´s it for day 6, join me on the final day!
Sunday: Day 7 of 7
Final day!
Today I finished it all up. There will be a second set of pictures from the CP event but here´s the first set. It goes without saying had it not been a time limited edition, I would´ve done a lot more detailing and precision work but, well all things considered and a few faults aside, I´m really glad on how it turned out.
So, I give you, Mod in a Week: "APASF: CP London Edition".

With special thanks to:











And that´s the end of the project. I hope you have enjoyed following it. I will post an updated as mentioned tomorrow (Monday) evening if all arrives well.
Now, to bed!
<center>FINAL PICTURES SET 2 - Campus Party Europe London O2 Arena:</center>
While I´m waiting for a bunch of people to email me photos, here´s a selection of what I currently have, you´ll even recognise the original APASF on the screen as I was talking about sponsorships and how it affects companies in terms of publicity, value for money, etc. You may also recognise a certain Hans (pOpE) and Anthony Leather (Combatus) who where fantastic to meet in person! All in all I think it´s safe to say we all had a blast at the event!

Friday: Day 5 of 7
Bunch of problems today. Unfortunately neither the ASUS motherboard nor the CM PSU made it in time so I´m having to use alternative parts. Gigabyte had sponsored a motherboard for a different project so I contacted them and ask them if it´d be ok for me to use it with this project, they said sure so I went ahead with it and well, it seems to go hand in hand...


However I´m most likely going to have to shave off the mobo´s heatsink as it´s just a bit to tall to allow the rad to fit in the case. I do have a slimline rad which fits just fine but it seems to be leaking so I can´t trust it.
The PSU is more of a decision than an issue, I´ve got a brand new Corsair TX650 but I´m thinking it´s going to cut it short for a GTX560 Ti SLI setup, while I do have an NZXT HALE90 (850w) it´s going to be a pain as that´s within my main PC so it means taking the whole thing apart to get it out. So I decided for now to go with the Corsair, took it apart, and started to paint it.


Also started customizing the EK 360 rad.

So I´m going to take the chance to say thanks as all these products where either sponsored or winnings from previous project.
First of all, massive thanks to Gigabyte, I could have been in serious trouble if it wasn´t for you guys!

Thanks Corsair for the TX650!

Thanks Mayhems for the coolant!

a Special mention for Kingston. 2x 240Gb HyperX SSDs + 16Gb 1866Mhz DDR HyperX ram!

Thanks to Lamptron for the FC10!

So. I´ve now done all I can do before sticking all the HW in, so that´s what I´m doing on Day 6 and hell, if possible even finish this project on day 6, so you know, I can sleep on Sunday (that´d be nice).
Thanks for reading!
Saturday: Day 6 of 7
Though technically today is Sunday, I couldnt post yesterdays update as I had to source some parts from my everyday pc so I had no PC to post from.
I will reply to all comments on Monday evening when I´m setup at the Campus Party event (hopefully everything arrives in one piece, gulp.
Right so, more issues. The radiator was stuffed, leaking and while fixable I didn´t have the time and I had to bring my PC to the workshop aniway so figured I´d just use its rad instead. So, sourced the radiator from the main pc, cpu, ram and harddrives and the build went on, luckily from here on, only small fixable-on-the-spot issues where encounted.
Let the cabeling and tinkering begin!



Gave the final coat of copper to the PSU and lackered afterwards.


In it goes along with the rest of the parts.




Fingers crossed for a problem-free boot...


Success!!!! It even recognised my raid array from my previous setup (different mobo)! All hdds, ssds and devices detected.
And that´s it for day 6, join me on the final day!
Sunday: Day 7 of 7
Final day!
Today I finished it all up. There will be a second set of pictures from the CP event but here´s the first set. It goes without saying had it not been a time limited edition, I would´ve done a lot more detailing and precision work but, well all things considered and a few faults aside, I´m really glad on how it turned out.
So, I give you, Mod in a Week: "APASF: CP London Edition".

With special thanks to:











And that´s the end of the project. I hope you have enjoyed following it. I will post an updated as mentioned tomorrow (Monday) evening if all arrives well.
Now, to bed!
<center>FINAL PICTURES SET 2 - Campus Party Europe London O2 Arena:</center>
While I´m waiting for a bunch of people to email me photos, here´s a selection of what I currently have, you´ll even recognise the original APASF on the screen as I was talking about sponsorships and how it affects companies in terms of publicity, value for money, etc. You may also recognise a certain Hans (pOpE) and Anthony Leather (Combatus) who where fantastic to meet in person! All in all I think it´s safe to say we all had a blast at the event!

Hi Everyone,
So I thought I´d share some of my older, completed proyects while you wait for new updates on the Crimson Server Desk Module project. This is the last one, the most recent completed project, and the same time, the Third "Mod in a Week" project. I was asked to give a few talks at the campus party europe in London, Uk last September (2013), unfortunately the APASF project just isn´t sturdy enough for that kind of travelling and it had been since December 2011 that I hadn´t done a new Mod in a Week project so I thought I´d do a "Mod in a Week" take on the APASF project, it was seriously cutting it short in time though, enjoy the read!
Hi Everyone,
So I have a few projects in the cooking stages which I mostly work on when I get time to do so. That said, I will be going to the Campus Party Europe 2013 in the O2 Arena in London and I haven´t made a mod in a week project since Fallout Cause SP back at the end of 2011. I´ve just come out of an awfull illness based weekend and 7 days from now I´ll be flying to the UK to the campus, to give a couple of speeches, do some work at the modding workshop and generally have a great time and hopefully meet a bunch of you.
So it seems like the perfect time to go about doing one of these Mod in a Week projects, to be specific, a version of my latest main project APASF which got MOTM here on bit-tech last June-July (don´t exactly remember right now) and featured in the CustomPC so it seemed appropiate.
Because I need to keep it relatively simple in order to be able to start today and complete it within a week, I have to throw all major modifications out the window but this does not mean lack of detailing.
For any of you that have followed my previous Mod in a Week projects, this is how it works. I start today and go on through 7 days, posting one or more updates per day on here, suggestions are VERY welcomed but have in mind that anything suggested has to be something doable within the timeframe.
In terms of help, my friends from ASUS Ibérica (Ibérica = Spain & Portugal) are helping out with whatever they have avaliable at the time, as this has been a very last minute thing, which is a Maximus V Gene-Z (which is not ideal for a fulll sized case but it´s still an awesome piece of kit) and the cool guys from Cooler Master are helping out with a PSU (no idea which yet), originally I planned to use a CM 690 II Black & White edition which they where also going to help with, unfortunately due to time limitations, they can´t get one in time so I managed to find a "normal" CM 690. I´ve decided on this case because it´s shape and features adapt very well to the design I have in mind.
-----------------------------
END OF PROJECT EDIT:
-----------------------------
Unfortunately products from ASUS and CM did not arrive in time and when the asus motherboard came I had to send it back due to being damaged on arrival (what is going on with delivery services around here!?).
Instead, I used products sponsored to other projects or won in contests while making sure it was ok to do so.
So! Thanks Gigabyte for the Z77X-UP7!

Thanks Kingston for the SSDs and RAM!

Thanks Corsair for the TX650-M PSU!

Thanks Lamptron for the FC10 SE!

Thanks Mayhems for the 2Ltr bottles of pastel white and the dyes!

And Special thanks to ASUS and Cooler Master for trying to get the products to me in time, no matter what!


-----------------------------
END OF PROJECT EDIT:
-----------------------------
Right so, wish me luck! The project starts NOW and will finish with final pictures at the Campus Party Europe event in a weeks time. I will be posting updates later on today (I´m now off to buy paints and supplies).
Monday: Day 1 of 7
Ok so I´ve spent most of the day going through a selectiong of DIY, and random accesories shops scouting potential parts, details, etc just as I did with the original APASF project. Remember while this has a Steampunk basis, it also has a touch of post-apocalyptic (APASF: A Post-Apocalyptic Steampunk Future) so, anything I find I have to be able to make it look really old and thrown about.
Of course I also went to my usual paint supplies store and bought all I needed. All in all, around 5 hours where spent doing all this.
Once I got home, I found the first catastrophic event. Something that´s happened to all of us at one point or another, the delivery "service" throwing our packages about, which in this case meant a damaged CM 690 II...








Unfortunately I do not have the time to send it back and get a replacement. Fortunately it´s only the removable faceplates and the "chrome" border that seems damaged as far as I can tell. The faceplates I do not care about as all 4 frontal bays will be occupied. The chrome border I´m thinking about a bit of epoxy, sanding down and they will be painted over aniway. Just glad it wasn´t as bad as it could´ve been!
So, not the best start huh?
Aniway. the rest of the evening I dedicated exclusively to one of the side panels. I will be adding a window of sorts so I had to cut those grills out, not fully though or it wouldn´t leave to much border at the top. So I got my dremel and started to "play" (Safety notice: please do not play with dremels! )




All cleaned up. It´s time for the vinyl. I couldn´t find the one I used on the original APASF project so found a close second, it´s quite darker but I do like that it´s not plain like the other one, it´s actually got a rugged surface which adds to the effect.
So, I cut up the right size and aplied it to the side panel:



Being a darker colour it doesn´t allow me to play as much as I´d like to with shades on my ageing effects but I got through the first stage of it which are the darker shades:







A couple more coats of the lighter effect inks need to be aplied to it before I´m happy with it but it´s starting to get that old, rugged wood look.
As a bit of a preview, here are some of the details I´ll be adding, pre-ageing of course (clean brass right now and we can´t have that).




And that´s it for the first of 7 days in this Mod in a Week project, I hope you keep on reading tomorrow!

Tuesday: Day 2 of 7
Most of today´s avaliable time I dedicated to pretty much sanding the case down. Normally on a new case that hasn´t got a glossy finish I wouldn´t bother to much about this but since a large portion of the case imitates copper in this design it needs to be as smooth as possible so this was needed. That however is boring so I´m going to show you the rest of what I did today.
I finished yesterday´s side panel (for now, still missing the window and a couple of details), as in, added the final lighter coats of the ageing process and attached the brass details to which I had also aplied the ageing.






Once that was fully dry I put it away safely for now (can´t afford any accidents!).
After all that (very) tedious sanding, cleaned it all up and aplied a good coat of primer to both the top section and the chasis.


Oh and, I fixed the damage caused by the shipping of the case! I like to think it came out quite well, time constraints and all considered.



And for the last 2 hours of today´s avaliable time, I aplied a few coats of the copper. It´s amazing how many more coats the chasis needs in comparison to the plastic bits, I actually ran out of paint, so, need to get some more tomorrow!



It goes without saying that the copper will be aged as well, can´t have none of that new shinyness here!
And that´s it for the second of 7 days in this Mod in a Week project, I hope you keep on reading tomorrow, now I need a shower, get something to eat and go to my "other" job
Wednesday: Day 3 of 7
Today was a late start. I got home from work at around 5am last night and between having something to eat, shower, etc I didn´t get to sleep till 6am. Obviously when my alarm was set to wake me up at 10am so I could continue with the project it was a bit of a "no f**ing way* so kept on sleeping for a couple of extra hours.
That said I think I´m doing good in terms of progress. So today I started with some of the bits and bobs, like the XSPC reservoir / D5 pump combo.

I aplied the vinyl...

...and did my thing

So, on the top of the case there´s a hotswap/dock bay that I´d though I´d give the treatment (mostly because I don´t want copper to be everywhere without wooden bits here and there).


I still have to aply the ageing process to the brass detail but, I quite like it!
Oh, I did go and buy extra copper paint, and the chasis took a grand total of 7 coats (7 COATS!!) to get a solid color on...





This is a bit of a drawback though as because of the amount of coats, it is going to take longer to be ready for matt lacquer which then has to dry itself (though that only takes about an hour) which means I can´t play with the barebone chassis till at least late tomorrow or even friday. Thankfully however there´s not much that needs to do be done to that, so really as long as that part is ready by the time I´m ready to put all the hardware in, it shouldn´t be an issue.
I also did some work on the frontal CM logo. Not sure if it´s obvious in the photos but I did slightly overlap the letter borders in order to exagerate them so they look "curvier", not sure if that makes sense? Also, as you will see, my "fix" didn´t hold I can´t say I´m surprised, the amount of epoxy left on it after sanding was minimal in order to keep the shape, so I´m thinking some superglue and of course the preassure of the bay components will keep it in place.





Oh and here´s something really special...




...and...


So yes, so far I think it´s been the most fun day of the 3 so far for me, though my hands are full of inks of several tones which are extremely hard to get rid off!
And well, that´s it for the third of the seven days of this Mod in a Week, as always I hope you´re enjoying keeping track of it and hope you come back for more tomorrow!
Thursday: Day 4 of 7
Had a bit of a misshap today and took a ton of process photos, once finished I realised there memory card wasn´t in the camara...
...so all photos are actually from the end of today but I´ll explain what I did aniway
My sister gave me a hand today with her epic caligraphy skills and finally paid tribute to the name.


Tomorrow we will do a few other writings under that and I can consider that sidepanel (aside from the window and its details) finished.
The other side panel however was finished today.





Remember yesterday I did the CM logo on the front? Well this is what it was in preparation for...


Did the wood detail on the usb and audio connections up top.

And finally I couldn´t resist putting it all togueter to see how it was going, have in mind there´s still a LOT to do in terms of detailing the case and effects but... I was shocked... just...wow. I´m in love! Also, you´ll notice there´s something different about the copper. I used a sponge to aply a darker tone of copper (though with a pearl effect) so the copper changes tones depending on the light as you can see by the pictures).





Well, that´s it for the fourth of the 7 days. The idea for tomorrow is to finish with the external look of the case. Do that DVD drive that will go in that open slot in the front and work on the hardware!
I´ve hoped you´ve enjoyed today´s update and that you come back for more tomorrow!

Post 15
Hi Guys,
I tried my best, I´m sure you all know from my hectic updates these last almost 3 weeks that I´ve been working every second I get free on the project. Unfortunately it was not enough. The reason for starting so late was waiting for parts to arrive and basically financially being able to buy all the materials, paints, etc I needed to make this truelly unique.
The fact is I´m about 1-3 days short worth of work on detailing, fixing some last minute issues (that always pop up) and so on to be happy with the final result.
That said, I have made it as presentable as posible to be able to participate in the competition I started this for.
As you can see some parts are missing like the wood trimmings (that´s what those holes in the metal are for), some modifications to make everything fit better, and a few other things, also theres 2 very small leaks on 2 different fittings on the radiator side of the case which I need to fix.
And a long list of "small things to do".
Goes without saying I am finishing the project, but since the hectic deadline is now over I will be taking my sweet time, and making sure everything is as perfect as my skills allow it to be.
Aniway, here are the pictures of how it looks right now.









Post 16
Hi Everyone,
After almost a year since I started the project, it is now Finished.
Since October I´ve been adding paint effects, ink effects, done some detail changes, added missing details and essentially obsessed over there damned thing. Following the original idea I did 2 casings, one for the psu and one for the gpus, unfortunately I just wasn´t happy with them, I felt they changed the overall look to much. I never wanted it to look clean as it simply doesn´t fit the post-apocalyptic style so in the end I opted for a rough way around it. The last 4 PSU connectors are bare and inked cabling for the GPUs. I´m sure quite a few of you would´ve proffered casings but I feel this way is what suits the style of the project best.
I also pretty much "coated" the whole thing with a mix of inks that took me a month to get right for a more old-n-gritty feel as while I was very happy with how the faux wood effect turned out, I felt it didn´t much the rest of the oxidized copper effects, this slight effect ink helps blend these two together and really make it look like it´s been around for a hundred years. If you compare these final pictures to the previous update pictures you´ll find you can´t exactly point why, but you´ll understand what I mean (or at least I hope you will )
I also realise there´s no SLI bridge, this is simply because I´ve misplaced mine and didn´t want to wait till I ordered a new one to make the final pictures as I didn´t feel it was that important and... I really needed to end this stage of my life.
APASF is the project I´ve always wanted to do ever since I started painting and modding and while there are somethings that NOW I may have done differently, I´m extremely happy with the final outcome, I´m also relieved it´s over, it's taken a huge toll on me and in the end, it was more of an obligation and obsession rather than something I enjoyed doing as sad as that may sound.
I´d like to thank my sponsors for being so patient with it as it´s taken 6 months more than I originally thought it would and of course for being there with me all the way.
Right, without further wait, here is the final shoot of APASF "A Post-Apocalyptic Steampunk Future".



















Thank you all for reading through this long worklog during what for me has been the hardest project I´ve ever done!
Until next time,
Luciel

I like it.