Jump to content

Vinyl-wrapping my H440

Vinyl-wrapping my white NZXT H440

 

 

I haven´t really found anything about vinyl wrapping on this forum. So I thought I´d post this, maybe it helps some of you or gives inspiration. I just wrote this stuff down out of my mind, sorry if it´s in a weird order.

 

So last week i collected some ideas out of my mind to execute on the weekend. One of which was to vinyl-wrap my pc case. 1 year ago i built a custom pc along with the NZXT H440 to showcase my interior. Though, i got bored of the looks.
I have watched a lot of car-wrapping videos and stuff recently so i thought it would be awesome to do this with a PC case. Luckily, the H440 is a fairly simple case with plain, clean panels. So i went ahead and searched around on amazon for
vinyl-wraps.


Material choice:

I didn´t want to spend too much money on something that i may fail at/i dont like, so i didnt choose some high-quality stuff like the popular 3M DI-NOC. I went for a relatively cheap black-carbon wrap with good reviews.
After 2 days the (tall) package arrived and in addition to that i had picked up a scalpel for doing precise cuts (5 bucks). The materal is pretty thin, but cool looking. The surface is riffled, but there are no actual "fibres", which is expected at this price.
It has some smell to it, though, the smell faded after few hours :) So overall this wrap seems pretty okay!


First steps/practice:


To be able to work properly, some equipment is needed. So i grabbed a

- hairdryer
- scalpel
- ruler (not mandatory)
- squegee (with soft material)
- damp cleaning cloth


I´ve never worked with vinyl wrap before so it´s a good idea to practice first, before messing up a whole lot of wrap. So i grabed a Zowie FK1 and tried to wrap it. I cut a piece of the size of the mouse + some extra material for curves and stuff.
You dont want to have like 0.5 cm of missing material. And thats even worse on the big side panels of the H440. Bigger is better in this case. I worked along the mouse1 & mouse2 buttons until i reached the large curverture at the end. This was by far the most difficult part
(maybe a mouse is not the best example to begin with in the first place) and i had to head up and stretch the material quite a bit. The streching and heating caused the pattern to strain, so be careful not to heat up the material too much. Eventually it kinda worked out so i took the knife and cut, beginning at the mouse1 & 2 buttons again. The lines of the body were easy to see so i just squeezed the knife inbetween the gap and cut along the line.
But it became more and more difficult as i moved on to the curve of the mouse, ending up missing the gap and cutting at the wrong place (i´m a terribly impatient person) (which doesn´t really matter, because the matt coating of the mouse came off already anyways). So I removed the wrap completely.

I looked around for a new volunteer for my devilish experiments. My eyes aimed straight at the Nexus 5 chillin´around there. So i removed the back with a guitarpick-like tool, cleaned the back and began applying
the wrap. With the scalpel, i was able to remove the unnecessary protruding material easily. The most difficult part was the camera/flash cutout, i´d say.


Things i have noticed:

- Don´t overhead the material, it gets pretty soft
- You get cleaner edges, when you stretch the material all the way around to the other side
- DONT use your fingernail to squeeze out airbubbles or anything else, it will damage the wrap

Wrapping the H440:

My PC stands with the right sidepanel towards the wall, so minor flaws wont be that apparent when doing it the first time with the right sidepanel. I removed it, cleaned it and then cut a piece of the size of the panel + again, extra material (about 3 cm on each side).
I removed the Paperlayer and placed the wrap on the table, with the sticky side facing up (which was a major mistake!). Following i placed the panel onto the wrap carefully...aaand there were wrinkles all over the place. Luckily I was able to remove the wrap without any damage. So I tried
it the other way around. I partially applyed the wrap and removed the airbubbles with the squegee right away. Otherwise you would have to reapply the skin or make a little whole with a needle later on for the air to escape. Now, i had to make the edges right. I removed the extra material, until there was around
0.5 - 1 cm of extra material on each side left. Then, i used the hairdryer to bend the material around the edges to the other side. As i worked my way around, i always paid attention to straighten the wrap out propberly (not too strong). On the panel, the handle was defenitely the most callanging part. It is curved and edgy, having
to heat up the materal lots of times and straighten out the material using the squeegee. Though, the wrap didn´t completely stick to the edge (see pic). But, it was done. the first panel and the look was pretty cool tbh.

The next three panels were the more difficult parts. The left sidepanel having the acryl-window and the other to having 90° curves as well as front I/O. I also had to separate the plsatic part from the top and front panel to be able to wrap around the edges properly.

Here are some problems i faced:

- small wholes for the front I/O
- Round corners/curves

Solutions/Tips:

- For small wholes, cut alot of slices in the material and squeeze a pencil or something similar through the whole. Then you can bend the slices around and stick it to the back.
- Again, slice the wrap to about ~0.2 cm away from the material and then stretch it around the corner/curve.

 

PICS:

IMG 20151030 110638

IMG 20151030 110506

IMG 20151030 110501

IMG 20151030 110417

IMG 20151030 110408

IMG 20151030 110320

IMG 20151030 110316

IMG 20151030 110247

IMG 20151030 110233

IMG 20151031 135620

 

(i hope this spiler thingy works. Blame my Note 2 for potato-pics :c)

Conclusion:

Summing up, it was surprisingly easy to do, but with a timestamp of ~8h it´s a bit timeconsuming. Take your time! I did breaks, when i noticed that i was getting impatient. The result mostly satisfies me (well, the NZXT. lettering is not TAHT clean) and i´m planning to buy white wrap to skin the interior (SSD, ...), so i can call that build Oreo. However, thanks for reading
this long, happy-ending story and feel free to ask me any question as well as pointing out any grammatical flaws (not a native speaker ._.).

 

tl;dr: 

It´s cool.

 

Update:

 

I got myself some white wrap and just finished wrapping some parts. I´ll post some additional pics, when i´m finished painting my GPU.

Quote

 

Fanboys, on both sides, are quite embarrassing. How can one be a "fan" of a company? A companies only goal is to make a profit off you. Instead of being a smart consumer and base your purchase decision on the best price / performance you choose to dick yourself over by only considering brand X. Idiotic loss to be honest.

~Quibiss

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

That is the coolest thing I have seen in months!

Main Gaming Rig:

Spoiler

Core i7-4770, Cryorig M9i Cooler, ASUS B85M GAMER, 8GB HyperX Fury Red 2x4GB 1866MHz, KFA2 GTX 970 Infin8 Black Edition "4GB", 1TB Seagate SSHD, 256GB Crucial m4 SSD, 60GB Corsair SSD for Kerbal and game servers, Thermaltake Core V21 Case, EVGA SuperNOVA 650W G2.

Secondary PC:

Spoiler

i5-2500k OCed, Raijintek Themis, Intel Z77GA-70K, 8GB HyperX Genesis in grey, GTX 750 Ti, Gamemax Falcon case.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Coolest thing I've seen in a while. Good job!

I used to be quite active here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

never seen it done on a case, remember a few months back when KSI's lambo was wrapped they did it the same way, and it looked really cool. Very interested to see the finished case 

 

edit, just the found the photos :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

That is the coolest thing I have seen in months!

 

 

baller

 

Thanks :)

Quote

 

Fanboys, on both sides, are quite embarrassing. How can one be a "fan" of a company? A companies only goal is to make a profit off you. Instead of being a smart consumer and base your purchase decision on the best price / performance you choose to dick yourself over by only considering brand X. Idiotic loss to be honest.

~Quibiss

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

never seen it done on a case, remember a few months back when KSI's lambo was wrapped they did it the same way, and it looked really cool. Very interested to see the finished case 

 

edit, just the found the photos :D

 

Haha I saw that vid. No Lambo for me though :( But thanks :3

Quote

 

Fanboys, on both sides, are quite embarrassing. How can one be a "fan" of a company? A companies only goal is to make a profit off you. Instead of being a smart consumer and base your purchase decision on the best price / performance you choose to dick yourself over by only considering brand X. Idiotic loss to be honest.

~Quibiss

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Here more on vinyl wrapping: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/407754-modding-faq-common-mods/

 

And very nice job looks slick. ;)

 

Ah thanks! I didn´t know there was a section for wrapping in your guide. I´ll consider this for my next project, when vinyl-wrapping is needed :)

Quote

 

Fanboys, on both sides, are quite embarrassing. How can one be a "fan" of a company? A companies only goal is to make a profit off you. Instead of being a smart consumer and base your purchase decision on the best price / performance you choose to dick yourself over by only considering brand X. Idiotic loss to be honest.

~Quibiss

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

>2000x1600

>potato pic

Surry m9. Better pics are following.
Quote

 

Fanboys, on both sides, are quite embarrassing. How can one be a "fan" of a company? A companies only goal is to make a profit off you. Instead of being a smart consumer and base your purchase decision on the best price / performance you choose to dick yourself over by only considering brand X. Idiotic loss to be honest.

~Quibiss

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Update-Time!

 

So it took a bit longer than i expected, because i messed up the first plasti dip layers on my GPU, following i had to remove the entire coat and re-do everything. Aaand on the sencond try i ran out of paint...so i had to order new plasti dip. 

I also did wrap the black bar on the bottom with the NZXT.-lettering on it as well as my SSD (I borrowed that idea from @Enderman :P). I also added some UV-lighting from Phobia. Here are the final shots of my build OREO:

 


IMG 20151107 124900


My isolated vacuum spray-chamber

IMG 20151108 115420


IMG 20151108 120957


Custom Nicki V screwdriver

IMG 20151108 115450


IMG 20151108 120300


IMG 20151108 123927


IMG 1352


IMG 1353


IMG 1360


IMG 1362


IMG 1364


IMG 1366


IMG 1369


IMG 1371


IMG 1375


IMG 1378



Quote

 

Fanboys, on both sides, are quite embarrassing. How can one be a "fan" of a company? A companies only goal is to make a profit off you. Instead of being a smart consumer and base your purchase decision on the best price / performance you choose to dick yourself over by only considering brand X. Idiotic loss to be honest.

~Quibiss

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Wow the case looks super clean and sexy now. Almost like watching porn.

I am considering doing the same with an Enthoo Pro M.

But if I were you, what I would do is find a white decal, to place on the other side panel. Cause on the window panel you have the NZXT. in white, so it would be only fair to do something like that on the other side panel as well.

:P

Looks amazing!!!!

Code-name Nyx: R7-3800X w/ Scythe Fuma 2 Rev. B | Sapphire RX 5600XT | Gigabyte B550i Aorus Pro AX | Patriot Viper 4 Blackout | 3TB NVMe Storage| Cooler Master NR200 | Kubuntu/Windows 11 | Xiaomi Mi Curved 34" | Keebwerk Mega | Logitech G602 | Audio Technica ATH-M40X| Edifier e25 Luna
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

-snip-

 

Haha thanks man, appreciated. As long as you can disassemble your case/panels properly, do it, go for it! You could post your link here, if you´re going to do a log thingy (i´d be interested). I thought about leaving both side-panels blank white or even sticker-bomb them, but i think i´ll just leave it like that for a while. Getting white accents on that right side-panel is a lower priority thing, as i can´t really see it, when the pc is standing right next to the wall. Maybe i´ll add some stickers i have left over of my brothers EVGA 970 FTW :)

Quote

 

Fanboys, on both sides, are quite embarrassing. How can one be a "fan" of a company? A companies only goal is to make a profit off you. Instead of being a smart consumer and base your purchase decision on the best price / performance you choose to dick yourself over by only considering brand X. Idiotic loss to be honest.

~Quibiss

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

-Cut-

Oh man, sticker bombing would be super cool!!! You could leave the case white, and sticker bomb only the front panel, since it is a single piece of plastic. That would look amazing, but don't overdo it. If you sticker bomb the whole case, it will be too overwhelming.

I'm thinking about buying a sticker, and placing it on the right side panel, next to the window(because the window on the Enthoo Pro M is towards the back), or else, buying a second windowed panel, cutting it and replacing it with a huge window, so I can show off all the internals.

I'll follow this thread and let you know what I decide to do ;)

Code-name Nyx: R7-3800X w/ Scythe Fuma 2 Rev. B | Sapphire RX 5600XT | Gigabyte B550i Aorus Pro AX | Patriot Viper 4 Blackout | 3TB NVMe Storage| Cooler Master NR200 | Kubuntu/Windows 11 | Xiaomi Mi Curved 34" | Keebwerk Mega | Logitech G602 | Audio Technica ATH-M40X| Edifier e25 Luna
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

-dank snip-

 

Thats exactly my thought :D Setting accents by only sticker-bombing the front panel would look way better than doing it on the whole case. I´ll try to do some photoshop magic, so it´s easier to imagine. 

As long as you have enough space and maybe a garage with good tools + knowledge, this could defenitely turn out good. I´m liking those "illest" stickers, they look minimal and sleek ^^ (i want one for my car, one i got one). Also, have you ever thought about a PSU shroud?

Quote

 

Fanboys, on both sides, are quite embarrassing. How can one be a "fan" of a company? A companies only goal is to make a profit off you. Instead of being a smart consumer and base your purchase decision on the best price / performance you choose to dick yourself over by only considering brand X. Idiotic loss to be honest.

~Quibiss

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

-snip-

The Enthoo Pro M comes with a PSU shroud. Okay here's the list of stuff I want to do:

-Make an angled bracket (about 75 degrees leaning backwards) for my Samsung 850 evo SSD to showcase it, and mount the bracket onto the PSU shroud.

-Either a vinyl or else engrave onto the window indian Larry's question mark logo

   ( http://www.thunderpress.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/TPIMG_0229.jpg )

- Remove window side panel, cut huge piece of acrylic and mount acrylic to side panel with bolts (kinda like on Linus's personal rig).

-LED strip around the window, to showcase the internals.

And for the coolest mod of them all (I'm still working on it, and if I can pull it off I'll upload images and a how to guide):

-Buy a few temp sensors (2 pin.). Mount them onto the components, so you have one on for the CPU, one for the GPU (or if you have a SLI/crossfire config, one sensor on each GPU), one on the PSU and one on each hard drive ( I only have one). Then, buy a Raspberry Pi 2 model B, and make it a temp sensor. Buy the 7 inch monitor that connects to the Pi, and mount it to the inside of the case, (because the PC will be on the desk, and the new window shows the intire inside, it will be off to the side, next to the GPU), so that way, the little monitor shows the temps of the internals with a delay of about 1 sec. So on the screen you see something like this:

 

 

CPU:     45C  

GPU:     60C  

PSU:     52C   

HDD:     29C   

 

 

 

HOW AWESOME WOULD THAT BE?!?!?!?1

Code-name Nyx: R7-3800X w/ Scythe Fuma 2 Rev. B | Sapphire RX 5600XT | Gigabyte B550i Aorus Pro AX | Patriot Viper 4 Blackout | 3TB NVMe Storage| Cooler Master NR200 | Kubuntu/Windows 11 | Xiaomi Mi Curved 34" | Keebwerk Mega | Logitech G602 | Audio Technica ATH-M40X| Edifier e25 Luna
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

And I also want to put some stickers on the PSU, but not just any stickers. I found some that say "Caution! Radioactive materials inside".

Code-name Nyx: R7-3800X w/ Scythe Fuma 2 Rev. B | Sapphire RX 5600XT | Gigabyte B550i Aorus Pro AX | Patriot Viper 4 Blackout | 3TB NVMe Storage| Cooler Master NR200 | Kubuntu/Windows 11 | Xiaomi Mi Curved 34" | Keebwerk Mega | Logitech G602 | Audio Technica ATH-M40X| Edifier e25 Luna
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

And I also want to put some stickers on the PSU, but not just any stickers. I found some that say "Caution! Radioactive materials inside".

Damn, that is an good idea
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

It's hard to vinyl wrap my head around this.

Tip to those that are new on LTT forum- quote a post so that the person you are quoting gets a notification, otherwise they'll have no idea that you did. You can also use a tag such as @Ryoutarou97 (replace my username with anyone's. You should get a dropdown after you type the "@")to send a notification, but quoting is preferable.

 

Feel free to PM me about absolutely anything be it tech, math, literature, etc. I'll try my best to help. I'm currently looking for a cheap used build for around $25 to set up as a home server if anyone is selling.

 

If you are a native speaker please use proper English if you can. Punctuation, capitalization, and spelling are as important to making your message readable as proper night theme formatting is.

 

My build is fully operational, but won't be posted until after I get a GPU in it and the case arted up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

It's hard to vinyl wrap my head around this.

Well, what don't you understand?

Code-name Nyx: R7-3800X w/ Scythe Fuma 2 Rev. B | Sapphire RX 5600XT | Gigabyte B550i Aorus Pro AX | Patriot Viper 4 Blackout | 3TB NVMe Storage| Cooler Master NR200 | Kubuntu/Windows 11 | Xiaomi Mi Curved 34" | Keebwerk Mega | Logitech G602 | Audio Technica ATH-M40X| Edifier e25 Luna
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Damn, that is an good idea

I have to admit, the idea is something I saw Bill Owen (from mnpctech.com) do on a custom build he did.

I give him all the credit for this idea

Code-name Nyx: R7-3800X w/ Scythe Fuma 2 Rev. B | Sapphire RX 5600XT | Gigabyte B550i Aorus Pro AX | Patriot Viper 4 Blackout | 3TB NVMe Storage| Cooler Master NR200 | Kubuntu/Windows 11 | Xiaomi Mi Curved 34" | Keebwerk Mega | Logitech G602 | Audio Technica ATH-M40X| Edifier e25 Luna
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

AWESOME work .... your case looks amazing

i5 4670k @4.2ghz / MSI Z87 G45 / EVGA GTX 960 SSC / Samsung  840 EVo SSD / WD Green 1tb HDD / Corsair H75 / Corsair Obsidian 750D / Corsair CS750M

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

-

 

Ok didn´t know that the Enthoo Pro M comes with a PSU-shroud :c. That´s nice. What colorscheme do you have in your system? I think the angeled SSD-mount would look dope, but keep in mind that you have to route the cables accordingly (Cablemanagement is everything :P).

 

Regarding your Temp-monitoring idea: Can you see the white frame mounted on the wall in one of the pictures posted? Well, that a 7inch 1024x600 screen hooked up to a Raspberry Pi (running kodi atm). My initial idea was to monitor teamspeak that way, but it didn´t quite turn out like i wanted. I just want the TS window with big text and stuff but scaling wasn´t to my favour. Aaand i didn´t really know where to but the screen. Maybe i just need to tinker around with it more, however your idea is way cooler :D Not easy to do though. Also, embedding the screen in the actual table would be awesome as hell! 

Quote

 

Fanboys, on both sides, are quite embarrassing. How can one be a "fan" of a company? A companies only goal is to make a profit off you. Instead of being a smart consumer and base your purchase decision on the best price / performance you choose to dick yourself over by only considering brand X. Idiotic loss to be honest.

~Quibiss

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×