Older build but wanted to share it here

[MrWizard1974]

Hi all. This is a older build I did back in the beginning of 2012. It is still my current rig unchanged and still running strong

The first part is a guide for the mod I did to the front of my Switch 810 so here goes.

Lets start out with the tools i used

*Dremel tool with router base attachment and spiral cutting bit

*#2 phillips head screwdriver

*Power Drill with 3/16''-4.7625mm and 1/4''-6.3500mm drill bits

*Quick clamps

*Utility knife

*Tape Measure

*Hammer

*Pen and mechanical pencil

*Right Left and Straight cut snips

*Painters tape or frog tape. (NOT! masking tape. To hard to remove)

*Emery board <-- not as aggressive on plastic as a file

*Soldering iron. Solder

*Heat gun

*Any wood saw i use a 10" power miter saw but any saw will do



Now the fun begins.

First take off the front pannel. Lay it on its face and remove the screws that hold it together.

Use the painters tape and tape the whole thing off.



Time to make the Jig

For the next step i use a piece of (sheetrock/drywall/wallboard) as ase a base for the jig

Why draywall you may ask? Well drywall is easy to cut, drill, and Dremel. Also it is very smooth and flat plus i have a bunch laying around being a building contractor. Did i mention it is dirt cheap. 7.00 USD for a 4x8 foot sheet.

Take the panel and put it face up on your piece of drywall

Press down firmly over all the posts that are touching the drywall. Carfull not to move the panel befor you press on All the posts. This will leave slight indentations in the drywall.




Mark the indentations with a pen or pencil so you can see them




Drill out the hols with the 3/16''-4.7625mm drill bit. You may need to hollow out the holes a bit to get all the post to fit in the holes. Now line up the post with the hols and and push the panel down untill its flush with the drywall




Now you will need a scrap piece of (3/4''-19mm) plywood about the same size as your drywall and some scrap pieces of wood to frame in the jig.

Cut some scrap wood strips to make a frame around the panel with 2mm of space all the way around. Now clamp the strips in place one at a time and screw then all the way through the drywall into the playwood. Once that is done you can remove the the clamps the screws will hold the wood strips in place. The jig is done.




Time for the Dremel HAHA. Make sure your router base is tightly screwed on and set your depth at (1/4''-6.3500mm). Turn the Dremel on the highest setting and plung into the panel a little towards the middle and move to your edge using the wood strips as your guide cut all the way around. Go slow and steady keeping the router base tight to the wood strips.




Unscrew all the wood strips and lift the panel from the drywall but DON'T take the tape off just yet. You will need the tape in place if you want to paint the edge you just cut

Now use the Emery board to clean up the inside edge of the panel. Once you have sanded any rough spots you can paint the thin inside edge. I used satin black Krylon spraypaint

Once your paint is dry you can remove the tape and start on the mesh.



The mesh.

I bought a 500mm x 500mm x 1mm sheet. I wanted smaller hole size to help with dust.

I used the painters tape to center on (12"304mm x 7 1/2''190mm). I used the holes as a guide and marked the tape with a pen then cut it out with my snips.




Once your mesh is cut you need to tape it to your drywall that has the holes in it from the panel making sure you have a even space on the top and the 2 sides. Now grab your drill with the 1/4''-6.3500mm drill bit and use the holes in the drywall as your guide and drill the mesh to mach the holes. You should have 7mm of mesh on the outside of the holes

Now before we start bending the mesh slip it on the panel and make sure the holes line up

if they don't just use your snips and adjust them to fit.

You will need to cut the angle. Remeber you need to keep 7mm on the outside of the holes for a bending tab. I use a piece of tape on the outside edge of the holes and marked 7mm

on the tape and cut it

Time for the bending.

This part is easy if you take your time and go slow. All i did was cut some strips of wood to length that fit on the inside where i needed to make the bend. I Clamped it down to the edge of my bench and slowly tapped the edge up with my hammer little by little woking side to side. This made perfect 90 degree angles




When you clamp the wood to the mesh and your work surface make sure you clamp on the 7th line of holes so when it bends you have 6 holes showing all the way around




Now that we have all 4 edges bent up give it a test fit.

(OPTIONAL)In this photo it also shows that i cut out the dust filter from the back of the panel.

For this step i just used the Dremel and buzed it out staying away from the edge and followed up with the emery board to make it straight and smooth




If all went well you are ready to paint the mesh.

Once it is dry you are ready to reassemble the parts and it should look like this




Now Lets light this bugger up.

I bought a 16' roll white self adhesive leds for $19.00 USD on amazon and went LED CRAZY!!

Hope this post works. If it does I will post the rest of the log
 

[LogicDeifying]

Wow I really want to see this build LED MANIA!

-Followed

[Giggitygoebbels]

Lol how did you do the LED Connector?

PS

@MrWizard the name...

[MrWizard1974]

Wow I really want to see this build LED MANIA!

-Followed

Cool I will post more of the build. It may look like a lot of LED's but the front panel really only reflects out of the bezel and not in the case.

 

Lol how did you do the LED Connector?

PS

@MrWizard the name...

The LED's are connected to a 3 pin female fan connection that is routed up to the fan controller so I can control brightness

Next I will post the fan controller mod so you can see how

[MrWizard1974]

Hello again. Since LogicDeifying  was kind enough to follow this build log I will post more.
 

Next step for me was my fan controller mod. I first tried the NZXT sentry mesh fan controller but it was not a Rheostat controller

and it made the LED's pulse like a strobe light when I tried to dim them. It also made all my fans have a loud clicking sound at lower rpms

This controller solved all my problems
 

It Has red and green LED's and they don't fit with my build so out they come


First step in this mod was to desolder  the LED's.

Now that all the LED's are removed its time to mod the faceplate of the controller.

Now I need to tape the front side so I can fill in the LED holes from the back




Just a little hot glue to fill the holes


Now some primer and paint to cover the LED holes. Once that was all dry all that's left was to reassemble

Presto a new white fan controller to match the rest of the case



Will post the roof mod next.

[TicTac]

Nice looks awesome nice mod!

[MrWizard1974]

Nice looks awesome nice mod!

Thanks a lot.

 

Now for the roof mod.

THE JIG!!!

 

That is the last of the case mods

 

Silly me. I forgot to post rig specs

 

*Case               NZXT Switch 810 obviously

 

*Mobo              MSI Big Bang Xpower II

 

*CPU                Intel Core i7-3820

 

*PSU                Corsair HX850

 

*Ram                2X CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 1600

 

*GPU                PowerColor Radeon HD 7950 3GB

 

*Storage           Mushkin Enhanced Chronos  120GB SSD

                         Western Digital WD Green 1TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb

 

*Cooling           CORSAIR H100

 

[Fonzie Scheme]

I like the step by step details. I wish I would have been more consistent with keeping track of my build. I started out with good intentions, then ended up being to lazy to take pictures of the different stages. The pictures I did take seemed to get worse as the build went along too.

[MrWizard1974]

I like the step by step details. I wish I would have been more consistent with keeping track of my build. I started out with good intentions, then ended up being to lazy to take pictures of the different stages. The pictures I did take seemed to get worse as the build went along too.

Thanks Fonzie. I normally don't do the step by step thing ether but I have posted this build on other forums and it was a request. I ended up taking the whole thing apart and showing a step by step for the front panel mod lol. Out of the 60+ builds I have done over the years for friends and family this is the first one I kept a real log of as this was my first X79 build it was kind of special to me

[Fonzie Scheme]

Never too late to start I guess.

[ChillKyle]

Nice. I do like your mods.

[MrWizard1974]

Never too late to start I guess.

Nope. If it makes you happy just do it. ;0)

 

Nice. I do like your mods.

Thanks a lot.

 

Well now is as good a time as any to show some of the finished pic's

 

　

　

 

[kentis96]

Sorry me but what kinda GPU do you have?

[QcDExtreme]

wow this kinda makes me wonder why NZXT did use that design for the stock case because that looks 1000x better then the default stuff

[Fonzie Scheme]

Looking good, the white heat-spreaders on the ram are a nice touch.

[MrWizard1974]

Sorry me but what kinda GPU do you have?

PowerColor Radeon HD 7950

 

wow this kinda makes me wonder why NZXT did use that design for the stock case because that looks 1000x better then the default stuff

Thanks. I agree. The main reason I did the front panel mod was the noise the fans made even at low rpm. The original screen / dust filter sat so close to the fans it made it sound like a wind tunnel + it also moves a lot more air now. The top panel mod was more function than form. My rig sits on the floor next to my desk and I have a bad habit of taking my coins out of my pocket at the end of the day and tossing it on the desk. Several times I have bumped the coins off my desk and they have ended up on top of my old rig. In short I didn't like the fact that it was so easy for stuff to get inside the case when the louvers were open

 

Looking good, the white heat-spreaders on the ram are a nice touch.

Yeah I was lucky to find them at the time of the build. I got the last 2 kits off Newegg and they fit the build perfect. 1600 @ 1.35v. I was going to buy 4 kits and fill all the slots but I'm glad they only had 2. I think it looks better with the spacing + 16gigs is still more than I need