Hi all and welcome to project: Sparkle Purple!!


Originally, this project was going to be for myself. Then I heard news that my wife’s niece was getting married and I thought why not build them a computer…..Ya Know, something cool, reliable but convienant and child proof since they just had a lil baby girl.
They were married on 7/26/08. I heard it was a beautiful wedding although, I wasn’t able to attend. The color theme of the wedding was purple and white and it just so happened I was originally going to paint the case purple and metallic silver. I thought to myself….how cool!! :alien:

So, I’m going to paint the case white, purple, and metallic silver and incorporate their wedding theme with pictures and keep sakes from the ceremony.
I will share my designs and the direction I’m going with the mod in the upcoming updates.


Here are the system specs that I’ll be using:
Asus A8S-X SE (odd mobo had a very hard time finding drivers for this)
3GB of Kingston DDR2 ram
Seagate 500GB 7200rpm 32MB cache
AMD Athlon 2.4GHz CPU socket 939
XFX Geforce 8800 GS XXX Edition
Rosewill 550W PS
Samsung DVD RW w/lightscribe
Rosewill card reader
I haven’t choose a cpu cooler yet…still searching



The case I’ll be using is from an old HP Pav 8490 my father gave me after it bit the dust….. I was amazed at how much room the case has….lots of potential!!!!!


Here are some shots of the case.








Well it’s time to get to work….

Hey!! Hey!!!

I got some extra time this morning before work and deceided to go ahead and make some progress on project Purple Sparkel....



Video 1




Video 2

Working on this mod has been very fun and interesting. I have my ideas mapped out in my mind and it looks like everything’s turning into an actual design.

In order to fix my fan problems I’m going to mod the 5.25 drive bay. The plan it to cut the 3.5 chasis out and place a mesh bottom to connect the 5.25 halfs together.
The mesh will allow air to cool the harddrive as it flows over the mesh.



Used dremel to separate 3.5 from 5.25


Everything apart


I still have to cut out the mesh and piece everything together…
So until, I do that I moved on to my next mod of the case….placing mesh in front of the fan holes in order to keep little fingers from poking in those bad bad fan blades and also cutting a hole in the rear for a exhaust 120mm fan.


So we start out with a mock up of where the rear fan will be placed


Marked the fan holes and marked where I wanted the holes for to mount the front mesh



Here is where I plan to make 3 holes for wire management



Now with everything marked I used a 1/8 drill bit to punch some holes and used a ¼ bit to make the holes for the 120mm fans….plan to use fan grommets to reduce noise.






Well that’s it for now. I going to get back on it this weekend and try to get some things accomplished….

And here we go into the workshop!!!

Went to the Home depot to get some cutting oil and a 2” hole saw to make my mobo tray holes.



I cut 3 holes to make sure I have enough spots for wire management




Here the modders mesh that’s going to be used for the front and 5.25 bay bottom…compliments of Bill @ http://www.mnpctech.com




Holes marked to attach mesh to front panel

Holes cut out with dremel



Next, time to install the mesh. I’m using aluminum 1/8 rivets with aluminum 1/8 washers. And for the 5.25 bays I’ll be using aluminum 3/16 rivets.



After some tough work with the rivet hand gun and re-cutting some of the mesh…got it done!!


Here’s some shot with the cover on.






Here I just used my cordless drill to punch some 1/8 holes in the 5.25 drive bay for the mesh...
*note using cutting oil really makes it easy went drilling older cases*


………………



Now with the 5.25 bay done all that was next to do was to install it.


So, now the case is finally ready to be sent be power coated!!!

That's cool custom!! I got a few case from my job also. Just having those cases around have given my tons of ideas for cases. Good luck with those cases.



Small update!!!
Finally, I’m getting to the side and top panels of this project.

Man! Look at the rust on the inside of the case panels


Very bad, gonna have to clean that up.



After a discussion with the guys at CYA powder-coating, I realized that the digital frame will generate heat…I’m not sure how much but probably, a good deal of heat.
Thus, I’m going to add 2 more 120mm fans for a total of 4 120mm intake fans which should allow more cooling for the entire case. Also, I may incorporate some mesh holes on the mobo panel side to also, help relieve some heat.


Anyhow, I made the designs for the cuts.


First cuts

Finished



After some filling and sanding I applied some primer and then did some painting.
Sorry no pics yet.
But, I’m saving the finished paint job as a surprise!!!

I’ve got some more work to do but, that will come later…

Nice start Bishop. Not sure if you had posted this one else where, it's the first time I've seen it. Looks good man!

sweet. anxious to see the cooling on that. was thinking of using 4 120mm in my next mod... maybe i'll wait and see how your does

Looking good there mate

Yeah, that sounds like a good idea, I'd say go for it bro!!

Alright!!! Here's a quick update.

I got the case back from being powder coated via cyapowdercoating

Here a some pics












It came out great...So good that I'm thinking about keeping the case for myself
It's funny cause I think that I may just do that...and water cool the case using a single or double loop system...it's just a thought but, this thought may become the actual mod. Also, I've always wanted to do a water cooled system. My only problem is that I'd like to but a 240 Black Ice rad in the front but, it may be too tall to fit.

We'll see what happens