PC Mod: Minecraft Creeper Case Build Log #4

Intro

Firstly, apologies its been a long time since I put up anything.
Since I am not a pro modder and don’t possess the skills that most avid modders have of being able to go from a conceptual drawing straight to a working on the final product in metal work, I figured that I would try mocking up my design and ideas first.
Having moved into my first home a couple of months I have an abundance of cardboard boxes, so I believe I can hack and coerce them to help me model my project.

Rallying the Soldiers

The first step was that I needed dimensions from the items that I knew I would be using in this build, so it was a case of digging into the chassis of my gaming rig so that I could measure up the size of the motherboard and a GTX 260. The PSU I would be using is currently in what is my HTPC so I decided to measure up one of the random, no-name ones that I had laying around.
So, armed with dimensions, a stanley knife, a measuring tape and a bit of wood I headed out to the garden to start slicing and dicing (hopefully not me!).

I got cracking by working out how best to maximise my usage of the cardboard. It worked out that the large square side is, give or take a centimeter the same size as the motherboard. So that was a quick decision.

Out of the material that you can see in the above picture, I managed to cut out shapes for the motherboard, the PSU and the graphics card.

So now that I had all the bits, it was time to start sticking them together. The motherboard was just left as is, the two pieces that were for the graphics card were taped together quickly. Now the PSU took a bit more effort. I had cut out 8 pieces for the PSU, I then used smaller pieces of card as a spacer to try and bulk up the stack to make it more like the actual PSU size.

So now I have the motherboard, graphics card and PSU modelled, the next task is a bit to represent the SSD/HDD, radiators and pump. Once they are made, then its on to making the actual chassis/framework that will be the case. Personally, it’s starting to come together slowly I think!
Take care, ciao for now!
cav3 d1v3r

PC Mod: Minecraft Creeper Case Build Log: #3

Introduction

This post is primarily a shopping list … there are still lots of blanks where I just haven’t thought of anything yet.

Parts

To summarise the PC specifications:

Component	Make and Model	Status
Motherboard	XFX 780i	Got
CPU	Intel - Q6600	Got
RAM	Corsair 8 GB	Got
GPU	XFX GTX 260	Got
Blu-Ray Drive	TBD	Not got
PSU	TBD	Not got
SSD	TBD	Not got
HDD	TBD	Not got
CPU Waterblock		Got
GPU Waterblock	TBD	To buy
Fixtures & Fittings	TBD	To buy
Tubing	Probably Tygon	To buy
Pump	Lanig D5	Got
Radiators	2 240mm radiators	Got 1

I'm not sure how I will mount the drives yet. Possibly some kind of permanent bracket on the back wall behind the creeper face that allows the drives to simply screw into that.

One thing I did see that was interesting with the Silverstone TF-03 Mini that I mentioned in my last post was that the motherboard is mounted diagonally across the case from front to back. That would be an interesting way of hiding components like a PSU, but then, with the mods I have in mind, I should be able to make PSU etc. look interesting so I then wouldn't want to be hiding it – we shall see!
Ciao for now!

PC Mod: Minecraft Creeper Case Build Log #2

Introduction

In my previous post, I talked about a concept idea I have for my first PC mod. This PC probably isn't going to be based on a brand-new PC, as I do have a lot of parts laying around that I could probably use to build this. My main gaming rig has an XFX 780i NVidia motherboard in it, as shown below:

My XFX 780i motherboard

And with the wicked green colour theme I think that would look great in the case. Although, the board is very black, ideally I’d want a good 50% to be green. But we shall see how things go. I’m still a way off fitting things.

3D Model

I've managed to convert my very primitive drawing into a 3D mock up, which I think looks half decent, although I will admit my Sketch-Up-Fu skills are sincerely lacking (I can't even remember how to make a curved pipe!!), but I think it gets the point and general idea across right?


 

So what we can see here is that the outer shell is going to be a tall oblong with a square horizontal profile. I did see a case made by Silverstone called the TF-03 Mini. It is very similar shape, the only problem is that it is design for Mini-ITX motherboards, all my motherboards are ATX (especially the 780i shown above). My big challenge internally is where to put the PSU. Initially my thoughts were to put it “up top” as shown in the picture behind the creeper face, but I’m thinking I might be able to keep it low and try and make it look like a stack of TNT somehow.

The water-cooling piping – that is going to try to be the guts of the creeper so I’m torn between green piping or clear with green coolant. Especially if I can get UV reactive  that would look good. I want to fully water cool the whole thing the CPU and the GPU. If it is possible to get water blocks for the motherboard that would look really good.

I’ve almost got myself convinced that I will have to make custom length cables, certainly if I want to try and keep them hidden.

Whilst reading my favourite PC site (www.custompc.co.uk) I came across a review for the Silverstone TF-03 Mini (http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cases/2012/09/28/silverstone-ft03-mini-review/1) and whilst reading it I came across a very inspiring image for the design of my case, I stole it from the review:

Silverstone TF-03 Mini case

Seeing this seems like a logical design for my case. My idea is to keep it simple and just use thumbscrews that are colour matched so that they blend in well and the great thing is that it will mean that each panel can come off independently of the others I think for neatness the front panel should be held in place by the side panels. So my idea is that the thumb screw of the side panels would first go through the side panel, then through a lip of the front panel before finally screwing into some framework.

I had wondered whether building up a framework would be needed, but it seems like the only logical design – how else do you really give good support to the motherboard for instance?

Right, thats all for now folks
Ciao for now!

PC Mod: Minecraft Creeper Case Build Log #1

Background and Inspiration

I'm a lucky guy to have an amazing girlfriend, but one of the many things that makes her amazing is that she is a GAMER! How often do you find women into games eh? It’s awesome! One of the many games that she loves to play (and got me into) is Minecraft. The inspiration for this build came from one of the enemies (mobs) in the game called a Creeper:

Minecraft Creeper

Apparently the creeper came from a design of a cow that went wrong! So I want to build a PC for my lovely girlfriend that will be designed to look like a creeper.

Whilst the inspiration for the PC came from Minecraft, the actual “need” for a PC came about with my girlfriend. She has always been a modest gamer, but she uses a Mac. So I've had my heart set on getting her a PC for quite a while. I regularly read the project logs and see some amazing stuff being made, and I read the guides on Bit-Tech and they seem to make it look so easy to make decent looking work. So I thought I'd give it a go. So this is a confession that this is my first ever scratch built PC and mod, so I'm not expecting an amazing result compared to some of the regular modders on here, but hey, it will be a learning experience right?

Sponsorship

There are currently no sponsors at this stage, however this space has been reserved should any come forward.

The Plan ^TM

For now I'm coming up with some initial designs and sketches of how I want the PC to look. An afternoon of sketching whilst watching Toy Story 3 with my little brother has resulted in the following conceptual drawing:

Conceptual Drawing

As you can (or can't) see in the picture above, the idea is that the main body will be fairly square in cross-section and be reasonably tall. In order to make the “legs” of the creeper that you can see in the first picture, my idea is to use water-cooling radiators, one of the front and one on the back. That will give it the “bulk”.

There will be a “window” on the front that will allow you to see inside, the water-cooling piping will be either green, or filled with green coolant to make it look like the guts of the creeper.
There will be two “drives”, one Solid-State “boot drive” and a high capacity storage drive to hold the steam and origin (she likes the Sims too!) libraries.

The eye's of the creeper will have the Power and HDD activity lights (one per eye) and they will be red LED's. I was thinking red because red looks evil and horrible, and after all the creepers are wicked little buggers. Or maybe they should be green? I'm not sure yet. I'm thinking that the widest part of the mouth should be the “optical drive”. Not the type where the tray comes out, I'm thinking the kind where you slot the disc in and the drive “eats the disc”. For a bit of future proofing, I think this should be a Blu-Ray, but at the very least it needs to be a DVD drive. I think that the bottom of the mouth (either side) should be the on/off and reset switches (black to blend in as much as possible).

From the picture below, we can see that the internal anatomy of a creeper contains a significant amount of TNT:

Creeper Anatomy

I'm not sure how I'm going to make something look like TNT.  I've got an OCZ 500W PSU. It's non-modular. But I'm tempted to try and convert it to a modular PSU using the modding guide on Bit-Tech to try and keep the wiring down to a minimum (I do also think I will need to make custom cables for this, primarily due to length to help with the cable routing).

I'm thinking that if I disassemble the PSU, and give the case a good sanding down to get down to bare metal then I could repaint it red and maybe spray paint on the TNT lettering.

Right, that’s me done with conceptions and creativity for now, I’ll try and publish more information as the project progresses (very slowly!)