Wow awesome update man! I hope to see more soon! Btw ... where did you get these LED strips? They look really cool!

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Thanks!

I got them off eBay, I simply looked for the cheapest I could find, and bought 20 meters
They are 3825 SMDs, 60 LEDs per meter autoadhesive strips, 12V, cuttable once every 3 LEDs, some soldering required, unless you buy pre-made cables with joints.

They look fabulous, the pictures do not really represent the intensity of the colour and the light is plenty. Imagine what 5050 SMDs can do!

I'm also planning to add them to the back of the monitor and make a backlit keyboard and mouse. I will need to replace or modify the resistor to make them work with with the 5V USB ports offer.
Some LEDs will also find their way around and under the desk, as well as in other places around the house.

GREEEEEEN!

This sounds bloody awesome Susso I want some of these too, but maybe in another color

Finally, here I am with a nice update!

The work on the front is not over yet, so I will split it in two or more parts.

Here's how the panel originally looked.







A little flat and plain, it needs intervention!
Also, it doesn't have any USB or audio connector, I'll have to make them as well.

Initial idea for the interior, unpolished aluminium strips.



USB and audio ports have been recovered from old PCs, they might not be 3.0, but I don't own any 3.0 device anyway.



And here's the rest of the components for the ports + controls panel.



A potentiometer to tune the LEDs brightness, a tristable switch to select the fans voltage between 5 and 12 Volts, and a bicolored LED, green and orange, to signal how the fans are set.
To this, some resistors and a mechanical relais will be added, necessary for the LEDs to work.



Everything will be mounted on a 4 centimeters wide aluminium strio.

I started out by taking lots of measurements to find the best place for each component.



First circular holes for the LEDs, the potentiometer and the switch.
Relatively easy to make, I first carved a small hole by hand to keep the drill tip in position, then I slowly increased the diameter of the holes up to the perfect size.





Audio panel holes are circular as well, no problems besides a little disalignment between the holes, which were then filed by hand.



Now the problems start, USB holes are not circular...
It took me a lot of hours, I don't have pictures of how I made them, but I drilled holes to screw the ports in position, I marked the contours of said ports, and I drilled a couple of holes in the center of the future opening.
I then hand filed everything to the desired shape.

A really hard work, but I'm entirely satisfied with the result!







The pictures underline imperfections, it's not that bad when seen live

Here's how it will be once it will be mounted.
I first thought of securing everything from behind, but the addition of two vertical strips on the front, really gives it personality.



Once in position, I fixed everything with tape, so that I could make precise holes and screw everything with the pieces in place.



Here's how it looks when it's mounted, underneath it, the three narrow strips, will hide the DVD rewriter.
I will probably add some fake vertical supports, to make it blend with the panel even more.
Bottom right, the small project for the power switch.



I use the card reader a lot, so I will include and mask one:





I'm not entirely satisfied of the cover, as you can spot some black underneath. I will probably paint the plastic silver, I unfortunately couldn't make cuts for single card slots, they are too small.





The DVD rewriter is already in place, but it is well hidden!



Aluminium has been attached to the readers with some double sided tape.
Two strips are attached to the tray, while the third one has been slightly bent to make better contact with the body of the DVD rewriter, and to be flexible in the spot of the eject button, which I filed to make flat.









Eject button close-up.



Enjoy the video of the DVD rewriter in action, mounted in the temporary chassis



Unscrewring, untaping and cleaning, and re-screwing of the aluminium.













I'd say it's enough for this update, I now have to work on the front air vents!

I usually don't start and complete a single work, instead, I work on multiple stuff at the same time, that's why it takes me a long time to do even simple stuff.

This update will be a bit different from the others and not related to the case, anyway, it is a work I did for my PC station.
One day, at 5pm, I had the idea to improve my monitor.

It's an Asus VW220D, 21.6", 1680x1050, which was discarded, almost new, because it had overheating problems;
After a few minutes of usage, it started stuttering and distorting the image, and the chassis would get really hot.



To avoid this problem, I had installed two small fans on the back of it, the modification allowed me to use this monitor up until today, altough with 10% maximum luminosity during the winter, and 0% during the summer.



I grew tired of the situation, and I wanted to use the monitor to its full potential, so I replaced the fans with two better performing ones, reclaimed from a laptop cooling base.



Here starts the dismantling, a really tedious procedure, as there are plenty of hidden clips, hardly reachable.



The fans work on 5 Volts taken from a wire between two PCBs, sadly, the monitor doesn't use 12 Volts, only 2.5 and 5.2.

In the picture, you can notice a hidden screw terminal between the circuit boards.



Here are the old holes, made only with a drill, pliers, hammer and file. Horrible, but they did their job.



New fans positioning...



...and Dremel cuts, drastically better.



To cut the plastic, I used some heavy weaponry.



It has been difficult to make the holes, as the tip could not stay in a fixed position because of the previous holes.
I managed to do it anyway.





Time to reassemble the PCBs, fix the fans in position, and wire them.
I used hot glue to keep everything steady.





It might not be perfectly aligned, but it doesn't matter, it's hidden and it works, and it also allowed me to fit a wire for the next step.
I has some wire mesh laying around, so I glued it for protection.





As everything was still open, I wanted to add a LED strip on the back of the monitor. The problem is that the strips work with 12V, and the monitor outputs 5.2!

Here started the most boring work of all, which is making the strip work with 5V, all while maintaining the same brightness level.
The strip is divided into modules, each of them composed of 3 LEDs and a 150 Ohms resistor, all in series.
With some measuring and calculations, I concluded that each LED wants 3.2 Volts, so I should put them all in parallel, and add a resistor to drop the 5 Volts to 3.2.
To my surprise and luck, I calculated a resistance of 150 Ohms, which is exactly what is already installed on the strip!

Here are the steps I followed on a sample.
Original strip.



Strip cuts to prepare for parallel configuration.



Insulator removal to show the copper strip.



Soldering.



And here they work on 5V.



To not waste the sample, I stuck it in my mouse to see the effect it produces.
It's not bad, but I'd have to rearrange the LEDs and remove a plastic layer, to have a more uniform brightness.
But this will be another work!



The definitive strip for the monitor has been soldered with some wires, as I needed the two copper strips on the sides to be continuous, to feed the whole strip.
I repositioned it on the back instead of on the bottom, to have a better effect.


Here's the final effect, I love the green aura around it! I will probably add a switch to turn them off, as even in low consumption mode they still work.



See you next update

I love this thread! Keep on pushing susso! Great job again!

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Thanks a lot, there's more coming soon enough, if everything goes as expected

Ok, after a long time missing, caused by various impossibilities to continue working (also known as laziness), here I am again!

Stock cable are never good looking, above all in a colour-themed mod. That's why I tortured myself creating sleeved cable extensions.

The materials used are, obviously, scavenged and recycled.

Female connectors and contacts have been desoldered from old motherboards, cables and male connectors from old power supplies, instead of heatshrinking tubes, simple green insulating tape...



...and the sleeves from...



...uncut shoelaces!

Here starts the unsoldering process and connectors recovering.







Some contacts, however, do not get stuck in the plastic, so they would come out once the job is done.
You can barely notice, from the pictures, that in the second one there's a little plastic knob that holds the contacts in place.





The only way to find them, is to unsolder them, hard work.



Once a good supply is obtained, it is the moment to prepare the cables.

Male connectors and cables have been recovered from old PSUs, afterwards, they they are cut and filed to contain dimensions, being careful to keep the right pinout, as connectors have specific shapes.











All of the cables are 16AWG, besides GPU cables that are 18AWG

The connectors are all white, not looking good with the mod. I was thinking about painting them, but then I chose to replace the black ones from my PSU and use them on the extenders.

To remove the contacts from the connectors, I noticed two small levers at the sides of each contact, pressing them, the contact can be extracted.

How to do so? Staples!









Now starts the connector switch, paying much attention to the position of the cables (23 pins E-ATX is not shown, but the method is the same, just longer)









The first extender I made, was the one for the CPU.

AWG16 cables recovered and cut to measure.



Contact insertion in the female connector.



I can't find the pictures about the sleeving proces, I will cover it later!

First soldering.





And the finished job!





I put some hot glue to insulate the soldered cables, now I added more to reinforce the cabled and obtain a solid block.



First extender temporarily mounted



VGA cabels preparation.





This time, to make them slide along the cables, I wrapped the tip of it with some tape in a conical shape.



Everything ready.



And soldered.



Some hot glue, I then added more to make it more resistant.



Mounting.



Perfect!



Now it's the 23 pins time... damn it.

Switching connectors.





And various cables.



Cut to measure, with their sleeves ready.

I bent them a little, and one row of cables is slightly shorter than the other, to make bending easier, even if I should have bent them more.



The magical cone.



This time, they came out better than before, I got used to it, just a little practice and the resuslt drastically changes.





Connector preparing.



Soldering.



Soldering completed.



Here's the finished product! I still have to apply the hot glue, I'm not currently using it, as it wouldn't fit in the open case and it would occupy half the desk.







End of the update! I hope I'll never have to do something like this again. I will though, in the even of a CrossFireX...

See you more or less soon

That's actually a really cool idea to use shoelaces for sleeving

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Thanks! I tried using paracord, but I didn't have enough, and I'd have had to remove its "filling".