Recognizer by Martin Blass

Recognizer by Martin Blass

Original Project Log: Here
Foreword by Antony Leather

In most things PC-related, it often pays to specialise in something you're good at or interested in, or just have the resources to make something really unique. This is especially true with PC modding; with a little effort, and so many different materials, designs and concepts from which to choose, it's pretty easy to come up with something unique.

Of course, having extensive modding skills and experience helps too, especially with projects that are world-class, and maybe even worthy of being featured in bit-tech's Mod of the Year competition. The Blass brothers - particularly Martin Blass (aka thechoozen) - are among bit-tech's most prolific modders. They have their own modding store and a simple search in our project log forum reveals countless projects and guides, not least of which is the fantastic Cosmos Dragon, which was in the top ten of last year's Mod of the Year competition.

If you're familiar with their work, you'll know that they're pretty good with acrylic - spectacular in fact. Martin has kindly taken the time to talk to us about one of his most recent projects and if anything, this one looks like his best yet.

Introduction

Back in January 2010, we started to compete in a scratch build case contest which was organised by the website PC-Max.de and supported by the PSU manufacturer Be Quiet!. The goal of the contest was to consider the PSU as the most important part of the case - like a beating heart giving life to the rest of the system. Every contestant received a free PSU of their own choice from the Be Quiet! product range, and as many of its Silent Wings as needed.

Additionally, everyone received €500 for the building process and everything else that was needed to build our projects.


With this in mind, we decided to build a small water-cooled case, in which all the hardware fitted inside the case, and in which the PSU could be placed on top so that it's a main feature of the case. After a lot discussion, we finally decided on a final draft to build.


It was just a rough concept at this stage - we prefer not to be handicapped by any changes we make during the building stage.

The first thing to do was go on a big shopping trip (more would follow) to our Perspex dealer to buy several square metres of the material so that we could start the building process as quickly as possible.

This was important, since the deadline for the contest was the 1 May (the project having started in January), and before this, we also had planned visits to Cebit for a week and Campus Party Europe , during which time we couldn´t make any progress.

Additionally, we also had to finish a few builds for our customers (such as the MSI Hydra, and the Fast Forward Case for the OCZ Booth at Cebit), so time was definitely against us.


Every every spare minute was spent working on the project and trying to make some progress. The first parts we tackled were the numerous black Perspex sections, which we needed to build the top and side sections of the case. After making the first few parts, we put them together to see if we liked the result.