Project Log Update 10

Secret of the Ooze

by gvblake
Worklog

I am a fan of cube cases -- my first trial at a custom case design was a cube. But they always came with one big problem -- they can look so boring! So when you build it yourself, you can really add a lot of little design details... details that gvblake has clearly put into the planning of his Secret of the Ooze case.

The case has been in the making for a little while now, but the acrylic beauty is finally nearing its completion. Gvblake has added some great details to the basic cube premise as well as come up with some great ways around common problems that many of us modders share. A jutting PSU, a stolen ATX backplate and other little design ideas show some great ingenuity.

Of course, it's not all problem-solving. Secret of the Ooze (named by gvblake's girlfriend) features a lot of smart-looking accents over the case's basic cube design. The (nearly) end result is a sleek looking smoke and neon-green creation that would look great on many a desk.



Gvblake scavenged his backplate off of an old junker ATX case that he had lying around. In order to fit his motherboard and the cube's overall dimensions, a little surgery was needed to remove a couple of PCI slots. After that, it was just fine. To further alleviate space problems, he designed a couple elegant rack solutions for his disk drives, which are held off of the acrylic by motherboard stand-offs screwed into the bottom of the case.



Also due to space concerns, a standard ATX PSU was going to be a little too much to ask of Secret of the Ooze. The solution? Push it out a bit! Gvblake fashioned a retention bracket out of scrap aluminium and an accent piece of neon-green acrylic. He used the same accent to surround the fan grill that would be making its home on the front of the case.



More accent pieces were used around the rheobus and card reader, as well as a circle under the handle. Speaking of the handle, it was for a kitchen drawer or cupboard in a former life, in a brushed aluminium. A bit of paint and some good placement fixed that, though.



As you can see by these pictures, Secret of the Ooze is finally nearing completion. The green acrylic goes a long way to bringing this creation to life, and the rounded edges make it pretty easy to see why it got given its name.

There's not going to be too much more before this one is wrapped up, so we'd recommend you check out gvblake's project log to get a look at the finished product!