BOSS: FX57 by TechDaddy

Lighting

After the fans and video cards were completed and functional, I started thinking about accent lighting. I liked the idea of having the undercarriage being an 'actively' lit component. I wanted to somehow make the car pulse or ripple with light - enter the metor light kit! A perfect marriage of opportunity and possibility! Take two of the light bars and stick them under the case. I purposely aimed them down to the bottom under the case to get the most light reflection. However I did not mount them straight away - I measured where I wanted them and dremmeled their hole in the bottom of the case to route the cables up and in.

Next was a failed mod that did not make the final cut. I had envisioned a intimidating red glow to be filtering out from under the motherboard. I was going to attain this by using some LED mods from Sunbeam. They are highly flexable, pre-build LED strands that are encased in rubber, very ingenious! I then measured out center to center on the LED strand, marked the centers on the motherboard to follow a path behind the ATX standoffs.

You will notice that the holes are not precisely aligned... my impatience and a looming timeline made me take a less than stellar approach to drilling these. I rationalised it as "They will be covered up and never seen, so they dont need to be perfect."

That actually held up! Unfortunately, due to inspirations that happen later in the mod, this work gets scrapped. What'cha gonna do?

Next came the inspiration that killed the under motherboard light, and that name is powdercoat! I have a new appreciation for this stuff! No... I love this stuff! Several others in the Austin Modders have also started experimenting with powdercoat... hell, Zapwizard even built his own powdercoat gun just to proove he could!

Warning, the following pictures may not be suitable for minors or adults that are easily excitable:

Am I lying? I dont think so. I mean, come on! How often can you look at a computer frame (not the bezels) and say, "Damn.... that looks sexy!" Don't be ashamed... I did! And a number of other people that I showed them to did as well! First step to recovery is admiting there is a problem.

(I dont have a "problem", there is no "problem"... get away from me! What are you doing with those strapped jacket and pants?!)

The reason this killed the under motherboard lighting is that black is an absorption colour. Colours just do not reflect well in black surroundings. And, unfortunately for me, the red just would not pass muster when it came time to be installed. Very, very faint, not the intimidating glow that I had when the case was not powdercoated in its native grey color state. I tried reflective bits, hidden white reflective walls under the motherboard - it just was not going to work, so the light bands were pulled.