A House of Cards...
The sound card received little in the way of modding. I simply ran a black marker around the pale edge of the PCB. Being an Audigy2 it had a black PCB anyway. Combined with its location under the GFX card, therefore hidden by the chrome cover, it needed little else.
SATA RAID Card
The RAID card was a different story. It was green, and not in a good way!
Another section of black foam mousepad was cut, more black marker was run around PCB and more double-sided tape used.
The black SATA cables plug straight into the side and were folded and secured with cable ties.
With folding, the cables end up sitting right back along the bottom edge of the motherboard. Shown here before being plugged in and tucked away. They are completely hidden by the PCI cover and the pump. In fact the only way to see into this hidden area of the case is to lay your head down on the desk and look directly into the rear of the case from desktop level, pressing your face right up to the acrylic - even then, with everything being black, it's just a dark shadow. I was really pleased with how it worked out in the end. Hidden cables in a clear case, w00t!!
All Power to GFX Card!
From the start, I didn't want any normal molex-looking plugs in the case. I had hidden everything inside stainless hose fittings so far but I still had to finish the power to the GFX card. In a previous article I covered how I had sleeved the individual wires that would be going to the card in Techflex mesh and aquarium air hose, now I needed to plug them in somehow.
Taking a spare molex extension cable, I vinyl dyed it black and put a cable tie around it to keep the wires from tangling. I plugged one end into the GFX card and the other had the original sleeved wires plugged in. The whole lot was then pushed into the gap between the GFX card and the soundcard, safely hidden away. There was still a red edge along the back of the card which was taken care of with...
...black rubber fan-hole 'U' moulding - cut to length and pressed along the edge of the card. Lovely.
The Pump Relay Card
I had an early version of Criticool's pump relay card (the 'Powerplant'). It had a number of flaws that have since been rectified. Rather than buying a new one, I set about addressing a few things.
The base card. It has exposed mains voltage solder points on top, no earth connection and one very flimsy and very dull (and un-Orac-like) aluminium end. The first thing I did was cover the top with foam cut from a mouse pad (yet more double-sided tape and black marker-around-PCB). I also black vinyl dyed the molex socket from the PCB side as the white colour stood out when viewing the card from edge-on.
The back plate was removed and I marked up a shiny chrome blanking plate. After drilling and filing I re-attached it, using a cut-in-half rubber grommet as a surround for the mains socket.
Much better! How did I take care of the earth problem...?
The sound card received little in the way of modding. I simply ran a black marker around the pale edge of the PCB. Being an Audigy2 it had a black PCB anyway. Combined with its location under the GFX card, therefore hidden by the chrome cover, it needed little else.
SATA RAID Card
The RAID card was a different story. It was green, and not in a good way!
Another section of black foam mousepad was cut, more black marker was run around PCB and more double-sided tape used.
The black SATA cables plug straight into the side and were folded and secured with cable ties.
With folding, the cables end up sitting right back along the bottom edge of the motherboard. Shown here before being plugged in and tucked away. They are completely hidden by the PCI cover and the pump. In fact the only way to see into this hidden area of the case is to lay your head down on the desk and look directly into the rear of the case from desktop level, pressing your face right up to the acrylic - even then, with everything being black, it's just a dark shadow. I was really pleased with how it worked out in the end. Hidden cables in a clear case, w00t!!
All Power to GFX Card!
From the start, I didn't want any normal molex-looking plugs in the case. I had hidden everything inside stainless hose fittings so far but I still had to finish the power to the GFX card. In a previous article I covered how I had sleeved the individual wires that would be going to the card in Techflex mesh and aquarium air hose, now I needed to plug them in somehow.
Taking a spare molex extension cable, I vinyl dyed it black and put a cable tie around it to keep the wires from tangling. I plugged one end into the GFX card and the other had the original sleeved wires plugged in. The whole lot was then pushed into the gap between the GFX card and the soundcard, safely hidden away. There was still a red edge along the back of the card which was taken care of with...
...black rubber fan-hole 'U' moulding - cut to length and pressed along the edge of the card. Lovely.
The Pump Relay Card
I had an early version of Criticool's pump relay card (the 'Powerplant'). It had a number of flaws that have since been rectified. Rather than buying a new one, I set about addressing a few things.
The base card. It has exposed mains voltage solder points on top, no earth connection and one very flimsy and very dull (and un-Orac-like) aluminium end. The first thing I did was cover the top with foam cut from a mouse pad (yet more double-sided tape and black marker-around-PCB). I also black vinyl dyed the molex socket from the PCB side as the white colour stood out when viewing the card from edge-on.
The back plate was removed and I marked up a shiny chrome blanking plate. After drilling and filing I re-attached it, using a cut-in-half rubber grommet as a surround for the mains socket.
Much better! How did I take care of the earth problem...?
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October 14 2021 | 15:04
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