Ultra Sweet (Completed)

[Tazz]

Alright, here is how this one comes about...

Meshie was sitting here Chillen when she seen Da Plane Da Plane. Well she took a nice ride on Da Plane and decided to Pop a Cap! The sad thing, she Popped the Cap in her own ass. One of the legs on one of the capacitors on the mb broke. So she sat in the big ol place called Vegas for a few days DOA. She then took a road trip to the other end of the good ol USA. Literally from one end to the other . She received her new mb and Chilled there for a few days. The Green man picked her up and sent her on her way. To bad the Green man was mean to her and abused her.

Ok I know, enough of that shit... LOL getting hard to think like that and type like that. Meshie made it from IN to Vegas with no cosmetic damage what so ever. She then went from Vegas to Florida and again received no cosmetic damage. Well when the UPS guy brings her home. The box literally looked like SHIT. My first comment was WTF, and then OMG what am I going to find wrong.



The box.


The DVD Burner and Chill TEC controller.


Rear top of the case.


The Chill TEC itself.

At this point I seen enough, I immediately hit up the shipper and informed him of the damage that I had seen to this point. It was already obvious that the case was toast. 5 of the 6 panels that make up the chassis had been tweaked. Right out of the box you could tell everything had been tweaked enough to show a significant lean to the case. So out comes the hardware. I start pulling things and stacking them in piles, prepping them to do a quick build so I could test everything.

Damaged parts:

Right panel
Left panel
Rear panel
Bottom of case
Top of case

Drive rail locks on both the DVD Burner and the Chill TEC controller had the ends snapped off.
The Chill TEC cooler itself had been twisted.
Motherboard tray had only 1 tab holding it in place. 5 tabs where bent and the 2 thumb screws had their threads pulled out.
Hardware wise everything looked to be in working order (besides the Chill TEC being twisted).

Once everything was out, the two supports that go from the front to the back and support the PSU are both bowed out about .5" each. At this point I had only one panel that made it through without cosmetic damge. The front panel, door, and mesh all came throug hit fine. I put all the chassis parts back in the box and through the hardware into another case I was fixing to review. Thankfully everything worked, I was able to bend the Chill TEC back to where it should be.

I have made the decision since this mod has met early death twice, I doubt I will be going for a third. Dont get me wrong, I do want to rebuild it one more time . It was my favorite mod to date. So if I do rebuild it, it will not be leaving the house again.

Meshie was slated to go back to QuakeCon this year seeing that it had been modified since its last trip. Well now that she is dead I need another one to take her place.

This is where the "TO BE NAMED" mod comes in to play. Now keep in mind I prefer my computes to look like computers with a bit of my taste added to them. Not really gotten into the 100% custom modding yet for many reasons. I have roughly 4 months to build this mod. This wouldn't be a problem normally but I have been staying pretty busy with site stuff. Not really had much time to post to threads let alone mod. So if you think I am being a snob cause I rarely post, don't . I am just busy!

So I popped an image up the other day of the frame that I am starting with .


This one .

So I figured I might as well slip in some pictures of what that originally looked like.


With Plexi panels.


With Carbon Fiber panels.


Drive cage.


PCI slot area.


PSU mount.

I do realize mine looks a tad rougher that these shots . The one I have has been through a few builds and so forth. It came to me with two panels intact and two panels in pieces. I did not get any Carbon Fiber panels with it (its all good, I would have pulled them off anyways).

So here are some more shots of the chassis as I got it.















The main chassis can be broken down in to 7 pieces, the drive cage can be broken down into 3 or 4 I forget.

To start things off with this I have been doing some thinking over the last couple of weeks. I will be running plexi panels of some sort, not decided 100% yet. I picked up some supplies today and started making a template for the new front panel. This will have some extra polished aluminum parts added to it as well.


Stock Front panel.


Its pretty narrow and kind of plain I think.


One of the panels I got that was still in but does have damage.


5.25" Drive bay area without the front panel.


Lower section without front panel.

All exterior panels are going to be plexi (either Red or 2-Way mirror). For right now I am playing. I want to build a set of clear panels for it as well so thats where we are starting off. Once I have the clear panels made I will use them as templates to make the final panels. So to start things off, I want to make a stencil of the front bay areas and mark the fans center so I can add a front blowhole. I plan to play off the polished aluminum as much as possible on this mod. So as I stated, there will be more aluminum pieces being added as the build moves forward.

So I start out with a couple of sheets of thick paper tapped together. I lay them down on the desk and flip up the case on its front side. I then trace the main outline of the case leaving a little area for adjustments after I cut the rough shape. So once I have my outline done I flip the case back up and lay the stencil on the chassis. I then run my fingers around the ridges that are on the bay sections. This will show me roughly where to make my cuts. I trim things off and work my way out till I get a nice fit over the lips.

While I am starting on the stencil, I pulled out one of the billet parts that are going on it. The front blowhole is from MNPCTech.com.





I will have a review coming shortly on this, once I get the panels made for this mod so I can show the installation and so on.



So here we have the upper areas cut out and ready to go. Time to move down to the blowhole and mark it out.





I centered it up using the 4 mounting holes to line up with my fan mounting holes. I then traced the inside and outside of the blowhole so I had an idea of the size.



Once I have the lower section marked up it was time to cut out the center of it.



Above we have the final stencil I will use to mark up the plexi. While I was out today I picked up a couple of 24" X 48" sheets of plexi, had them cut into 4 24" x 24" sheets. This should give me more than enough to take care of everything. The sides are roughly 19" x 19", and the front and back come in about 8" x 21", the top and bottom are the smallest panels measuring in at 6.5" x 19". I will also use a piece thats left over to make the motherboard tray.



here we have 3 of the panels marked up (front, top, and bottom). The next piece will take care of the back and motherboard tray leaving the last two for the sides.



More to come.

[em3bilko]

Oh boy, another mod by on of the Masters. I'll have to get myself a third eye so that I can keep an eye on this mod plus a bib to catch the drool. Oh boy, what can I say but Oh boy. Happy Modding to ya.

[SplitLip]

Sweet. Can't wait for this To Be Named. What color scheme ya goin for on this one?

[protek]

Sorry about the shipping mess - But it looks like a nice project you have going from the pieces...

[razer121]

oooo a new one this should b a gooden

[Tazz]

Thanks bilko

Sweet. Can't wait for this To Be Named. What color scheme ya goin for on this one?
Naming this one is going to be tough, will have to see how things go. ULTRA Sweet is in the running. Simply be cause I think this is a SWEET chassis and couldn't wait to get my hands on one. I had been bugging my buddy for one since I first laid eyes on it months ago.

Sorry about the shipping mess - But it looks like a nice project you have going from the pieces...

Ya my buddy that I loaned it to for CES was really bummed. I told him numerous times that it was NOT his fault and not to worry about it. Just gives me a reason to build a new one. Well he helped me out by sending me this (as of right now) rare chassis. There are only 3 people with this setup right now that live in the states. So I am going for the first modded version of it .

Color scheme is still up in the air, I will probably get this initial plexi work out of the way and then play with a few pieces of scrap to see how things look. I am thinking of three different looks.

Red Plexi with the polished aluminum.
Smoked Plexi with the polished aluminum.
or
2-way mirror plexi with the polished aluminum.

I think all three options will look excellent. Hell I think it even looks great with plain clear plexi. I might just do a set in each and change them out from time to time .

[razer121]

only 3 of them! wow why is it so rare??? do you know if this case is in the uk??? and i must say on the 3 options you have suggested on ur ideas for the case...i think u should go with the 2-way mirror plexi with the polished aluminum, that would look amazing in my eyes well woteva you do im guna be keepin a close eye on this one

[Tazz]

only 3 of them! wow why is it so rare???
Only 3 people in the US have at least one. One of them has several . It is rare simply because these are demo cases for production. Ultra is planning on putting the CarbonFiber case in production soon. These are demos from the design process.

do you know if this case is in the uk???

Not yet, right now we have the few samples here in the US, and the rest are still sitting in Taipei where they are made.

and i must say on the 3 options you have suggested on ur ideas for the case...i think u should go with the 2-way mirror plexi with the polished aluminum, that would look amazing in my eyes well woteva you do im guna be keepin a close eye on this one

I agree that the 2-way mirror should produce a excellent look with the polished aluminum.

[em3bilko]

Polished aluminum with tinted plex with touches of Red gets my vote any time. Happy Modding to ya.

[Tazz]

Well I got some work done today.



Here is a shot of the original rear panel that was broke into three pieces when I got it. I slipped them back together and tapped them to use that as a basic guide for the first rough cut on the new panel. Even with the original one being broken into three pieces it was still tight enough in the frame that all three pieces had to be forced out of the frame. The new one will fit a little looser .



So here is the rear panel ready to be cut.



First cut was the outside, then I knocked the PSU area out. I do not have the billet piece for the PSU at this time so I can not do the test fitting to finish up that area.



Here we have the final fit on the whole panel before starting on the fan hole and the I/O - PCI area.



Here we have the fan hole in progress. I simply slice it up then start cutting the sections out. This is a rather large pain in the ass when using a 3" disc on the die grinder .



Here is the final before hitting it with the file.

Below are a couple of test fit pics with the frame and the fan. Now I will do some more file action and smooth things up a little before flame polishing the edges.