Posted by j_d3
Jay hails from small city Chatham, Ontario where he's grown up and spent his entire life, short of university. Since returning home from school, he has spent the last several years in the radio broadcast industry as an IT professional and Interactive Media Manager.
Part I of the Enigma project was obviously a choice of case and beginning my mod. My canvas of choice? The Antec P182.
It is already a good looking case with great qualities so I don’t have much to do to it (Good job Antec). My modest goals were as follows:
- Paint the interior flat black as a base for my black and white theme.
- Replace all fans with quieter white bladed, black framed ones.
- Install led strips on either edge of the base with a toggle switch for controlable white lighting.
- Cut out the enigma logo in the front door via a local tool shop (gotta be precise).
- Inlay frosted acrylic in door logo and backlight with additional white leds (also toggle switched).
Here are some photos of the first part of the mod.
Brand new Antec P182 ready to be raped.
Partially dismantled and getting ready for paiting.
The case had 26 (13 per side) 3mm holes drilled into it’s base for placement of the led’s prior to painting. After painting a wired up 2 series of 13 led’s and placed them in their holes under the sidepanel track. This proved quite difficult and I had to take a break a couple nights before I finally got them all in place. Some hot glue now shields the wires and keeps the leds in place which in following photos you should see is relatively hidden still.
Painting finished and reassembled with led’s present.
If you are planning to paint the external of a case what I did ISN’T the way to do it. Sandable primer, weeks of coating and sanding, and a clear coat give you the perfect finish. That or find a place that will powdercoat your parts, which is the best, but for my purposes I was completely satisfied with this result.
Stage one assembled and ready for OS install.
I modestly overclocked this machine to 3ghz for now to let it burn in a little while I wait for the rest of my parts to come in. Look forward to Part II of the project which will look at additional astheitcs to the interior.
