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Dreamhack Winter 2005 Preview
Author: Micke GustafssonPublished: 17th November 2005
Pure evil
Theme: Demonic SFF case based on Intel Inside logo
Materials: Aspire AS-X-Qpack mATX
Build Time: 24 hours
People often say "start off small and work your way up" so I did - let's kick things off with an Aspire AS-X-Qpack SFF case. The theme for this case is the familiar "Evil Inside" case badge logo parody of Intel Inside - that will be the main engraving.
This case is different from a lot of SFF cases in that it comes factory fitted with plexi windows on both side and the top panel. This makes it perfect for some experimental plexi-forming. Let's get started...
The plastic they use for these windows (probably sheet Polystyrene) is a Thermoplastic which means it can be heated (or indeed melted!) and remolded easily. The opposite would be a Thermosetting plastic which is essentially "single use" - these cannot be remolded into funky new shapes. Luckily, we're using the former.
Plexi-forming involves heating up the perspex until it becomes flexible, and then molding it into the desired shape. The temperatures involved are fairly high - too hot to just mush it with your hands, so I borrowed a nose piercing from a giant and started warming the window.
Through the magic of Worklogs, you don't get to see the four previous windows that I cracked - we just get to fast-forward to the end result. Because it is a shape formed from a transparent material, it was quite difficult to photograph but you can see here that it is a head - a devil's head with little horns. Very evil. You can find the full step-by-step guide in the Project Worklogs forum.
The side windows will have the 'evil inside' logo on them. It is a pretty simple logo, so I printed it, taped it to the window and engraved it. Repeat for the other side.
The case is not going to have a system installed in it for display, so I needed a way to power some cold cathodes to provide light. The answer was a PSU tester, also made by Aspire. This means I don't have to hotwire the PSU to provide power, since all power supplies normally need to plugged into a motherboard before they will switch on. The lighting is provided from a pair of 30cm red, CoolerMaster CCFLs.
Here is the final product:
As I have said, it is very difficult to photograph - you really need to see it in person to appreciate the full effect. It will, of course, be on display at Dreamhack along with the other cases in this article.
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