Antec Titan Side Panel Cutting

Darg

Darg

Darg

Soldato
Joined
6 Sep 2006
Posts
6,302
Location
London
I've been meaning to cut out a hole in the side of my case for a 92mm fan for a while but haven't gotten hold of a drill yet. I had the idea yesterday though of making it into a pacman shape with yellow mesh instead of the fan cover (thankyou gfs yellow tights).

Can anyone tell me what the best method for cutting out such a shape would be? Would a small drill be okay if I just drilled lots of little circles around the edge of the shape and then filed down the edge?

I've never done this kind of thing before so any advice is welcome.
 
Well that went pretty bad.. my dad brought home about a 3/4 inch hole cutter for the drill. Started off by cutting the holes as they fit in the design I had originally done up (decided to save Pacman for another day ;)).

Was left with a bunch of little triangular bits that I had to get rid of. This involved a lot of grinding with the drill as it wouldnt just cut straight down without spinning off and chopping through a bit i didnt want chopped. I lost most of the intricate design this way. The result was vaguely circular, definitely sharp and bitty (for which I only had crappy sandpaper and a crappier metal file) and nothing like the original design.

It was only when I went to get a small bit for the screw holes that I saw the B&D electric jigsaw there.. ARGGG!

Today I go home and try the second fan hole with the jigsaw. If I can be arsed. Atleast I'll fix the first one and just make it one big hole with the fan cover over it. God that sucked something awful..
 
Well decided to scrap just the hole in the aluminium idea. That just didn't work out well. Instead I brought the side panel to my girlfriends house where her dad had all the tools I'd need. I'd just picked up some perspex and No Nails in my local DIY shop. 2x4ft perspex for €17 isn't too bad.

We cut out the aluminium with an angle grinder and large aluminium cutting disc. We went through the disc but the results were better then I was expecting. And crap loads of sparks.. ooo pretty.. The lines aren't perfectly straight but I wasn't going to complain as it was my gfs dad that did it. I'm happy enough with it.

The perspex was the hard part. We tried using a jigsaw on it but it just cracked all over the place. We ended up having to use a hacksaw blade and go slowly along it to avoid it cracking. Cutting the hole out for the fan involved around 40 holes from a small drill bit on slow speed then cutting between them with a small blade. That took over an hour alone. Avoided cracks for the most part but if you look closely there's some cracks around the bottom right screw where we had trouble getting it in. Nothing too bad though.

Overall I'm happy with it =)

dsc05565kb7.jpg

dsc05564iv5.jpg
 
I'll post some more pics as soon as I can with it on the PC but don't have internet in the new apartment until monday (oh nooooooees!!).

It was a bit of a bodge job with measuring where to put it. I had to kind of go on guesswork as I forgot to mark it out before hand when it was with the computer. I'm just hoping it lines up okay with the PSU on top and the drive bays to the right.

My girlfriend wants to put a design on it with permanent marker =(
 
looks good, you should use some edging stuff just to give the cut edges of the sidepanel a nicer look.


its what i've done on my window mod.
 
It's stuck on with no nails type stuff already and I don't fancy pulling it off. I'll see what I can do with it though.
 
what about tile sealant like stuff?

my dad uses something called caulk to fill tiny cracks in just about anything plus you can wipe away any excess with your finger to give it a smooth clean finish.

no idea if it'd work with a panel like such though.
 
I'll look around for black coloured stuff like that =)

Thanks for the tip.

Looks very nice on my case. I actually couldnt have done a better job measuring the height and width of the cut in relation to the PSU and DVD/HDD drives. Pure guesswork as well from memory as I didn't have the case when I cut it only the panel.
 
Okay an update on my Antec Titan. I just got 4x Yate Loon 120mm fans from the states. Unfortunately two of them had fins broken off in transit. Gonna email the supplier (from the popular auction site) and see about getting either a refund or two new fans sent out.

I started out by completely stripping out the case. Both side panels and everything off including the old stock fan. I spent a good hour just planning where to put the cables. There's not much room behind the motherboard tray and it's a pain getting the power cables in behind there in the first place as the tray comes out in a lip at the top towards the back side of the case. There's just enough room for a single cable length to fit through so I had to cut the braiding on my beautiful Corsair main motherboard power cable and spread them out parralel to get in behind the motherboard tray. Once there though there's enough room for it to go back to braided though. The other power cables were just laid flat against the lip and taped down with masking tape so they'd fit.

Once the power cables were done I sorted out were the various data cables including the ones from my audigy 2 to its frontpanel would go. Most fitted behind the motherboard okay and the front panel headers went behind easily enough. The USB, firewire and sound headers though had to stick to the bottom of the case as the audigy IDE and firewire cable took up all the head room going from top to bottom.

Next I put the two working Yate Loons on. The front one was replacing 2x80mm Zalman fans that were creating all the noise in my case. To make it fit though I had to cut the sides off the Yate Loon fan and string it up with elastic bands attached to the two harddrives one on top and one below the fan. I took a fair few chunks out of my hand with the bread knife but I won in the end ;)

I reduced the IDE drive cables to one between the CD and harddrive to avoid the mess and I used right hand turns to keep the bending to a minimum. It came out quite neat in the end.

I'm very happy with the result as my case has always been a mess of cables until now. Seeing as you can now see the insides of my case I figured I should tidy it up. It is now completely silent as well apart from when the 2900XT fires up to 3rd gear in games. The Yate Loons are phenomonal.. even on full volts they barely make a whisper. I thought my fan controller was broken as I couldnt hear the fans revving up as I put it up to high speed :)

Pictures will follow. I've got one of the hacked Yate Loon for now:

yateloonyr1.jpg
 
Last edited:
Okay so I finally got around to taking some pictures today. I had the case open to put in a fan resistor and to play around with an idea that's been running through my head today. I wanted to know if my xbox could fit into my current case. In the end I discovered that yes it could. It'd be a little tight behind the HDD bay and it mightn't get the best airflow but it would fit and all the cables should reach. My idea is to have the gamepad ports and power/eject buttons right down at the bottom of the case and just have the xbox DVD drive as another drive up top.

I saw an old mod of someone putting a PS1 into their case so that's what gave me the idea. The only problem would be the fact that the Antec Titan is all rivetted in place so actually putting the motherboard in would be a bit of a b*tch. The motherboard is so small it could still be possible. My only other hindrance is the hexagonal screwdriver needed to take it out. I have a large one but I need a smaller one for the motherboard screws on the xbox. Screw holes in the Titan are an issue too. I've identified two that I could use and I might be okay just using those two and some cable ties possibly at the other end. There's nothing massively heavy on the motherboard apart from the small VGA and CPU heatsinks.

Airflow could be an issue at the front but I think the yate loon near it at the front should give enough airflow. It would definitely require quite a bit of time and most likely drilling at some point so it's a project to be shelved at the moment for the future like my VCR mod I'm hoping to do as soon as I get an old VCR case.

Anyway onto the pictures...

This is the case with the cables all tidied up at last. It was a complete mess until I got around to finally tidying it up.
OpenCase.jpg


Here's the back of the case where all the mess is now. Note the excessive amounts of masking tape used at the top near the PSU. That's where there's room between the motherboard tray and the rear side panel of the case for about one cables thickness.
BackofCase.jpg


As you can see here I had to unbraid the main motherboard power cable to get it to fit.
Unbraided.jpg


Here's the front of the case. You can see where I popped most of the plastic cover bits through to let the yate loon fit and get more air through. Also the semi destroyed yate loon in it's elastic band cradle.
FrontofCase.jpg
 
Last edited:
Here's the xbox taken apart. You can see how small the motherboard is and how low the heatsinks are. This is great for fitting in my case.
Xbox.jpg


The CPU heatsink still has a good 1-2cm of headroom under the HDD tray as you can see here where I cut out a piece of paper the exact size of the motherboard to test if it would fit.
XboxinCase.jpg


And the side panel on at last. As you can see the camera brings out a lot of scratches. You can't notice them most of the time but they are a bit annoying. I'm contemplating re-spraying the case, maybe putting some design on it but that's on hold for money and time atm.
CaseFin2.jpg


And finally the whole case and the dissected xbox beside it.
CaseFinished.jpg
 
Just noticed this...

Darg: cutting perspex.. sharp stanley knife, go slowly for the initial line, then score it a few more times, then just snap it... works a treat :)
 
V|per said:
Just noticed this...

Darg: cutting perspex.. sharp stanley knife, go slowly for the initial line, then score it a few more times, then just snap it... works a treat :)
Click to expand...

Wow.. why the hell didnt I think of that. haha.. ah well. I'm thinking of throwing a 120mm fan on there instead of the 92mm. Your tip will help a lot when cutting the new hole. Any tips on drilling through it for the screw holes without cracking it?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom