My new Shinobi XL!

Muel · 30 Jun 2012 at 00:20

My Shinobi XL arrived today! I am very very happy with it, never done a build log for a desktop before.

Here's my old case, an Antec 300, heavily modified with the HDD bays removed, an old PSU gutted and use to store cables in, lots of cable routing holes, a Lian Li hard drive caddy + fan mount thingy, and far too much hardware really. It was getting way too hot I was tired of the styling:

So in came the Shinobi XL.

Here they are together, small difference in volume!

Started by stripping the case down to the bare chassis.

The small pile of stuff I removed from the case that won't be going back in.

That's as far as I got really. Built my rig into it for the weekend but not made any mods to it, so nothing really to show...

T345 · 30 Jun 2012 at 08:53

Wow, that case is very nice!
Please Bitfenix, make that window on the regular shinobi!

Muel · 1 Jul 2012 at 11:40

Cheers, it is lovely!

Playing around with the front, it's going to look roughly like this:

Just need to order the Lian Li bezels so the mesh all matches up properly.

My plan for it is to keep the basic chassis white, but all the cables, fans, mesh etc will be black. I'm really liking the black/white contrast!

T345 · 1 Jul 2012 at 11:56

Remove the ugly (lian-li) logo!

Tegan · 1 Jul 2012 at 12:15

T345 said:
Remove the ugly (lian-li) logo!

Seconded.

It ruins the minimalist looks of the case.

Muel · 1 Jul 2012 at 13:52

I can't, it's part of the mesh bit.

Similar to this:

Considering removing the front mesh strips and painting the slot they fit in black, I'm not keen on the white showing through, what do we think?

setter · 1 Jul 2012 at 15:02

Does the lian li bezel/hdd bay fit without any issues Muel? Thinking off adding one to my xl, that or some lian li 5.25 mesh bay bezels, this would allow me to mount an extra intake fan that could help with my high cpu temps. Gotta say, the xl looks very nice in white.

Muel · 1 Jul 2012 at 15:06

It "fits" without any issues yes, but it's not completely flush, it sticks out by about 1mm, could easily be sorted by some gentle sanding/filing of the front panel though, just needed the shoulder taking off that DVD drives slide up to. If you can be bothered that is! (I'd recommend it as then the panel will lift off over the Lian Li stuff, but I haven't got round to it yet).

I'm getting some mesh bezels too, I used the ones from my Antec 300 to do the mockup shot above.

setter · 1 Jul 2012 at 15:09

Yep, i have a set of the LL bezels, (though cant remember where they are) that i used on my A70F. On that case they just slid into place, i suspect on the xl theyll need to be screwed in. Thanks for the info.

Muel · 1 Jul 2012 at 15:33

No worries dude.

Struggling to decide about my front panel! What do you guys think:

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj207/ElMuelio/Shinobi XL/2012-07-01151846.jpg

Or

http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj207/ElMuelio/Shinobi XL/2012-06-29174003.jpg

I'm starting to like the idea of getting the Lian Li bezels to match the caddy I already have, then spraying them white...

Muel · 8 Jul 2012 at 16:14

First stage in the built is done at last! Still waiting on my new cooler but should arrive soon.

Anyway, pics.

Proud of this. Bought a Bitfenix extender and shortened it so it fed power to my two HDDs and my SSD without having loops of ugly cabling everywhere.

Apart from a new cooler and maybe a few small mods, it'll be staying mostly like this for a good while now. At some point though I want to change the graphics cards for a single one, and the motherboard, CPU and Ram for good ones, so will decide on a proper colour scheme next time... The blue/red clash doesn't really do it for me...

setter · 8 Jul 2012 at 16:42

Very tidy Muel.

RJC · 10 Jul 2012 at 17:42

Very nice

Adam123 · 16 Jul 2012 at 23:55

very nice, liking the internals without the hdd cages :-)

banger9365 · 17 Jul 2012 at 02:08

that looks very nice

Muel · 17 Jul 2012 at 07:57

Cheers guys, still not finished because I'm waiting on my new CPU cooler.

There's a couple more things I want to do, like track down some black mesh for the top. The original prototype pics were black, this one is white. I was not happy.

I didn't even trying building it without the HDD cages, I've never liked them, always end up removing them and mounting the HDDs in the optical bays somehow. Just wish this Lian Li caddy would let me reverse mount them! They slipped up there when designing it IMO.

setter · 17 Jul 2012 at 10:35

Black mesh would look pretty good on the top panel, suppose you could spray the existing mesh part.

Muel · 26 Jul 2012 at 18:51

Plans are set, going to spray it black this weekend. Going to just shotblast the white paint off and spray the black straight on, can't be bothered messing with primer. Be finneee.

Muel · 27 Jul 2012 at 21:10

Got itchy fingers! I was all set to take it to my Dad's work and shotblast the original paint off and spray it properly. Then I decided to spray it anyway to get a test spray done. Then I finished it.

Personally I think it's a big improvement. Better than the mis-matched white it was before!

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Muel · 29 Jul 2012 at 09:39

Had a couple of spare Lian Li bezels, so decided to play with one. Considering having just these in the 5.25" bays sprayed white instead of the current black ones, which would also do away with the one with the logo. Opinions?