Pandoras Purple Box (ooh, er)

[davido_labido]

So, im back! Ive been far too busy to be around lately, but I have just started this little project, so thought id share it with you all!

First things first, I would like to thank

There may be more sponsors to come soon, but I will add them if/when they arrive.


The Idea

Well, me and a rep from BitFenix UK have been chatting about a few little builds and ideas when we decided it would be nice to see a Pandora get some loving. I didn't really know what I was going to do with it, but I liked the looks of the pictures id seen of them so I thought id give one a go.

Of course I then contacted my awesome HyperX guy to see if he wanted in, and well, put it this way, 5 days later, I have the case, RAM and SSDs ready for the build!

some product porn

So HyperX asked me what I wanted for this build, I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to do with this one, so I just opted for 2 small ssds (120gb each) 16gb of ram and some other bits that will be arriving soon from them!

Here is the first parcel I received from them:

I really am happy that HyperX are on-board again, thanks Krystian ... I have plans for these products, so keep an eye out!

Bitfenix also sent me some rather nice goodies,

From them, I have a case, PSU, Cables and LEDS... im still waiting on the LEDS but the rest arrived today!

a lovely looking case:

and the PSU

I will show you the cables a little later on, I again have a few things planned for them, as you know, I dont usually use aftermarket extensions, but I thought id make the exception this time!

So... On to the modding....

 

[davido_labido]

So, lets start on this BitFenix Pandora then shall we!?


I didnt have any real ideas for this until i got the case. I have noticed it really is going to be a tight squeeze getting all the cables i want it for the build, never mind the watercooling as well!

so, time to get to grips with it...

First things first, i started to strip the case to see what i could put where, radiators look like they are gonna be a tight fit....

then, took a little bit more off

until i was left with this....

Hmmmmm ok, thats all very well and good... but i wonder... that looks rather rectangular to me, maybe i could invert the case, have it so the GPUs are at the top!!?!

so, i got the drill out.... drilled out the rivets

then, i started to put it back together....

I knew i was going to have some problems as obviously each side of the case isnt the same but it did slot together quite well

a few minutes later, id re done the rivets

then i started to see what panels still fit.

the top is fine, the back is too high, the front doesnt fit at all and neither do the sides properly.

The sides are easily sorted (if i can get BitFenix to send me another one without a window (its the window that doesnt look correct)) then the other panels will mod i think. i cant see there being too much of a problem.

Its as much as i can get done for now, ive got a load of stuff to do with this build, so need to crack on!

 

[davido_labido]

Looking good.
Nice little project, I've yet to see what can be done with this case

Thats why i asked for it tbh, I wanted to do a build that was a little tricky, and i thought a w/c build into one of these might be just that!

Haha, new project, new case, first thing to do? Rip the insides out and turn them upside down... lol going to be epic!!

haha, i sent a picture to the BitFenix rep when it arrived at 3 oclock... i then sent him a picture at 4.30 with all the parts ripped off, bits on the floor and a shiny new rivet gun ready to go he seemed.... pleased

 

[davido_labido]

Thanks Colin, I have a few things planned for this build that should be a little interesting. I have more little goodies on the way from HyperX all being well and also will be going to see a friend who has a rather large laser when I get chance!!!

 

[davido_labido]

So I'm working away for the next 9 days. So unfortunately I'm not going to be able to do much at all =( however I am sat on the train at the moment, and I have a bunch of bitfenix alchemy cables.

As a lot of you know, i usually wouldn't touch after market cables, but these fit the colour scheme I'm going for so well I thought it would be silly not to. Bitfenix supplied them for me and so far the seem to have a good weave on the sleeve and I like the white connectors.

I am however going to mod them somewhat... The lengths are standard 45cm or 30cm and there are no curvatures so that they fit a wider range of cases. I'm also going to add some stealth cable combs to help me route them as there is little space in the case for everything. I also want to change what order the colours are in...

So, here I am, on the train, modding cables lol.

Better pics will be up as soon as i can get on a computer!

 

[davido_labido]

I love your work mate

How is that PSU?

thanks buddy, in all honesty, i have no idea yet! It feels and looks very good quality and the addition of the pre braided cables I'd a really nice touch! It certainly ticks all the boxes aesthetically. The OEM iirc is FSP, so a brand that should be reliable enough!

I guess time will tell!

 

[davido_labido]

Cheers guys!!!! I actually have an envelope with your name on somewhere Colin with some purple samples lol.

Ssds will be getting some love next time I'm home =D

 

[davido_labido]

So, a little bit of an update now, and let you know whats happening then a bigger one should be coming later tonight if i can get a few hours off from working!...

So last week whilst on the train i had these in my bag:

as you all are probably aware, i actually sleeve a lot of cables... seriously, loads and nothing compares to a custom made set, however, wit BitFenix as a sponsor, i thought i would save some time and effort and try out their "Alchemy" range.

The crimps on these cables have been done well, I like how they are not just one set colour and the lengths are plenty for the majority of the builds, im also really liking the white connectors, however they are just not 100% right for me .. The colours are not in the order i want, the lengths are a little too long and i want to put a nice curve in them to make sure that they look as pretty as possible! so i pulled out all of the wires...

I did get some strange looks whilst on the train, but then again i had made a little bit of a mess and i was taking up a whole table (dont worry, the train wasnt too busy)...

A short while later i ended up with this :

Now, im going to have to see what hardware is going into this build before I do too much more with them as i am going to cut the cables down a little and re crimp them, but what do you guys think about these 2 coloured sets?. Im actually really impressed with them, it saves a lot of hassle and look pretty too!


When I got home from my days away from work, i had a box... now, I wasnt going to even bother posting this until later either, but I really am impressed. These are great, and although usually I wouldnt really bother with a product until im ready to mod it, im already using these!!!

The inner box is rather nice...

Hmmmm, these are a little bit too black for this build... I guess im going to have to just keep them as my main headset.... or mod them

And last but not least... I didnt believe the hype(rX? no... just me? fine...) surrounding these headsets tbh and im no audiophile, but i really am loving these. Thanks HyperX!!!!

So, I realise this update is more showing what i have rather than anything actually happening, but i wanted to share this with you also....

I HAVE A NEW SPONSOR (well, maybe 2)!!!!!!

Im not going to say who yet... but lets just say... Pandora's box will be getting wet soon. (steady on!) and the 2 sponsors compliment each other perfectly.

Can ya guess who they might be?

 

[davido_labido]

Hi guys, a little bit of news and another small update!

So, a massive thanks to BitFenixUK again, I asked if I could get a couple of spare panels to play with so that i didnt have to start cutting up the originals to get them to fit, and they sent me another Pandora!!! so now all bar 1 panel fits perfectly!

What else have I been doing? Well, im currently waiting on finding out if a sponsor is willing to help me with a GPU/mobo... if so then this build will soon be speeding up, if not then it will have to slow down a little whilst I sneak the money out of the joint savings account! SHHHH!

so... SSDs.

First of all, I again, broke these silly little warranty stickers that they keep putting on the SSDs that HyperX so kindly send me. They know they wont last long!

hmmmm, internals.

pulled off the "x" and made sure there was no glue left on the back of it.

put them in my state of the art sprayng booth... its definitly not a box! honest guv

Gave them a good couple of coats of primer

a coat of purple...

and thats as far as i can go with it for now as its still drying! I want to give them at least 24hrs before i start putting them back togther, probably more like 48. And also need to grab some more white paint next time im in town to finish off the cases. This gives you a little insight into what they will look like though!

at the same time I also did the top mesh for the BitFenix Pandora.

Again, whipped it all apart, the middle bit is a dust filter, i wont be using that.

Primer

PURPLE!!! (to the untrained eye, I can understand that you might thing that is a dominos pizza box im using to spray on... i assure you, it might not be.)

hmmmm, nice coating.

Thanks for looking guys, apologies that these pictures werent great either, I was doing all of this whilst trying to work and couldnt spend the time i wanted on taking the pictures. I will however do some nice ones later when I put the SSDs back together and spray the other top bit of the Pandora.

 

[davido_labido]

Nice looking build so far what sort of paint have you used, and did u rub back the SSD covers and case panels?
Can I ask just out of Interest how do u get sponsored for these builds?
Look forward to more

For these I have just used some acrylic rattle cans, i gave them a quick rub down with some p1200 just to take off some of the shine before giving them a blast of primer to make sure the paint held properly.

Sponsorship just comes from a little hard work, a little luck and a lot of money being spent haha. I just did a build or two, documenting everything in build logs and showing off what id done. Then, i was asked if i was looking to do another build soon and if i was, could i use their products. I obviously said yes and once i had the first sponsor, the others followed! Its still a hobby for me though, so i dont have some of the sponsors some have, but i still have some big names helping me which i am proud of. Especially when companies like BitFenix, HyperX, Mayhems etc etc have helped me out on more than one occasion!

loving that dominoes box looking forward to seeing this mate.

Thanks John, hopefully it will be at I54, just playing the waiting game at the moment =(

He knows everyone and he does this..

haha, i dont quite know everyone... I wish I did though

 

[davido_labido]

so a little bit of an update here! sorry its taking a little while, I am rather ill at the moment with face ache (no idea what the problem is, something to do with my teeth crushing a cluster of nerves... its painful, as in, it hurts the whole of my left side of my face)

So without further to do... I pulled the plastic bits from the case and started to spray them white, this will go with the purple mesh you can see above!

The buttons, i actually used plasti dip as i wasnt 100% sure that they would work with the extra coating of paint as they are quite tight.

This is what it looks like once it has all been painted.

The SSDS have been put back together, but not 100% finished yet, im not happy with them entirely. I want to paint the logo back on and the left one has a couple of speckles of paint on (its hard to see with the naked eye, but the camera picks it up)

Also, i have now made the whole case fit together again (thanks to BitFenixUK for sending me a second Pandora to take apart for spares).

so this was the main problem i was having with the front panel (look at my amazing paint skills)

Basically none of the holes fit anywhere where the lug holes were in the wrong places, so i re drilled and moved them about a bit!

Now the front panel fits perfectly!!!

and here is a little before and after!

I would also like to announce my new sponsors!

ASUS will be supplying my motherboard so thank you guys!
ekwb will be supplying my loop, it will be awesome to work with these guys
Mayhems will be filling it as per usual, so its awesome to have them back on board!

I will be sorting out the logos and such as the parts arrive!

 

[davido_labido]

I'm happy to see the SSDs (obsessed much ).

Looks great so far looking forward to the end article.

Cheers man, i cant wait for my new bits to arrive! Its the first time ive stepped away from Nvidia for a build so it will be a bit interesting for me!

 

[davido_labido]

Love the colour scheme on this one Dave, quite a nice little case this.

Thanks man! Yeah, i think im going to steal the other one and use it to rehouse my server TBH. with it being so thin, i can just slip it between the walland the table leg and it wont even be noticed!

 

[davido_labido]

Tidy looking case, looking forward to this.

me too! i cant wait for some hardware to arrive so i can really get stuck in!

 

[davido_labido]

This is nice to see, good work! Companies need to do this more often tbh it puts them in a good light.

It is really humbling when companies do help, it sounds silly, but I get so excited with every sponsor I get, i'm like a kid at christmas lol!

well, I would like to say a massive thank you to my latest sponsor:

These guys have stepped up rather quickly for me, within 24 hours of confirming which motherboard I wanted, a UPS van turned up with it so I really cant fault them!

Lets see what they sent me:

Hmmmm, i'm loving the armour

wasn't this a BBC show? Im pretty sure I liked that too!

hmmm, maybe this should be "pandora edition"

Lets get HyperX in on this mobo action!!

hmmmm, I love this picture <3... reminds me of that ballad from the classical music group "Spice Girls - When 2 become 1" ... I heart you sponsors!

Unfortunately ASUS were unable to budget for a GPU for me at this moment in time, which is understandable! They are sponsoring some amazing builds at the moment from the likes of B N3GATIVE and montymole so I was more than happy to put my hand in my pocket for this!

Its my first AMD card.... Ever!

I really like this backplate too, ok, if i can get it to fit with the waterblock that should be on its way soon, then it certainly wont be staying black!

I will say a huge thank you to OCUK though as per usual who always step up and help me. Im rather thankful as the missus doesnt give me as much of a hard time and they really do go above and beyond in helping me. The amount of time the guys at OCUK have for me is amazing - Thanks Gents!

So, the next update will most certainly be spraying the motherboard armour and then having a look at how the cables are going to fit into this case. Then, its just waiting for my ekwb shipment and some colour matching from Mayhems coolant and we can really start on the build

 

[davido_labido]

Classic spice girls, pmsl. The moment i saw the shot of the gryphon board, i had an inkling that the armour would be getting painted. Seen a few maximus 6 formula based builds were the owners have done some stunning paint jobs on the armour. Amazingly quick delivery of the board too.

Yeah, I was very surprised to get it the next day from a sponsor, usually it has to be approved and signed off etc etc!

What do you do with these sponsored rigs, is this going to be your personal pc?

well, H2Orange is my every day PC, then I have my HTPC (inwin H-frame mini build) and a couple of other little builds... so this one will... urm... im not sure what il do with it actually! I might use it as a back up rig at LANs lol

Just guessing but if he does a good enough job some of the sponsors might ask if they can have it for events to show some of their joys off at.

Oh, im hoping it will be on a stand at I54 certainly! If not I will be dissapointed!

Looking really good. I really like the TUF series boards, both in terms of looks and features.

Are you planning on customising the armour at all?

Thanks buddy! And just scroll down a little in this post hehe

Gooooood

Cheers sexy xxx

Will you be doing something with the armour Dave?

Doing something with the armour you say....

So, obviously the armour wasnt going to stay that colour for long!!! so here we go, into my state of the art spray booth it goes!!!

getting it optimally primed

and then sprayed

not forgetting the PCI-E covers (i set them into the cardboard so that the actual backs stayed plastic... i dont want flaking paint in my pci-e slots!)

and some shots of the (almost) finished product:

I am going to introduce some more purple to the armour.... I have an idea and the parts are on order for said idea to work

however, we are seeing some problems cropping up in this build... some major, some not so...

for example:

The biggest issue I have is the GPU is wider than the case, I did actually think this would happen, so it wasnt a total suprise, but its not going to be an easy problem to fix. I do have some bits on order that will help solve the issue though. I have 3 ideas so far that will hopefully make sure that everything will still go into the Pandora

The PSU wont fit at the top properly. This is due to the top of the case, so i will have to get the dremel onto that and teach it a lesson.

and the last little niggle is that the 24 pin slot is not in line with the holes, so I will have to get the dremel out, cut the hole then make a motherboard tray cover as well, which I have started to measure up

Using yet more really expensive equipment (its totally NOT a bit of cardboard box from OCUK!!!) I started to see where i needed to cover and what i needed to cut out.

This will be the rough shape of the cover. The good thing about this is i should be able to move it in slightly so that i have somewhere to route the cables also, but we will see how that works when i have made it.

I want to try and grab some matt white acrylic to make this out of... PARVUM?! where are you guys!!?!

 

[davido_labido]

Send us the cardboard and it shall return as matte white acrylic (Y)

I need to wait for the water cooling stuff before I send it boys, you sure you don't want me to just send you one of my amazing renders?

I knew you wouldn't be leaving the armour, I'm just trying to make you work faster haha!

Looks so much better now that you've painted it. The purple covers are looking great, just goes so well.

Yeah I need to work faster but at the moment I'm waiting for parts. Is not going to be an easy build but I think i will get there in the end. I might call in some reinforcements soon though to give me a hand for a day.

what spray paint did you use for the armour.Plus did you use the z87 armour as the sprayed one is different to that of the z97.

I'm not actually sure what paint it is. It's just some cheap stuff from b&q. Coverage is nice and the colour is vibrant though so im happy! And that's the armour that came with the board, it's just got all the stickers pulled off. I do think I will be taking it apart again to give it another blast of paint as I've had a little idea.

Looking good!

38 days to go mate, get it done!

(<- Yarwood)

Oh Lord .... Is that all??? Fancy a beer around mine soon.... This is totally not an elaborate plan to get you give me a hand for a few hours haha

 

[davido_labido]

So a little bit more work has been done!

This is the front panel to the Pandora.

as you can see, its rather black and also has this:

This allows a little LCD screen to shine through the smoked acrylic.

This means without masking the square I cant really just paint it. So, I had a slightly different idea and did this...

not very neat i know... but with a file and a bit of emery cloth I managed to get this:

not bad... not bad.

The front panel is still rather black though..... So, i took it apart (its 2 panels screwed together) and put them into my hi tech booth.

give them a couple of coats of primer

then sprayed the almost hidden one (you can see it a little bit from the front) white

and the main panel purple

I put the panels back together (the front panel is made up of 2 seperate ones, and it just didn't look right at all, because id cut the panel for the screen, it just looked like it was too far away from the front of the case, so i came up with the solution.

I had a little scrap of clear acrylic kicking about.

marked the hole onto it and filed it down

Then inlayed it into the front of the case panel.

its not perfect, but i was doing it at 22:30 on a sunday night in the kitchen!!! and all i used were these tools

So, whats it look like now?

Panels before and after (its awesome having a spare case, it means I can do shots like these so much easier!!!)

panels fitted

a really nice shot to show how the case has changed overall, you can really see the difference between my inverted case and the standard one

and one with the case panels on. I need to get these painted/coated next. Ideally though I need to see what im doing with the hardware first! Hopefully then I can progress!

Thanks for reading!

 

[davido_labido]

Awesome love the purple, come to think of it not seen too many purple builds around.
How many coats do you give it and also will you sand then paint some more?
How much of your own money has gone into this build and sponsor builds in general?

with these i didn't use many coats at all actually, probably one (maybe 2) of primer, then a few coats of purple or white.... with the purple i sanded down between coats as i didn't like the finish so much....
for this build i have bought the GPU, processor and then what ever i use to mod it with really, so paint, acrylic etc. il probably spend around 600 quid by the time ive done, not too bad really for a custom build, but i wasn't expecting to spend that much. its just that i couldn't wait for the GPU so had to buy it.

Crackin paint job mate its coming along great, it's handy to see the original and the newly transformed version.

yeah i like having both cases to compare and contrast and thanks!

 

[davido_labido]

So, a little tiny update as im really not sure about this, so i need to see if you guys think its a good idea or not... I wanted to add more purple to the ASUS motherboard armour... so i did this:

Good idea?
Bad idea?
Good idea, but implemented badly?
Too much?

Im not sure. I do like it, and a lot of the motherboard will get covered when the waterblocks/pipes get moved into the case, so i think this will work well, just having touches of purple showing through.

Anyway, let me know, be honest!