This is a build log I thought I would post up. It’s in no way an amazing feat of engineering like some of the builds. It’s just my Silverstone FT02 build I did with a couple of minor customizations.
The build started in about Feb this year when I decided I wanted to do away with my old Antec Midi tower case, and get something nice and spacious/future proof again that would house my components with good cooling but of which was still quiet. I am still on socket 775 running a quad but it does me fine and with a couple of little upgrades I decided to just swap them all out to this new case. The additional objective with this case is to kid proof any switches on the front so they cannot tinker/break anything. I’d rather not find Optimus prime inside my case again.
I was looking at large air cooled cases (been there with watercooling a couple of times and want to stick to air these days) and sort of settled on a couple of potentials. Then, I saw a Silverstone FT02 Black case with window on ebay for £75 buy it now. Given that they retail for about £200, I decided to snap it up. The catch was that it had damage and a couple of missing parts….
I collected the case and felt I had grabbed a good deal. The case had a fairly significant scratch down the front and on a couple of the blanking plate covers. The sides panels were pretty good and the window only a couple of minor sratches. No major parts were missing at all. For the non fussy, it was good to go.
But…I’m fussy. I decided the only way to get rid of the scratch was to rub the case down to bare metal and repaint it. So the work began.
First I undid a few screws (luckily not riveted) to isolate the main body from the external one piece front/back/bottom panel.
Then the below pics show the rubbing down process. I started with fairly coarse wet and dry around 200 grit probably, and then worked up to a very fine 1600 or so.
Then painting began. Primer baser coat first just using Halfords cans.
I often had to dry it inside under the cooker hood extractor fan due to snow/cold outside. I warm cans before I use them. I did a couple of coats of primer, then I started with the main paint. I decided to use a BMW Graphite Metallic colour which looks like black from a distance but has a graphite sparkle like some kitchen worktops. Some of the pics make it look a bit cheap with the flash but in normal light it’s quite nice looking. At the end of this all I will udpate with finished pics with stealth drive mod.
Here is the old little Antec beside the new beast.
I decided to replace the older style 180mm fans for the new AP181 air penetrator. Well, I replaced the rear most 2 fans. Thefront I left as the original to blow over the hard disks as they are £15 a pop. Worth it though I feel.
Old:
New:
I also ordered 5 of the Silverstone hot swap adapters so that all 5 drives could be hotswappable for the future. I just wanted to get it done and not have to think about it again. I also run a few backup drives and liked the idea of whacking them in and out to backup to.
You can see the mamoth task of cable management starting to become an issue! I also did a couple of other upgrades. New Corsair Dominator 2 x 4gb of ram to maximise the life of my socket 775 setup which has the ability to run DDR3 in 2 slots. Was one of the DDR2/DDR3 crossover boards from Gigabyte (DS3R). I got a Crucial 64gb SSD for OS when I finally get round to swapping from XP to 7! You can also see I got a nice cheap Zalman 6way fan controller. Finally, an overdue PSU upgrade was in order to help with cable management. I went for a Corsair flat cabled modular HX650.
The FT02 case features a PSU mount which has a rear filter and fan hole so the PSU can breathe in through the rear and extract up vertically. The problem with this, is that it is really designed to fit nicely over the fan of a longer style PSU, typically the higher powered more expensive type. If you mount the PSU normally using the usual rear screw positions in this case on a shorter PSU, the PSU fan will overlap the rear space for this only half exposing it which can hamper it’s airflow. To combat this, I came up with an idea.
I used the packaging in the Corsair box to make a shroud to fit the gap between mounting it an inch or two lower down, to channel the air straight up and out of the case as it should. It does not get hot or present a fire hazard and works well.
In order to mount it securely in this lower position so the fan met up with the rear space in the case for this, I used the screws that hold the actual panel of the PSU on. I took 3 of them out (top left, bottom left and top right) and they just so happened to perfectly align over pre drilled holes in the case. So you do them back up to resecure the PSU panel but going through the Silverstone case fan hole mount from outside to in which actually mounts it in place very securely. Literally it won’t budge. Looks stock to be honest.
One of the objectives for this case was to make the front panel stealth, so nothing my kid could physically muck about with in terms of switches, DVD drives etc. So I started to look at how to mount the fan controller. You can see from the below pic that you can actually push optical drives and such back just enough to fit a blanking plate over the front of them, except that the fan controller has huge knobs which stick out too far. You can also see below that the knobs can be removed exposing the bare…errr…knobs…which don’t stick out quite as far, but JUST enough to not get a blanking plate over them.
I toyed with mounting the fan controller completely internally since I would most likely tune the fans to run at a 24/7 setting….
Then decided against that and modified the fan controllers PCB vs front panel screws/washers to make it have a shorter footprint in length. This did the trick and I was able to mount it with enough space to get a blanking plate over the front of it for stealth duties.
Next up was the Bluray/DVDRW drive for mods. I wanted to ensure the eject button was prep’d ready to be mounted elsewhere for stealth dutires as well. i.e. A push switch elsewhere on the case. In order to do this the drive requires dissassembly to gain access to the eject part of the PCB internally. WARNING: This will void your warranty opening up the drive.
In order to open up the drive is common sense. A few screws here and there, don’t force anything. Work out how it opens up and how the main case drops off the body.
Once inside, be careful of the front panel, mount and orientation of moving parts.
The drive is actually upside down in most of these pics including above ones. In the below pic you can see the underside of the PCB which affects the drive ejecting. When you push the eject button it pushes on a terminal which makes a connection (underneath the PCB on this pic) which essentially is making a circuit between two junctions. We can solder on a simple switch by connecting a wire to each which can wonder off out the back of the unit to form a push switch elsewhere.
I use a Butane (gas fueled) soldering iron. I got mine from a popular electronics store a couple of years ago. A single tiny can of Butane gas has lasted me top ups of over 2 years and I’ve used it quite a lot. I prefer Butane irons in that they are portable with no wires and hence less hassle to use (for me). I always use Flux to help the solder bind, and I usually pre tin the wires. The wires are taped down and fed out the back of the unit. Assemble the drive back up and it’s good to go.
In order to finish off the stealth mods it was time to sort out the switches. I wanted one for the bluray drive to eject, and one to power on/off the case. I do not care for a reset switch. Originally on my last case I had a front door with key lock so did not have to do any of this, but this limits case options massively. Another method of doing away with a front panel power switch is to use the rear PSU rocker switch and set BIOS to always power back on after regaining mains power. However, on this case the rear rocker switch on the PSU is not accessible due to the way that the case has a top panel over the PSU and cables, hence the requirment for a power switch.
I wanted the switches to be known about but not seen, so they are behind the front top panel and can be felt and accessed by dropping fingers in behind it easily, between where the top panel starts in the big gap. The eject is easiest to press directly inline, and the power button harder to get to on the left so not accidentally pressed. I bought simple push to make switches (not to be confused with push to break switches) from a well known electronics store for a matter or pence. They mount through a simple drilled hole and a washer/locking nut system.
The cable management was tough on this case but completely doable. No matter what people say, there is enough space behind the mobo and side panel to get stuff in. You just have to plan and use cable ties and P bracket mounts and the likes. You can see where I routed the fan wires and did away with the internal case switches for slow/fast and went direct to fan controller.
Now all the internals are in (unpainted side panel on the pic below).
You can see in the pics earlier that the front looks like, but I will update tomorrow with better pics of the finished case and maybe a vid of how the front is 100% stealth. So it basically just looks like a case with all blanking plates installed but when the bluray drive is ejected you get access to the fan controller as it pulls out the blanking plate below it as well.
It’s a great case so I thought it deserved a mini build log thread. For £75 and a couple of cans of paint and a bit of modding, I’m quite happy with it.
I probably forgot to mention a load of stuff so feel free to ask any questions.
Cheers
The build started in about Feb this year when I decided I wanted to do away with my old Antec Midi tower case, and get something nice and spacious/future proof again that would house my components with good cooling but of which was still quiet. I am still on socket 775 running a quad but it does me fine and with a couple of little upgrades I decided to just swap them all out to this new case. The additional objective with this case is to kid proof any switches on the front so they cannot tinker/break anything. I’d rather not find Optimus prime inside my case again.
I was looking at large air cooled cases (been there with watercooling a couple of times and want to stick to air these days) and sort of settled on a couple of potentials. Then, I saw a Silverstone FT02 Black case with window on ebay for £75 buy it now. Given that they retail for about £200, I decided to snap it up. The catch was that it had damage and a couple of missing parts….
I collected the case and felt I had grabbed a good deal. The case had a fairly significant scratch down the front and on a couple of the blanking plate covers. The sides panels were pretty good and the window only a couple of minor sratches. No major parts were missing at all. For the non fussy, it was good to go.
But…I’m fussy. I decided the only way to get rid of the scratch was to rub the case down to bare metal and repaint it. So the work began.
First I undid a few screws (luckily not riveted) to isolate the main body from the external one piece front/back/bottom panel.
Then the below pics show the rubbing down process. I started with fairly coarse wet and dry around 200 grit probably, and then worked up to a very fine 1600 or so.
Then painting began. Primer baser coat first just using Halfords cans.
I often had to dry it inside under the cooker hood extractor fan due to snow/cold outside. I warm cans before I use them. I did a couple of coats of primer, then I started with the main paint. I decided to use a BMW Graphite Metallic colour which looks like black from a distance but has a graphite sparkle like some kitchen worktops. Some of the pics make it look a bit cheap with the flash but in normal light it’s quite nice looking. At the end of this all I will udpate with finished pics with stealth drive mod.
Here is the old little Antec beside the new beast.
I decided to replace the older style 180mm fans for the new AP181 air penetrator. Well, I replaced the rear most 2 fans. Thefront I left as the original to blow over the hard disks as they are £15 a pop. Worth it though I feel.
Old:
New:
I also ordered 5 of the Silverstone hot swap adapters so that all 5 drives could be hotswappable for the future. I just wanted to get it done and not have to think about it again. I also run a few backup drives and liked the idea of whacking them in and out to backup to.
You can see the mamoth task of cable management starting to become an issue! I also did a couple of other upgrades. New Corsair Dominator 2 x 4gb of ram to maximise the life of my socket 775 setup which has the ability to run DDR3 in 2 slots. Was one of the DDR2/DDR3 crossover boards from Gigabyte (DS3R). I got a Crucial 64gb SSD for OS when I finally get round to swapping from XP to 7! You can also see I got a nice cheap Zalman 6way fan controller. Finally, an overdue PSU upgrade was in order to help with cable management. I went for a Corsair flat cabled modular HX650.
The FT02 case features a PSU mount which has a rear filter and fan hole so the PSU can breathe in through the rear and extract up vertically. The problem with this, is that it is really designed to fit nicely over the fan of a longer style PSU, typically the higher powered more expensive type. If you mount the PSU normally using the usual rear screw positions in this case on a shorter PSU, the PSU fan will overlap the rear space for this only half exposing it which can hamper it’s airflow. To combat this, I came up with an idea.
I used the packaging in the Corsair box to make a shroud to fit the gap between mounting it an inch or two lower down, to channel the air straight up and out of the case as it should. It does not get hot or present a fire hazard and works well.
In order to mount it securely in this lower position so the fan met up with the rear space in the case for this, I used the screws that hold the actual panel of the PSU on. I took 3 of them out (top left, bottom left and top right) and they just so happened to perfectly align over pre drilled holes in the case. So you do them back up to resecure the PSU panel but going through the Silverstone case fan hole mount from outside to in which actually mounts it in place very securely. Literally it won’t budge. Looks stock to be honest.
One of the objectives for this case was to make the front panel stealth, so nothing my kid could physically muck about with in terms of switches, DVD drives etc. So I started to look at how to mount the fan controller. You can see from the below pic that you can actually push optical drives and such back just enough to fit a blanking plate over the front of them, except that the fan controller has huge knobs which stick out too far. You can also see below that the knobs can be removed exposing the bare…errr…knobs…which don’t stick out quite as far, but JUST enough to not get a blanking plate over them.
I toyed with mounting the fan controller completely internally since I would most likely tune the fans to run at a 24/7 setting….
Then decided against that and modified the fan controllers PCB vs front panel screws/washers to make it have a shorter footprint in length. This did the trick and I was able to mount it with enough space to get a blanking plate over the front of it for stealth duties.
Next up was the Bluray/DVDRW drive for mods. I wanted to ensure the eject button was prep’d ready to be mounted elsewhere for stealth dutires as well. i.e. A push switch elsewhere on the case. In order to do this the drive requires dissassembly to gain access to the eject part of the PCB internally. WARNING: This will void your warranty opening up the drive.
In order to open up the drive is common sense. A few screws here and there, don’t force anything. Work out how it opens up and how the main case drops off the body.
Once inside, be careful of the front panel, mount and orientation of moving parts.
The drive is actually upside down in most of these pics including above ones. In the below pic you can see the underside of the PCB which affects the drive ejecting. When you push the eject button it pushes on a terminal which makes a connection (underneath the PCB on this pic) which essentially is making a circuit between two junctions. We can solder on a simple switch by connecting a wire to each which can wonder off out the back of the unit to form a push switch elsewhere.
I use a Butane (gas fueled) soldering iron. I got mine from a popular electronics store a couple of years ago. A single tiny can of Butane gas has lasted me top ups of over 2 years and I’ve used it quite a lot. I prefer Butane irons in that they are portable with no wires and hence less hassle to use (for me). I always use Flux to help the solder bind, and I usually pre tin the wires. The wires are taped down and fed out the back of the unit. Assemble the drive back up and it’s good to go.
In order to finish off the stealth mods it was time to sort out the switches. I wanted one for the bluray drive to eject, and one to power on/off the case. I do not care for a reset switch. Originally on my last case I had a front door with key lock so did not have to do any of this, but this limits case options massively. Another method of doing away with a front panel power switch is to use the rear PSU rocker switch and set BIOS to always power back on after regaining mains power. However, on this case the rear rocker switch on the PSU is not accessible due to the way that the case has a top panel over the PSU and cables, hence the requirment for a power switch.
I wanted the switches to be known about but not seen, so they are behind the front top panel and can be felt and accessed by dropping fingers in behind it easily, between where the top panel starts in the big gap. The eject is easiest to press directly inline, and the power button harder to get to on the left so not accidentally pressed. I bought simple push to make switches (not to be confused with push to break switches) from a well known electronics store for a matter or pence. They mount through a simple drilled hole and a washer/locking nut system.
The cable management was tough on this case but completely doable. No matter what people say, there is enough space behind the mobo and side panel to get stuff in. You just have to plan and use cable ties and P bracket mounts and the likes. You can see where I routed the fan wires and did away with the internal case switches for slow/fast and went direct to fan controller.
Now all the internals are in (unpainted side panel on the pic below).
You can see in the pics earlier that the front looks like, but I will update tomorrow with better pics of the finished case and maybe a vid of how the front is 100% stealth. So it basically just looks like a case with all blanking plates installed but when the bluray drive is ejected you get access to the fan controller as it pulls out the blanking plate below it as well.
It’s a great case so I thought it deserved a mini build log thread. For £75 and a couple of cans of paint and a bit of modding, I’m quite happy with it.
I probably forgot to mention a load of stuff so feel free to ask any questions.
Cheers
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