stinka's antec p160 facia mod

[stinka]

stinka's antec p160 case mod

so im fed up with my tacky looking and old antec p160

it is a very good case roomy and well designed just imo the front panel is a bit poor with fake chrome effects and stuff going on

well i decided to have a go at making a new front pannel this weekend

first i had half a sheet of 18mm mdf in the shed so i cut to oversize pices roughly and stuck them together with pva, i clamped them and screwed them from the back :

sorry for the poor quality pics

i left them all day yesterday and overnight and they were well stuck this morning. i marked out the new facia using the existing one as a template :

then i set myself up in the garden, router, circular saw and cordless drill etc

using a 4ft spirit level as a guide for my circular saw i cut out the facia panel blank :

 

[stinka]

next stage was to router out the opening for the 4 x 5.25 drive bays :

then i used a trend corner chisel to square the corners after routing:

i then cut a 110 mm hole in front of the front fan location and used a bullnose router bit to round the edges on the fan hole drive bays and the outer edges

then i flipped it over and routed the back freehand (to save time) for a grill over fan and clearance round optical bays :

 

[stinka]

so thats as far as i got today, given it a light sand but theres some burns around the drive bay opening, but they wont be seen once i spray it

im not sure how to fix it to the case, toying with a few ideas might have some threaded bar in all for corners with some thumb screws or maybee just screw it through from the inside

im hoping to use to aluminium push switches, like race car starter buttons 1 for power and 1 for reset with the 2 led's power/hdd between them. i'll mount these below the optical bays where the 3.5" bays are

im still undecided as to a finish. probably spray it silver to match the case but im thinking i could laminate it with some iron on stuff maybee carbon fibre or walnut burr or somthing mad

also ive got the standard unwindowed side panel so im going to cut a window in that of some kind

thanks

stinka

 

[stinka]

looks good, but you'll regret you did the freehand parts when everything else looks awesome

i could neaten them up, but i thought ya cant see em when its on

 

[stinka]

nice little project you got there stinka

thanks for the comments people

im hopefully going to fit a rad in the top and water cool my cpu

im hoping a 120.2 will fit but if not a 120.1 will do

 

[stinka]

Spray it in something different, not silver or black.

Maybe paint it black and put some simple blue tribal patterns on the front, then use all blue leds inside. Or red?

i cant stand tribal paterns tbh mate, im going for clean understated and retro its not a corsa sri you know

but thanks for the suggestion

 

[stinka]

Great woodwork there stinka!

cheers mate, well i have a go like

 

[stinka]

I reckon you should leave it plain, it kinda looks like a hifi speaker, which imo is awsome.

ha ha cheers mate, yeh i thought it was like one of those old fasioned radios

 

[stinka]

I really like it dude.

Think you should make a wooden case!

id love too mate like those danger den bespoke wooden cases

its just finding the time......

 

[stinka]

I'd buy one! Being totaly honest too

you've got me thinking now mate

it would certainly be more fun (easy life) sat at home knocking up wooden pc cases, than fitting kitchens, hanging doors and putting roofs on......

 

[stinka]

thanks for all the positive replys so far

as a few of you have sugested i may just give it a few coats of clear polyeurathane varnish and polish it up to a right old shine

im thinking of putting power/reset buttons in the top pannel at the front to leave the front as minimal as i can, and also putting threaded bar in back side of facia set in resin so i can attach thumb screws from the inside therefore leaving the front unclutered as it is

also toying with an idea about modding my zalman fan controller so as the 2 toggle switches on the right are replaced with power/reset push switches and the leds above for power/hdd. id do away with both switches and leds drill non critical holes in pcb to thread wires from switches/leds to mobo, but ill have to speak to my mate who knows a fare bit about electronics as i cant get my head round the pcb atm

 

[stinka]

Lovely job, really impressed with it. Def put as little on the front as possible, looks really nice plain and simple. And varnish all the way.
mark

glad you like it and ive decided to mod my zalman fan conroller as i said to keep front as minimalistic as poss

im amazed at all the positive comments cheers

 

[stinka]

Looks realy good, bet it would look even better in a nice real wood.

im thinking the same but it takes a lot of time and patience to router as much material away from real wood as the grain tends to split if you dont move the router in the correct way

knowing my luck id get all the way to the end and a big chunk of wood would come flying off spose i could use my chisels on the openings tho

 

[stinka]

been racking my brains thinking about a way to fix the front and ive sorted it :

found some 12 mm magnetic catches in b&q today whilst getting some stuff for work, so i got a couple. fitted them in the two existing holes in the front of my case had to dremel the holes slightly bigger :

and double sunk the two plates into the back of my facia allowing for the magnet sticking out of the case as well leaving it (the facia) perfectly flush with my case:

i needed some locating pins at the top so i placed the facia on and marked 2 existing 3mm holes on back of facia with a pencil from inside the case (if that makes sense)

i took facia off and screwed 2 self tappers in the pencil marks on back of facia. i then ground the exposed thread off the self tappers to leave to locating pegs that aligned perfectly and are quite snug in the holes

so im going to put 2 more magnets in the top area and mabey a couple more locating pegs at the bottom but it did the job. in fact as it is now its pretty secure and doesnt fall off

and as it is now with the old top panel hanging out untill i mod the zalman as previously mentioned :

 

[stinka]

Wooow. thats nice.. i cba doing a hole wooden case.. so i might robbed your idea sorry

get it done mate glad to be an inspiraton, make sure you take pics of the journey

 

[stinka]

been thinking about my side window design allday and i think ive got a great idea

ive got my standard unwindowed side panel and im going to cut an opening and finish it with a raised mdf piece like this :

the green bit being the mdf with a port like the front for another 120mm fan over the gpu

i'll have a go at that on saturday i hope

 

[stinka]

How would you go about mounting the MDF?

i will screw it with small chipboared screws from inside then silicon perspex to mdf as mdf opening will be smaller than cut out on side panel if you get my drift

 

[stinka]

you should make a living from that l

cheers mate, but i do, im a joiner

im pretty shocked at the positive feed back in this thread. its just something i do everyday, and after some inspiration from drazic im going to build a complete case

but i want to finish this project first. side panel at the week end, then its my watercooling install single loop just for the cpu, when i get the bits:

thermochill 120.1 inside at top
d-tek-fuzion or apogee gtx
ddc with plexitop
micro res

 

[stinka]

my side panel vision has been realized, heres how i did it :

i taped the panel and marked out what i thought would be window opening. then i cut a blank and marked openings on this (forgot to take pics of this stage ) i partially cut this out with my chop saw and finished it off with hand saw, then routered openings in usual manner with bullnose bit leaving this :

i drilled some starting holes with a 10mm bit so i could get my jigsaw in to cut opening in side panel :

i then cut opening out :

 

[stinka]

then i mounted my fan in the 110mm opening with some self tapers and screwed the mdf from the inside :

and it turned out like this:

again i apologize for poor photos