My case after I added a 120mm fan grille to the front. Note, this
pic shows the grille mounted with machine screws. I later re-mounted
the grilled with rivets (see below).
Welcome to my little spot on the web where I prove how big of a geek I am by showing off pictures of my Enlight 7237 case modifications. If you have any questions or comments, direct them to krick@bigfoot.com.
All of the fans and grilles came from http://www.2cooltek.com. If you haven't been there before, stop by and have a look. You'll be glad you did.
For most of the metal cutting I used a $9.99 Nibbling Tool from Radio $hack (Catalog#: 64-823). They're kinda slow but they're cheap, very precise, and they don't make tons of metal shavings and metal dust like jigsaws or dremel cutoff wheels do. They just make little 1/8 inch metal nibbles. I found that I could cover the place on the tool where the nibbles come out with some tape to catch them when they fly. Then I just empty it every 3 to 4 inches of cutting.
For most of the plastic cutting, I used a dremel cutoff disc for the major hacking and then finished up with a sanding drum. The drum melts through the plastic like butta.
To round out my tool bag, I have a small razor hobby knife that I use to trim, debur, shave, bevel, and generally clean up the plastic after I get through mutilating it.
Click on any picture for a larger version.
My case after I added a 120mm fan grille to the front. Note, this pic shows the grille mounted with machine screws. I later re-mounted the grilled with rivets (see below).
A closer shot of the bezel and grille. I decided that I didn't like the look of screw heads so I switched to stainless split rivets with smooth heads. You can't really see it but I bent the grille slightly to make it follow the curve of the case better.
A closeup of the rivet head
A closeup of the back of the rivet. I put a washer over the rivet, split it with a wedge, and folded the tabs down flat with a few careful hammer taps.
A shot of the back side of the front bezel. Notice that I offset the grille so I didn't have to hack into the lower clip assembly.
A long shot of the case with the front bezel off.
A close up of the mesh screen. Note that I left the lower slot for the bezel clip intact. You can't really see it but the mesh screen is actually stretched back just behind the slot to allow the bezel to clip on. I had to file down the lower front corners of the fan housing and the mesh screen slightly where it overlapped the holes on either side because of the two protruding alignment pegs on the front bezel.
My aluminum Panaflo 120 fan. I took another 120mm fan and cut out the center fan assembly to make a sort of duct/spacer. This serves two purposes. First, it creates some space behind the mesh screen so it can bow out around the bezel clip. Second, it moves the fan away from the screen and lowers the noise a bit. To bolt this all together, I cut lengths of threaded rod and put locking nuts on one end. On the other end, I used knurled brass nuts. You can seen them more clearly in the previous picture. I like the brass nuts because I can easily take it apart without tools if I need to wash the screen. You can also see that I had to move the speaker since the original mounting spot is now taken up by speaker. I attached it with one of those stick on velcro dots. I'm not really happy about the placement. I'm thinking about moving it up next to the 3.5 drive cage right below the power, reset, and LEDs.
For reference, a picture of the original front fan location before cutting.
The back of a virgin 7237 case.
The back of my case after adding a Sunon 80mm fan, cutting out the stamped fan grilles, and adding nice chrome grilles to increase airflow and lower noise. Notice that I had to do a little extra case cutting around the top of the power supply grille so it would fit properly.
My SCSI drive stack of CD burning pleasure. The lower bay holds a 4.5 GB 7200rpm IBM SCSI drive in a 3 fan "Just Cooler" bay cooler that sucks in cool air. It has a removable foam filter. I modified it a bit by adding an amber HD activity led in the upper left corner that connects directly to a pair of pins on my drive.
A shot of the side of my case. I still have some wire tidying to do but I'm a little afraid of splitting and rounding my $15 SCSI cable. Notice that I positioned my drive cooler roughly across from my rear exhaust fan with the CPU in between. This helps create a little extra cross flow ventilation to cool the CPU.
Many people complain about the placement of the ATX power supply connector on the Abit BM6 motherboard. I think it's perfect. As you can see in this pic, I attached the cable to the bottom of the PS using two wire ties through the grating. Then I plugged the cable into my motherboard and tucked the extra cable under my rear fan housing. I don't think you can get the cable more out of the way than that. In this pic you can also see how I wrapped the extra CPU fan wire around the housing under the mounting screws to clean up my case a bit.
In this pic you can see three more things I've done to my case. First, I ran my CD-ROM audio cables under my motherboard to get them out of the way. They come out at the bottom and loop over to plug into my sound card. Second, in the lower right corner of the picture, I stuck some extra motherboard mounts on the tray and used some wire ties to wrap up my case wires and hold them nicely out of the way. Finally, in the lower left of the picture, I bought a small battery powered fluorescent work light and attached it inside my case with velcro above my card slots. It's really handy when I'm crawling around on the floor under my desk fiddling in my case or plugging something in the back. since it's attached with velcro, I just rip it off and lay it in the bottom of the case, shove it in an empty drive bay, or lay it on the floor behind my computer wherever I need light.
Since I know people will ask, here's a pic of the box from the light. I picked it up for $5 at a tool outlet store in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
I've had people ask me specifics about my system so I thought I should add that here:
PART BRAND WHERE PURCHASED Case Enlight 7237 with 250W power supply http://www.pagecomputer.com Motherboard Abit BM6 http://www.outsideloop.com CPU Intel Celeron 366MHz overclocked to 550MHz http://www.outsideloop.com CPU Heatsink & Fan Globalwin VFP32 http://www.outsideloop.com Memory two 64MB PC100 Samsung G8 (125 MHz) SDRAM DIMMs http://www.mushkin.com IDE Hard Drive Maxtor 92049U6 20.4GB Ultra66 7200rpm http://www.buy.com Video Card Creative Labs Annihilator Pro GeForce 256 DDR AGP http://www.buy.com Sound Card Sound Blaster Live! Value http://www.buy.com Modem 3Com Internet Gaming Modem http://www.pagecomputer.com SCSI Card Adaptec 2930C (Plextor OEM version) http://www.buy.com CD-ROM Plextor PX-40TSi Ultraplex 40Max Ultra SCSI http://www.buy.com CD-R Plextor PX-R820Ti Plexwriter 8/20 Fast SCSI http://www.buy.com SCSI Hard Drive IBM DDRS-34560 4.5GB Ultra SCSI 7200rpm http://www.dirtcheapdrives.com Monitor CTX VL960 19inch with built in USB 4 port hub http://www.buy.com Mouse Logitech Mouseman Wheel USB http://www.buy.com Keyboard Logitech Deluxe 104 Best Buy Joystick Gravis Xterminator Digital USB Gamepad Best Buy Speakers Cambridge Soundworks PCWorks CSW100 Best Buy Scanner Epson Perfection 1200U 1200x2400 dpi 36-bit USB http://www.buy.com Printer Epson Stylus Color 740 USB inkjet 1440x720 dpi http://www.buy.com
My computer mascot, the "computer byte"... note that the "byte" logo on his chest is upside-down. When I found him, he was the last one and nobody wanted him because the chest logo was applied incorrectly. Maybe it's an endian thing...or maybe he's Australian or something...either way, I think it's funny.
