I went out over the weekend and picked up a Cooler Master 690 case from Microcenter. They have a great deal going on threw march on these cases. With the case running for $20 after $40 MIR i couldn't pass it up. I love the mesh on this case and the placement of the connectors on the top.
The biggest problem i have with the case is the placement of the power, reset, and LEDs on the lower right side of the case. So this is one of the things i'll be changing.
Here is a few more images of the case.
Well like i said the power, reset, and LEDs need to be relocated. I plan to get a couple of black housed Bulgin switches with Blue LEDs. One for power, and one for Reset. The LEDs in the switches will be the power and HDD LEDs. I'll be drilling holes in the top of the case just in front of the eSATA and Firewire port. The place where they where at will be filled in with some sort of filler and painted so you won't know they where ever there.
Blue Illuminated Bulgin Style Vandal Switch - Black Housing - Ring Illumination - FrozenCPU.com
But before i can do that there are a few other things that need to happen. So to start things off i stripped the front face and top off the case. I went further by removing the cables, mesh, and chromed accents from those pieces.
This revealed an odd grill that sits in front of the front intake fan and the top fans. The front intake fan is a Blue LED fan. I plan to make the top fans the same but i don't want the blue glow to be blocked by those grills. So all that has to go.
So i took my wire cutters and cut the soft plastic grill off.
After a couple of hours of filing and cleaning up the edges we have this.
Thats about all I've done for now. I need to pull together some money so i can get paints and other supplies together. As you can see by the FrozenCPU link the switches are out of stock. So I'm waiting to get an email for when they have them back in stock. I've tossed around a couple of paint ideas. I think I've settled on paining the middle section Blue. I'll leave the mesh panels black to allow the blue to show threw. Should match up well with the Blue LED fans shinning threw as well. I don't want to use the 5.25" bay covers on this case. I think I'll make a custom cover for the 3 unused drive bays to help it be more of a seamless look. I may even paint over the Chromed pieces. Have to sit on that idea for a while. I'm also considering painting the inside of the case a flat black.
Somewhere along the way i may design a window for it. I think i'll use Blue Plexi in the window.




LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks













Reply With Quote














Bookmarks