Frosty-G

[10e]

I've had this Bitfenix Prodigy white edition for over a year.

I love the internal layout and the way they manage space for a Mini-ITX configuration, and I generally love the look of the case except for one thing: The handles, especially on top.

I think they make it look a bit over-done and a bit too "lan-party ish" (like DFI and their weird color layouts) so I set out to remove the handles. This provides a challenge. The original handles use two screws on each side for a total of four, and they have tabs that insert into grooves on the side. The Phenom solves this with a different set of components like taller side panels, but with the Prodigy, removing the handles exposes these holes in the side.

Inspired by Singularity Computers' youtube video for Client build 9 (even though he doesn't remove the handles and uses black as his theme) and some nice acrylic work I set out to cover, or replace the top plate of the Prodigy with some acrylic that I would either frost with my trusty Porter Cable 7424 orbital buffer/sander, or use white vinyl or paint to cover the top but still allow light to emit through the acrylic.

I would bend the acrylic down the sides to curve over the top sides of the top panel to cover these grooves. Or worse came to worst I would use the acrylic to completely replace the entire top panel, so I needed stuff that was more than 3mm thick for stability and rigidity.

One would say, why not white acrylic? I say this is best but I was having some trouble finding sheets of the stuff so I settled for Home Depot Optix clear acrylic. 6 mm thick and strong like BULL. I would screw this into the case into either the corners of the top panel or I would use the existing holes built in to the front and back panels to anchor 6/32 screws into the acrylic which I would partially drill through in order to make screw holes that did not poke up through the acrylic.

Here's the component list:

1 I7 2700K probably between 4.6 and 4.8 Ghz
1 EVGA GTX 780 classified Hydro edition OR one of my GTX Titans
1 Asus P8Z77 I-DeluxeW/D motherboard
1 pair of Samsung low profile 2x4GB DDR 1600mhz 1.35 volt RAM
1 OCZ Octane 512GB SSD
1 WD 750GB black 2.5"
1 Corsair CX600m powersupply with Corsair sleeved white modular cables from NCIX
1 Bitfenix Prodigy WAT edition from NCIX

Water cooling:

1 BitsPower AIZ77ITXD Block Nickel Plated - ICE Black, from DAZ!
1 Darkside storm DDC pump, from DAZ
1 XSPC AX240 2x120mm radiator with the plate covered with white vinyl up top and two NoiseBlocker eloop 120mm white fans (purchased from a Hardware canucks mod)
1 DDC-LT Watercool mini reservoir with pump top from DAZ
1 Magicool 180mm radiator in the front with either (ugly) Silverstone 182 white super scary 180mm fan or Phobya white 180mm fan which leaves me around 280mm of video card space (just enough)
Distilled water and Mayhem aurora pastel white concentrate from Shoppers drug mart and DAZ

Various fittings and either blue or white 3/8 5/8 tubing

Pieces of acrylic 6mm and 3mm, pieces of white and teal vinyl bought from a Canadian company in Montreal through Ebay (zedglobal)

So I cut and bent the 6mm acrylic to curve around the top of the case sides and sanded it.

Here's the first photo of the 6mm acrylic cut, sanded, and bent using a heat gun and brute strength due to its thickness:

[Father Fuzzy]

Looks like you did a super job on the acrylic top.......nice

are you cutting out the middle for the dust filter?

looking forward to seeing that BP z77 block in black

I will have the clear one soon

[10e]

Thanks FF!

I have gone a bit further. More pictures to come, I just haven't taken them.

Current state is that I've cut two fan holes in it and I had to sand down the sides, as I've completely eliminated the top panel of the case. The sides needed to be sanded down because the panel sits a bit lower now and intrudes on the clearance for the side panels. I had cut out a rectangle in the original top panel, but due to the thickness and strength of the new acrylic top I don't need it any more so I drilled out the rivets to remove it. I think it was ten in total.

The fan holes are also offset more towards the rear of the case to afford more clearance to the front radiator and the fill port I'm going to put into it.

Next step is to create a shroud for the bottom part to cover those grooves, as I think I'm going to eliminate the original bottom handle as well and replace with nice Lian Li case feet drilled into the case/bottom acrylic panel.

Unfortunately I did chip this panel when drilling screw holes. The problem when the top panel is removed is that the front side of the case which would hold the 180mm/2x120mm fans tends to "float" and move back and forth along its middle axis making it difficult to properly line things up. But I'll figure it out. Vinyl is my friend

[Bartacus]

10e: nice!! I don't much care for that aspect of the Prodigy design either. Good to see a hard-core solution like this!

[Hooded]

Great start here.
Looking forward to viewing the progress.

[DazMode]

This will be very interesting.

[10e]

I have also sourced some black, white and grey plexi/acrylic from a place in Toronto called Plastic World just west of Allen road and Sheppard. I might go today and pick some up, even if it's a bit expensive at $90 per 3mm sheet and $135.00 per 4.5mm sheet.

They have 3 and 4.5 mm in black and white, and 3mm in grey, all glossy. The sheets are all 48x96 so I'm going to ask them to cut them to half length to fit them in my WRX daddy wagon as 8 feet is a bit long and I don't need to try and drive while getting slapped in the shoulder by acrylic

My desire is to not make the top completely opaque, but to allow the "frosting" to disperse the LED light from within the case. I've also checked my white and teal vinyl and it does allow some light through while reducing transparency.

I might try and create custom side panels with outside mounted acrylic clear and white, as one problem with the Prodigy is that the motherboard tray/PSU "box" sticks out too much and even the Prodigy stock window'd panels acrylic retention clips press against it and bulge out the panels.

I have some more work to do tonight in evening out the front of the acrylic top, but it's well-anchored now with five screws in the front, and 3 in the back and it's quite strong and steady now. More pix this weekend from my real camera.

I don't think I'll end up using the teal vinyl for this build, but I also have a "less custom" Bitfenix Phenom build going after this is done which might employ this teal vinyl due to the blue UV slim Gelid fans I have which match nicely. Teal is my favorite color.

One nice thing with the Phenom is that slim 120mm fans fit between the metal case and top decorative panel so you can use a slim 240mm rad up top as there is exactly 17mm space between the bottom of the top fan filter, and the metal chassis. I can make up for reduced static pressure from slim fans by using double 240mm rads and going "over-radded".

[DazMode]

Sounds exciting! Keep pictures are coming...

[gdesmo]

Plastic World is great ! I always go there for my plastic and it is only 10 minutes away. You don't need to buy full sheets, can get whatever sizes you need. They will cut everything for you with no charge for the cuts, only the material. Nice work on the bending and look forward to more !

[10e]

So here is the as-promised update:

I was able to make fan holes and fan mounting holes with relative ease. I have a 4.5" hole saw which does a great job cutting even the 6mm thick acrylic. I also used my orbital sander/buffer with an 80 grit sanding disc to even out the front and back sides as they were just a bit off by about a millimetre and a half front and back.

Here's the result with the screw holes punched for the back and front of the panel to anchor it into the actual chassis. I have some white screw cap/washers on order from Frozen Cpu in the U.S. to cover the sub-par drilling I did front and back on this panel.



I then cut some white vinyl and applied it. This stuff is pretty easy to use as it has an air release pattern on the back to more effectively remove bubbles.

I will post a pic of that in a bit. I thought I'd photographed it but couldn't find the photo so that's coming tonight. The vinyl looks pretty nice as it's a matte vinyl and it goes on very well.

Here's a backup panel I made. I used the removed top panel of the case as a template. You can see where I cut out a rectangle on it, but while the cuts look straight here, they weren't quite to my liking and I didn't want to spend a lot of time sanding and filing them down to be straight, as the look just wasn't right.



Unfortunately it turned out to become a sacrificial lamb. I tried to scribe cut the sides after without realizing that wherever you bend acrylic, it gets weakened, presumably because the plastic is "spread" or stretched over the bend, so when I went to snap off the unwanted side of it, the left side of the panel basically snapped crooked and ruined it. Back to the drawing board.

gdesmo, thanks for the info. I'll probably go today and pick up some white 4.5mm acrylic. This would probably be the best in-between size between 3mm and 6mm, as I find the 3mm stuff is a bit weak.

My plan is to make some more bent panels and see if I prefer the white acrylic to the sanded look, and then I will basically turn the side panels into "frames" and mount the acrylic outside of it. This evens out the side panels with the thicker new top panel.

Another thought I had is to create a slightly oversized front panel so that I could mount a 180mm or 200mm fan on the outside of the case and hide it. This would give me another 25-32mm of clearance internally for longer cards and still be aesthetically decent.

More to come!

[10e]

And yes, I realize my garage is a mess. It does not pass the WAF test, aka "Wife acceptance factor" but I promised to clean up after this is all done which should be soon.

Oh here's a photo from the side with it mounted to the case. I've since straightened out the sides to be even with the side panels and not touch them, but be nearly flush not accounting the for the extra thickness.

[Father Fuzzy]

lookin good

thats what I need carpet in the garage

[10e]

So I visited Plastic World and bought two 2x4' sheets of white plastic, 4.5mm thick, and two 2x4' sheets of grey plastic.

They also had an inexpensive heat bender that should be useful to make another top and possibly a bottom panel. The top and bottom will be white, and the front panel will be the grey.

I will stencil out the white vinyl for the side panels where I will use clear acrylic to make new windows, but they will be mounted on the outside of the panels and the white vinyl will be "stenciled" to make a pair of nice windows.

I also have a host of white LEDs to put under the motherboard tray and top panel to make a soft-light effect.

More to come!

BTW that last photo is my office/work room, not the garage. Garage is old, crappy concrete flooring. But yeah carpet would be nice to store all that oil if I had a car that dripped oil

[bungwirez]

10e...living up to your mathematical reputation, I see.
you're really on to something here - keep at it please!!


Plastics World, eh? sounds like I need to get out more....

[10e]

Picture of the vinyl applied to the new top panel. I originally had the vinyl "wrapped" around the fan holes and the front and back of the panel, but I decided to just cut it and leave the holes' rims naked on the inside as well as the front and back. It looks better not having folded vinyl visible.

I still have to remove a bit of excess acrylic which (if you look closely) can be seen at the top left corner of the panel, just barely sticking out from under the vinyl on the back of the case. That should be it. I examined the front as well with a straight edge ruler and it is 99% perfectly even, but the back is just a tiny bit off. Both front and back are smooth but not polished thanks to my buffer/sander.



In order to cover the screw holes nicely and hide the slightly uneven vinyl cuts around them I have these screw covers coming in today or tomorrow:

http://ldcooling.com/shop/screw-caps...ack-of-25.html

This will allow me to screw in from the top if need be while not worrying about the look of the screws and whether they match the white vinyl. The screws go into the translucent plastic washers and then the plastic caps snap on.

I did try to create a top panel from 4.5mm white acrylic. I realized that shiny acrylic looks better unbent so I will probably just cut out a proper front panel with curved corners from that piece as it's bigger both in height and width than a desired front panel. Recycling FTW

I think I'm going to switch the front radiator to a 2x120mm for both aesthetics and to allow full video card clearance.

I'm not sure if I want a radiator grill on the front and top panels covering the fans. I'll test fit that versus a clear cover panel and see which looks better. I have spacers to raise any fan cover by a bit to allow fan clearance for intake/exhaust. Since I am going with a Primochill Rad Grillz white on white or white on black edition which is a "figure 8" I plan to match any fan cover to that shape, just a bit bigger to use spacers and screws to attach it. What I'm not 100% sure of is if the rad grill will go outside of the case, or inside the acrylic.

I just received my white/black NoiseBlocker eLoop BL fans. I think they are stunning.

Afterwards I will apply white vinyl to the radiator frames on the XSPC EX240 top radiator and AX240 front radiator. I also will vinyl up the backplate on the video card to white and likely the PSU as well. I love the matte finish of the white vinyl.

In addition I will cover the hard drives with some white vinyl to match the theme. Since one is a mechanical drive, I will make sure to leave a breather hole for the drive.

Part of the video card waterblock, dark nickel fittings and the Bitspower water block for the CPU and motherboard will be the contrasting black.