Part 9 - Test Fit
Before I undertook the labor-intensive painting operation, I had two more tasks to perform: I needed to find room for a cooling fan in the cover and I wanted to make sure everything else fit together without any snags.

	Test fitting all the parts.

Test fitting all the parts brought to light eight "oversights" I had made: (1) the motherboard stand-offs appeared to be misaligned so that not all could be used; (2) I used the wrong screws to mount the CD-RW drive so that it did not seat properly against the inside front of the case; (3) the hard drive tray was mounted too high to allow sufficient clearance for a fan in the case top; (4) I did not take into account the mounting tab on the FireWire module and discovered that it interfered with the power supply; (5) when mounting the PS/2-to-USB adapter, the bezel interfered with the IDE ribbon cable plugged into the IDE secondary IDE header on the motherboard; (6) the sound out jack was partially blocked by the rear bezel; (7) I didn't like the fit of the eject buttons; and, 8) the mounting points I had drilled for the hard drive support tray caused misalignment of the CD-RW drive tray when attached and twisting of the case front (it was a very snug fit).

(1) - The motherboard stand-off issue turned out to be self-correcting -- when I installed the expansion cards and secured them to the rear panel, only two of the mounting holes did not align enough with the stand-offs to be used. Luckily, these were the two corner positions near the battery and RAM slots. Since I had pre-mounted the RAM before installing the motherboard, this would not be an issue.

(2) - The issue with the CD-RW drive was easily corrected once I realized what had happened: I had subsituted some non-standard screws that fit tightly into the mounting holes I had drilled into the plastic drive bracket. The holes I had drilled were not accurate enough and so forced the CD-RW drive too far back. Replacing these screws with plain, long, washered drive mounting screws provided enough play for proper alignment. So much for measuring twice and drilling once.

(3) - The hard drive tray being mounted too high was easily corrected by simply attaching it to the CD-RW drive using the lower screw positions on the CD-RW drive. This also necessitated cutting away more of the case reinforcing ribs and drill new mounting holes in the case. The old holes were filled with epoxy putty and sanded smooth.

	Drive tray assembly interferes with fan.

	Drive tray assembly corrected to allow fan clearance.

(4) - With the FireWire module snafu, I had three choices: remove the tab completely, bend it out of the way, or leave the module out. I don't use FireWire, but didn't want to not put it in since "someday" I might have need of it (I use FireWire peripherals at work and I never know when I get to work at home...). Cutting the tab off seemed too extreme, so I simply bent the tab down. Of course, I removed the circuit board from the EMI shield first to prevent damaging the internals while bending the metal tab, then reassembled everything.

(5) - The PS/2-to-USB adapter bezel was made from plastic, so I just trimmed away the interfering bits around the USB connector. Very quick and simple.

(6) - The sound out jack proved to be a real poser. I could cut away the interfering bezel, but that would leave a long thin strip of acrylic with no support on one end between the power supply bottom and I/O ports. Breakage could easily occur. I realized I did not need the separating strip between the power supply and I/O ports since it was not subjected to any loads. So, I just whipped out my trusty dovetail saw and sliced it away. The I/O port bezel would seal the I/O area under the power supply anyway. A standard sound plug now fit.

(7) - I modified the eject button mounting fit by reaming out the mounting holes slightly, enough so the buttons fit without threading into the plastic. Then I used cyanoacrylate adhesive to attach metal nuts to the inside of the case, wherein the switches would thread. Duh. So much simpler. Later, I found out this was not enough. I removed the nuts and used epoxy putty to fix the switches in place.

(8) - The twisting of the case and subsequent misalignment of the CD-RW drive was corrected when I repositioned the hard drive mounting tray to fix the fan clearance problem.

Fitting the 80mm x 25mm fan to the case top required some major plastic surgery. The inside of the case top is cross-hatched with reinforcing ribs. These would position the fan too far into the case to fit and also would not provide a tight seal at the fan opening if left in place. I used end-cutting wire cutters to trim away the ribbing where the fan would attach. I determined the only avalable space to mount the fan was over the hard drive, slightly offset toward its rear. This positioned the fan above the CPU heat sink as well. After removing the ribbing, I placed the fan into position and marked the mounting points with a center punch. The marked positions were drilled out, then the center of the fan opening was marked. Since my drill press did not have sufficient reach between the chuck and the drill press column, I used a 3" (≈76.2mm) hole saw mounted in a hand drill to cut the ventilation hole.

The rough stumps of the cut away ribbing were then scraped smooth with a single-edge razor. Using a metal grill as a guide, I routed slots on the inside of the cover so that I could sandwich the metal grill between the inside of the case and the fan, but still keep a tight seal between the case and the fan. I used epoxy putty to mount the grill in place and smooth the outside of the cover panel. The grill was going to be painted the same color as the case, so attaching it now was simple and expedient.

I smoothed the edges of the hole and smoothed the putty with sandpaper to finish the assembly off for painting.

	More ventilation. Obviously, this picture was taken after everything was assembled and painted.

With all the wrinkles ironed out and the case cover completed, it was time to deal with cable management.

« PREVIOUS	« HOME »	NEXT »
•  Introduction  •  Planning  •  Patterns and Templates  •  Case Preparation  •  SuperDisk  •  CD-RW  •  Drive Activity Lights  •  Rear Panel  •  Switches  •  Test Fit  •  Cable Management  •  Painting  •  Final Assembly  •  Gallery  •