I said I would do it if I won one. When I asked if it was OK, Dennis said: "Go ahead, mod the @$#%* out of it."


-Not even 10 minutes from signing for it, I had it apart to see what could be done. (I took it for a little test drive too.) My initial plan is to add a BIG fan where a 2nd hardrive would go, and add cover panels to the front and bottom. The idea is to make it match up with BlooBalls.

-What is this thing? When I first saw this, I thought I couldn't use the unit, then I saw a US standard plug deeper in the box.

-Then I found a small problem... You guys might need to check on this if this is what you're shipping to the US. It doesn't match the power supply. Luckily, I have several laptop powersupplies I can nab the cord from.

-That's too close of a fit to use screws to mount stuff to the outside, and a rivet gun won't fit in there either.

-I'm going to use some aluminum nails to rivet the panels on. The nice, flat head will fit under the sliding drive cage perfectly...I hope.

-The first official modification. I added some tape guides from the inside of an old VHS tape to part of the frame. This spot grabs the LED wire, and since I'm going to be taking this thing apart a lot until it's finished, I thought it would be a nice addition.

-I have a rough cut for the faceplate cover already. This is UV red, and should light up like crazy with the blue LED behind it. I'm going to bore an *ssload of holes in it and mount it on 1/4" plexi spacers. I'm not sure about drilling into the front yet, though.

-Here I glued plexi together to make some layered 1/2" risers for the bottom/side plate. This plate will get the same treatment as the front panel. It will also double as a fan guard.

Let me know if I've committed heresy yet. It's going to feel like that to me when I cut up that lovely paintjob.

Watching in excitement how that lil' box gets hacked up

Cut it up man! The first AluBox im cutting up is the eSata box;)

I'm going to make parts for it first. I can't bring myself to cut into that paintjob yet.
I need to listen to Slayer or something to get me in the right mindset.

Watching this thread for sure!

Watching also

And I also plan to mod an aluboxduo totally out of this world sometime

i'm also watching, due to the fact that theres one on my wish list

I won one too. I ain't cutting it up for nobody! Matches my MicroFly exactly. 2 250Gb drives and I'm one happy camper. ( I wonder if that translates well? Biscuits and Gravy doesn't!)

I definitely will be making some sort of padded or hardshell case for it for travel.
John

Thanks for watching, everyone
@Jhanlon- When I get done mine won't be good for outdoor activity.

I got the faceplate done...

-The finished side panel spacers. They ended up different sizes because I ground down the head of the bolt I used to hold them in the drill. Each one got a little smaller than the last.

-The front plate marked up for a-drillin'. You might notice the pattern changes later. I was a little too focused on drilling and drilled some of the un-highlighted spots.

-Drilling...

-Countersinking...

-I officially defaced it! I drilled the mounting holes in de face. (eww, bad pun.)

-I had to use the pick-up tool to get the nuts on the inside.

-The face with the power on, and some UV lighting assistance.

Woa that looks nice! love the color of that acrylic btw

That's cool, bro!

Thanks EEl & Dennis.

This week the real carnage began...

-Behold my big nuts-Ahem!.. sorry, I had to cut out part of the frame so a fan could fit inside. I have more respect now for people who cut metal with dremels. That took forever!

-Hole cutting chaos. I don't have a drill press vice that can hold this drive, so I tried to use a standard vice. It was too tall to get under the saw bit, and there was no way to mount it to the baseplate. I had to resort to a hand drill.

-You can see here how well that turned out. I think I burned out the clutch in my drill. I resorted to cutting it out with a needle file.

-My apologies for not using an AC Ryan fan, but I had a blue/red fan laying around, so I used that. I wanted to see here if I could change the color for the 2-color LED in the front by flipping the jumper plug. It works. Nice design, btw.

-All that air has to go somewhere. I drilled some exaust in the front. The protective film came in handy for marking.

-I spent FOREVER drilling and countersinking the side plate. Fatigue got the best of me at one point and I drilled a hole at the wrong mark. I recovered quickly by changing the design. I wanted to try countersinking the HELL out of one side. I think it looks pretty good.

-I have enough fuzz to build a decent sized poodle from this little panel.

-Everything here is just placed together for a teaser pic. I need to remove or flip the poor fan in the back. It's still spinnig the right direction, but the airflow is going out. I haven't drilled the holes for mounting the side plate, and I can't find the aluminum nails anywhere. I only had two rolling around in the unsorted screws/nails/junk bin.

I need to finish the edges of the side plate now. I'm planning something to fill in the gap here. I'm also going to make some feet for it.

Holysh!t you really are Chopping Up A Perfectly Fine AluBoxDuo That's drilling through real solid 1.8mm hardened aluminum.
Nice work.

Thats lookiing good man. Why did it take so long to drill and countersink?

Looks like another fine quality Cheapskate-style mod! Love it, man.

Thanks everyone!
@Yap -NOW you tell me! The scratch resistant stuff on the front wasn't very cooperative either.

@Tribal -I was using an old re-sharpened 3/8" bit. It was too big to center, so I had to put in a countersink bit to center each cut. That's 150+ bit changes. Also keep in mind my drill press is on the floor, so I had to get up occasionally to get the circulation in my legs back.

Dude,... a couple of bucks you could of got a boring kit. You could of centered and drilled with one shot. Also,... you have table grinder? If so,... you can grind the tip of the bit so it has more of a point so you can better center. As long os the bit has a good acrylic cutting edge it would be fine. 150 bit changes,.... screw that man:) I dont even have patience for that, lol.

I have several sets of old bits, and a new drill bit sharpener. I can't exactly justify getting the new sharpener if I'm still buying new bits.

Or justify having that username either!

Oh, right...That too.