| Being a clear case an all, I didn't
want that plane old looking CD-ROM drive in there so I thought a nice
big window would look cool but after taking the drive cover off, I
discovered something unexpected. There was a piece in the top cover that
needed to be there because this is a 52X drive. CD-ROM drives have
gotten faster over the years and the extra piece was there to keep the
CD from bouncing or walking around while it was spinning. The round
white disk is the piece and it has a magnet in it to mate with the
bottom of the other half (black piece in CD-ROM drive).
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What I came up with wasn't one big
window but four little ones. This way the drive would work like it
was designed but still be able to see inside. After laying it out, it
was time to break out the Dremel. These cutoff wheels cut through sheet
metal like a hot knife through butter.
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After some deburring and cleaning, I
painted the cover and bottom purple to match some other items and the
face plate got a coat of gold. Notice I also masked the two buttons to
have a little contrast. These colors would
match some other stuff later....at least that's the plan.
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Both drives are mounted with red
thumbscrews to hold them in place. This makes for easy removal if need
be. While I had it apart I put a blue LED inside the CD-ROM drive. It's
mounted toward the back of it and looks cool when powered on.
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Now it's time to go to work
on the fans that will be in the system. Yep.....modified them to.
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