Lighting Your Computer Case
Let me just precaution you that if you still have warranty on your computer case, you will definitely void it. Make sure that you really want to do this. Always use gloves and goggles when using hardware tools. By reading this, you agree that you will never hold me responsible for any damages or injury that might occur.
Power and wire connector
You might already know this that all the power that will light your computer case will come from the power supply. Your lights in the computer case will use a lot of power. You need to be sure that you power supply can support it. Click here to learn about computer case power supply first.
To draw power from the power supply, you will need get it from the Molex connector, the 4-pin connector that powers your had disk, CD-ROM. It has a wire for 12V DC, a wire for 5V DC and two wire for ground. The yellow wire is the 12V DC wire, the red wire is the 5V DC wire. The other two black wire are ground wires.
For the purpose of lighting your computer case, we will be using the 12V DC wire (yellow) and a ground wire to complete the circuit. There are several ways you can light your computer case. Let's just go through a few of them.
Neon Tubes
Neon tubes are quite famous among computer case modding enthusiast. It gives quite a cool effect on the computer case. It is also easy to install as it can accept DC current. So you don't have to use it with an inverter.
Electro Luminescent (EL) Lights
Electro Luminescent (EL) Lightst are a bit tricky than neon tubes. This is becuase the it requires AC power. Your power supply output 12V DC power. And from this DC power, you need to use an inverter or transformer to transform it to AC power. The best thing about EL lights is that it is flexible compared to neon lights. That way, you can bend it in many ways that you like.
Cold Cathode Flourescent Lamp
Cold cathode flourescent lamp is another type of light that requires an inverter. You need to get an inverter that can transform the 12V DC to 1000V AC. That's a whole lot of change. But Cold cathode flourescent light can give you a bright lighting. You can also cover it with tranparent plastic wrappers to change its color. Some cold cathode flourescent lamp are sold wired together to an inverter. This is what I would recommend especially if you are not familiar with electronics.
Light Emitting Diode (LED)
This is small and quite easy to install. This is because with LED you don't have to have an inverter. You could even line up LED in a certain row to built a running light. Of course this would require a curcuit board.
Installing Your Computer Case Window
Let me just precaution you that if you still have warranty on your computer case, you will definitely void it. Make sure that you really want to do this. Always use gloves and goggles when using hardware tools. By reading this, you agree that you will never hold me responsible for any damages or injury that might occur.
Tools
Now, I am going to walk you through very briefly how you can window you cool computer case yourself.
First of all, what you would need are the right set of tools. Making a window on your computer case involves cutting acrylic sheet and your computer case. For this, I would recommend a hand rotary tool.
Now, the cutting wheels. You don't want your wheels to break while attempting to cut your computer case or your acrylic sheet, right? So for that, make sure you have a mesh-reinforced wheels. These type of cutting wheels will last longer and are not likely to break.
Plan
Before you do any cutting, make sure that you have measured everything correctly. Take out the side panel and measure it. Measure and re-measure everything. When you already have a hole, you have a hole. There's no fix to that. When you already know what kind of hole you want, draw it with a pencil on the side panel. Make sure that you draw it on the side of the panel that faces the inside of the computer case. What ever hole you're planning, star, oval, rectangle, draw it first with a pencil. And always make sure that your acrylic sheet can cover the hole.
Cutting
You will be cutting two things here. One, the side panel of your computer case. Two, the acylic sheet. Remember that you have drawn your window on the side panel of the computer case. Don't cut the side panel first, cut the acrylic sheet first and try placing it on the drawn window shape. Make sure that it covers the window well. Also make sure that the acrylic sheet is bigger than the hole, enough to secure the acrylic sheet later. A space between 1 to 2 inches will be enough.
Always be extra careful when you are cutting. If you have never use a rotary tool on an acrylic sheet before, test first on the edge of the sheet. For the side panel, you can test the rotary tool in the center of the side panel where you are sure that area will be a hole later. When you have become comfortable with the rotary tool, you begin cutting.
When you are done cutting the side panel, you remove the cutting wheel off from the rotary tool and place grinding or a sanding attachment and run it over the edges to remove sharp edges.
Securing the acrylic sheet
For your computer to look cool later, we need to cover the rough edges of the hole. For this, you can use chrome car trim. With this, you can just slip it over the edges with a small adhesive lining on the inside. This will give you a more smooth finish rather than a bare cut edges.
Now, what we need to do is to secure the acrylic sheet on the hole. What I would recommend is to use Velcro strips. Velcro is great because you can have room for mistakes. If anything should go wrong, you can always take the sheet off and put back again. You don't really need alot of Velcro strips. For a rectangle shape hole, 4 Velcro strips, one for each side would enough.
I think, all this should do it. You can now put your your side panel back on to your computer case.