Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 build.
This will be my first real themed mod and I am basing it around Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. The case that will be modded is the Thermaltake Armor+ and will get a custom airbrushed digital camo paint job. I have several companies sponsoring this build which are listed below. This mod would not be possible with out their support.
Sponsors.
Confirmed Mods:
- Sentry 2 Touch Screen Fan Controller donated by NZXT
- Custom 5" LCD in front of case
- Water Cooling using Thermaltake donated parts
- RGB LEDs with Arduino controll
- Airbrushed Digital Camo paint Job
- Airbrushed Digital Camo Avatar Gaming Mouse Donated by NZXT
- Airbrushed Digital Camo X4 850w PSU Ultra Products
- Airbrushed Digital Camo Gaming keyboard
Things I am working on incorporating in the build.
- Laser Etched COD MW2 logo in plexi Side lit with green LEDs
- Custom BMG .50cal case feet
- Custom 20mm round handles
- Digital Camo Xbox 360 controller
- Custom Radiator Shroud made from .308 or 30-06 inert ammo
Photos of the case. (Flickr set here)
Update 08 Dec 2009
I would like to take a moment and list the items provided by my sponsors.
Thermaltake has sponsored me with a full compliment of water cooling parts from their Watercooling upgrade line. This will include 2 reservoirs, a pump, CPU water block, Chipset waterblock, 2 HDD waterblocks, 3/8 tubing with quick connects, 1000ml of green UV reactive coolant, a flow meter with digital temperature screen, a dual 120mm radiator, 2 120mm silent fans, 3 120mm Green LED fans, cable sleeving kit, Armor+ case and a few more goodies.
NZXT has sponsored me with an Avatar Gaming mouse and a Sentry 2 touch screen fan controller.
Ultra Products has sponsored me with an 850w X4 PSU
Plextor has sponsored me with a PX-b320sa Blu-ray super multi writer and a PX880SA DVD combo drive.
I took a little time in photoshop tonight to see what the digital camo paint job may look like on the Armor+. What do you think? The actual paint job will be brighter and more defined but you get the idea.
Update 11 Dec 2009
Just a small update tonight.
I have been weighing my options on how I can airbrush this paint job for a few weeks now. I could do like this guy did or I can use stencils. I finally decided on the latter about a week ago. So I sat down and took a good long look at the ARPAT pattern. It seems to be 3 layers with the lightest on the bottom and the darkest on top. The pattern itself is just blobs with pixilated edges. The edges seem to be what I will call full pixels and half pixels.
I sat down and did a few sketches on graphing paper to get a feel for creating the designs and then took it to photoshop and using my wacom tablet and a ¼” grid in photoshop I drew some patterns. What I plan to do is to trace these onto clear acetate overhead projector sheets and then cut them out using an Exato knife. Then I will paint the whole case a light gray followed by a lighter gray spraying from the patterns, then I will spray a second layer of darker patterns followed by a third layer of even darker patterns. Then I will coat the whole thing in a few layers of mat finish clearcoat. Ok let’s move on to the pics.
ARPAT(ARmy PATtern)
The first sketch I did. Notice the coffee stain.
The second sketch I did. The graphing grid is ¼”.
This is the first digital sketch I did. Each pixel is 1/4".
Part 2
For the first half I used a 1/4" grid created from guides.
For the second half I used the normal photoshop grid set to 1". To draw the lines I used the pen tool to mark my pattern then right clicked and clicked "stroke pattern. I had the brush set to 1px with 100% hardness.
I will make the pattern files available in a 2 printable tiff files. They are sized to 8.5”x11” @300dpi.
Update 17 Dec. 2009
I spent some time in sketchup tonight modeling the Armor+ from scratch. I am no where near finished but it is to scale and will provide me a virtual place to test out ideas before I commit to them.
So here is what I got finished tonight.
Update 12 Jan. 2010
Did someone say pics?
This is the first batch of sponsored gear. The NZXT and Thermaltake gear came in last week.
This is the damage done to the Thermaltake Armor+ box. You can see a crease running lengthwise near the top. This tells me that something heavy was set on top of it or it was dropped at some point. Incidentally the corner with the most damage is also the side that the broken door mount is on. UPS really dropped the ball this time.
A big thanks to my sponsors Thermaltake, NZXT, and Plextor!!!!
So as of this posting I have in the following items:
Thermaltake
- Armor+ super tower case Black
- Coolant 1000 1000ml coolent kit
- TMG2 Dual 120mm radiator with fans
- Water level indicator rez kit
- WB200 North Bridge Water block
- Flow TX Plus
NZXT
- Avatar 2600 DPI gaming mouse
- Sentry 2 touch screen fan controller
- 4 120mm fans. (2 solid black, 1 black with white blades, 1 clear with blue LED
Plextor
I spent some time last night tearing down the LCD screen I will be using on the front of the case. I would like to thank Drum Thumper from TBCS for providing me with this screen via the TBCS TGIMBOEJ. The screen was intended to be attached to a PS2 making the gaming console portable. I apologize for the fuzzy pics. The module I use to handle images on my website is resizing my photos and the end result is a little fuzzy. I am working on fixing this problem.
The PS2 Screen
Tearing down the screen was quite simple. There were 6 screws I had to remove and then the back cover lifted off reveling the guts. Seen in this photo is the actual LCD module, sound controller board, two speakers, and another controller board that I am assuming was used to further process the sound output from the PSU.
Everything removed. I will only be using the LCD module. The rest will go in my electronics junk box for future hacking.
The actual screen measures 4 5/8" wide. With the metal case it measures very close to 5 1/2"
Diagonally the screen measures close to 5 3/4"
The back of the LCD screen module is where the connector is located. Drum Thumper provided me with the pin out schematic and I spent the night confirming that it works. It is easily interfaced with a D-Sub connection and a 12v supply from a 4pin molex. More on this later and I will post a schematic for all to see and reference. The screen is a Sharp LM6Q401 and the dimensions on it can be found here
Finally I would like to show you some of the damage done to the Thermaltake Armor+ case during shipping. Thermaltake is sending me a replacement plastic piece.
That's all for today. I hope to have another update this weekend. Tomorrow is my 26th birthday and I plan to have several adult beverages, do no power tool work for me.
Update 25 Jan. 2010
This was the initial tear down session. I plan on painting the interior of the case black so I still need to drill out some rivets and sand everything down. I hope to get to that this weekend.
So here it is the Thermaltake Armor+ in all its glory.
The front is missing the right side "door" due to the shipping damage.
The back is about on par with other cases except this one has room for 10 PCI cards. It also has 2 sets of water cooling tubing holes.
Here is the damage done to the case during shipping. The only thing you can not see is the broken bracket that holds the right door on. Its just a hollow plastic tube so there is not much to see anyway.
Removing the side window is a little tricky. Not only is it protected by a lock you also have to push this thumbscrew down to unlatch the panel.
And here she is with her window off. Notice the 7 5.25" bays and the removable cage of 5 HDD racks. The 2 racks on the bottom are for adding an additional 2 HDD. They are easily removed by removing 1 thumb screw each.
Removing the left side door is made easy by these hinges. All you have to do push in and slide it down.
To remove the top you have to remove these four screws and the tray they hold down.
With the screws removed the tray will come right out. Now you need to push the top forward from the back of the case. It will be snug and you may have to move some of the top panel wires to get it to slide.
These 3 tabs are the reason you need to slide the top forward. They slide into slots on the case frame and lock the top plastic into place.
Somehow I forgot to take photos of the removal of the rest of the plastic pieces. The rest of the plastic is all held on by a few screws. The only hidden screws are on the bottom and are hidden by the case feet. Also be careful when removing the latches that hold the side panels on. There are tiny springs on each end and a screw in the middle of each that must first be removed. The tool-less clips that hold the PCI cards in can be removed as 1 piece by several screws on the back of the case.
Here is the bare frame. From the back side you can see all of the holes for the motherboard standoffs. These are all quite sharp and some have burs hanging off so be careful when handling the motherboard tray.
The empty frame from another angle.
The top of the frame has a normal metal panel but has several cutouts for different cooling options.
Looking at the frame bottom you can see yet another set of water cooling hose punch outs. I have been thinking about where I am going to locate the radiator and I believe this is a good option. I will weigh my options in the next few days and post my decision.
With the front removed we can see the gaping hole that will soon be filled by a LCD, fan controller, and an optical drive or two.
Just a quick shot of the motherboard tray removed. Notice the bracing on each end. The black plastic is a bearing of sorts that slides into a plastic groove. This is repeated on the top. The end result is a very smooth sliding motherboard tray.
This is the 5.25" tool-less clip that filleted my skin off.
To remove these clips you simply press down on the top of the black plastic and they pop out.
Here is everything I removed from the case. Quite a lot huh?
And finally here are the fans that the Thermaltake Armor+ comes with. A 220mm fan, 140mm fan and 120mm fan.
Update 04 June. 2010
ThermaltakeYes it is true. I am posting an update!!! I haven't done much due to not having any free time the last month or so. Being the Editor in Chief of this site and owning a photography business are great ways to remove free time from your life.
The first thing on my list was to disassemble the frame so I could sand and paint it easily. So after 10 minutes of drilling out rivets I was left with the above photos.
Before the frame is painted I need to make a few cuts and holes in the sheet metal. The first one will be the mounting point for the Danger Den Fillport Reservoir.
The first thing to do was pick a spot on top of the case that allowed me to place the reservoir with out interfering with the elements on the top of the case or the ones on the inside. I chose this location because it would be partially hidden by the lid on top of the case and it completely cleared all of the interior elements.
Then I used a 1" hole saw to cut the hole out. Note that I did this on the damaged piece of plastic for mockup. I am glad I did this because the hole saws I purchased from harbor freight turned out to be slightly out of round and this caused some unwanted scaring of the plastic around the hole. The hole in the replacement plastic will be drilled out using my step bits.
With the hole in the plastic cut it was time to transfer the hole to the steel top. I simply traced the hole with a pencil and then found the center.
I gave the HF hole saws a try again. They were marked for use on "wood, steel, plastic and composites." Unfortunately the only thing I accomplished was to melt the teeth on the 1" hole saw. So I dug around in my tool box and found my large step bit. The Danger Den Fill port only requires a 3/4" hole but will still seal in holes as large as 1 1/4". I went with a 1" hole to add a little room for adjustment in case something did get in the way.
So I test fitted the res and found another problem. Thermaltake rolled the edges on the hole where the "storage tray" goes. Rolled edges are something we asked for for ages and now I have to destroy one so my res fits flush and seals properly.
The red lines mark off the area I needed to remove. So out comes the dremel.
I ground down a good portion of the lip before using a thin screwdriver to lift it up. Notice the rust under the lifted lip. With this lifted I continued to grind until everything was nice and flat.
I filed down the sharp edges and used the dremel to add a nice slope where the lip ends now meet the ground down area. Primer during paint should fill in the minor imperfections left.
Time to test fit the res again. PERFECT!!! Nice and flat.
The res will interfere with one of the top 140mm intake fans but that is nothing I can not fix at a later date.
And with the plastic on the case top. There is plenty of room for me to place a funnel in the fill port hole. I plan on closing this up with a rubber grommet of some sorts. Any ideas or links?
And a side shot. She is going to look good in the case.
As mentioned earlier I plan on mounting the radiator in the bottom of the case. Unfortunately the factory stamped radiator mounting location does not fit Thermatake TMG2 Radiator I was sponsored with for this project. So I have decided to cut that section of the floor from the case and replace it with a laser cut black acrylic radiator mounting plate. To do this I needed to make a template of the radiator for some test fitting .
Technical drawing is something I have always found fun. So this task was very relaxing for me. I had an old desk calender laying around so I used the cardboard backing as my template material.
With the drawing finished it was time to cut it out with an Exacto knife.
And after some careful cuts she was finished.
A test fit to make sure my measurements were accurate.
