flakmonkey Posted December 21, 2010 Share Posted December 21, 2010 A while back I bought a G5 1.8 uniprocessor from ebay for next to nothing, it had a logic board fault but the idea was to use the case for a 2.7 quad we have here in a tatty case. Everything went really well right up until the couriers got their hands on it. The seller was a decent guy and we agreed a partial refund, and the G5 was parted out which more than covered the cost of buying it - result! I found another case for the 2.7 and got it all fitted in nicely, which meant I had a trashed G5 case to dispose of. It almost got itself thrown out, but then I thought I might see if it could be saved and used as a hack case. The sleeve section was removed from the case, and much bashing of panels took place until it was pretty straight. Looking at the "core" section of the case, I set about marking it out for cutting but then decided I didnt want to cut the case up irreversibly. The core was split into its two halves, and the rear panel and floor were put to one side (eventually I will build another Hack into this case using the back panel but I want it to be completely untouched) and I grafted on an ATX back panel, tray and floor section. The top divider was cut in half to clear the ATX mobo (the cut off section was saved) and the original hard drive cage was attached beneath the front section using M3 button head screws into the original screw holes. The refitted sleeve section was held on with M4 machine screws countersunk into the sleeve and filled over. The sleeve was sprayed using enamel paints because these are very tough and very good at sticking to aluminium. A mask was cut from masking film for the Apple logo, and that was airbrushed using enamel paint again. I used a satin finish enamel to match the finish of the original logo. Once that was dry the case looked fairly presentable. Looking at it closely I can still make out a couple of ripples and bumps here and there but then again I know where to look and they arent that noticeable at all. Thanks to the great work of the people on this forum, I was able to make up a front panel lead for power, usb and audio (I didn't bother with Firewire, I never use the front Firewire connectors and the Asus M3A board I was using has no Firewire header) and also work out how to wire up the original fans. I used the dual exhaust fans as intake fans, and the PCI fan was used for the exhaust. The front fans run on 7V, the rear on 5V. Without all the info on here I doubt very much that I'd ever have been able to work the connections out so kudos to everybody who has sat down and figured this out and shared their knowledge here. The Asaka PSU was stripped and I removed the cabling I didn't need to keep everything as neat as possible. Most of the power cables are routed behind the motherboard tray, only the main ATX bundle sits on top, zip tied to a couple of L brackets. Looks quite tidy and apart from cutting the top divider I havent had to chop the case to pieces to do it. The spec isn't exactly monster, it's an Asus M3A with AMD 4050e CPU, 4GB DDR2 800, PNY 9600GT 512MB graphics, Seagate Barracuda 400GB 7200RPM SATA HDD and a Samsung SATA optical drive. There is also an NEC based FW400 card and a Belkin F5D7000 wireless card. It runs 10.6.5 nicely and as soon as I get around to fitting a passive cooler to the 9600GT it will make a good media centre computer. Edit: A cousin of mine is fabricating a perforated aluminium closer panel for the top rear section to save cutting a section from the original back panel. The side panel is held on with tiny rare earth magnets hidden in the case frame which "grab" the steel subframe of the side panel very securely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snackole Posted December 21, 2010 Share Posted December 21, 2010 Where did you get that mobo tray? Also, can I see thee back of your case? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flakmonkey Posted December 22, 2010 Author Share Posted December 22, 2010 Where did you get that mobo tray? Also, can I see thee back of your case? The tray, back panel and floor panel were removed from an old budget Antec case that I had lying around. The way it's constructed is basically half a PC case joined to the top "L" section of the G5 case. Round the back you can see where the new curved closer panel section will fit at the top, this will just be fixed using the existing M3 studs that are already in the G5 case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snackole Posted December 22, 2010 Share Posted December 22, 2010 Nice. Thanks for sharing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grady.lynch Posted January 19, 2011 Share Posted January 19, 2011 Thats one of the best G5 mods ive seen! I'm very interested in doing a G5 case mod myself. Could you point me to a good resource that breaks it down, as I'm rather new to this? Specifically, How did you use part of another case within the G5? Thanks for the help and great work on the case! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoran Bogunovic Posted January 20, 2011 Share Posted January 20, 2011 I like the way you have re purposed the original G5 parts, nice cable management, keen to see if your design envolves... I see you've stayed true to the G5 design in keeping the PSU down low. Be sure to us all updated Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mstansfield Posted February 19, 2011 Share Posted February 19, 2011 I was wondering what brand and color of enamel paint you used on the side of your case? I have been looking for a close match for sometime now to refinish my G5 case but I haven't been able to find anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flakmonkey Posted February 21, 2011 Author Share Posted February 21, 2011 Sorry I have to work away for long periods and haven't been around to reply. The enamel paint was Revell 99 aluminium, it's a pretty decent match for the anodised finish of the G5 case. To use part of another case inside the G5 case like this you need to strip the G5 case all the way down. Get the "core" out of the big wrap around sleeve (it's tricky but not complicated) and you can split that into two L shaped pieces, the new case parts form the base and back panel. It's possible to do this without cutting the G5 case at all so you end up with a factory finish on everything which appealed to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mstansfield Posted February 21, 2011 Share Posted February 21, 2011 Great thanks so much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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