EmYataki - PC BUILD & CASE MOD
EmYataki's Ryzen 9 3900x Sparkle Build with Case Mods
Em wanted a clean white build with lighter "pastel" coloured lights - the sparkle emoji cutout on the front panel is what is used to identify subscribers on her streaming channel dlive.tv/emyataki
Front Panel
Most case mods I have done in the past have involved CNC or Aquajet cutting to create the desired effects - This however wasn't an option with this build. The cutouts on this panel were painstakingly done using a cheap dremel tool. I would not recommend using such a tool for plastic cutting as most every attachment and cutting disk will melt the plastic itself leaving rough edges and a lot of sanding to do. However using a very slow speed and taking my time I achieved the desired shape with very little clean up hand sanding. The front panel itself actually had support like "Beams" on the rear of it these all had to be removed using the dremel before work started creating the shape, I also needed a flat surface to adhere the frosted acrylic you can see inside the shape. The frosted acrylic was more of a design choice than anything as it softens the light from the LL120 fans.Although the acrylic I had available had been sat in the workshop and moved around a lot so had quite a few imperfections. Being able to sand and frost this sheet meant that those imperfections completely disappeared
Keyboard
Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a White/RGB Gaming keyboard with decent switches?!
There's the Razer mercury and Corsair K70 Mk2 Special Edition both of which are great keyboards but cost over £140 RRP
Instead I had the great idea of purchasing the same keyboard that I currently own the Corsair STRAFE RGB with Cherry MX Silent keys, a great keyboard especially as both me and EmYataki stream the key press volume isn't as intrusive when streaming live. This part of the project actually took much longer than anything else, longer than cutting the case and building the PC itself by a long way.
The whole thing needed to be sanded down to create a better surface for adhesion of the paint, which is difficult when dodging the keys/switches even with the keycaps removed. Once that was complete a white base coat was applied - left to dry - lightly sanded - applied again - I did this for 3 coats then applied a "Pearl" finish Createx airbrush paint to give the keyboard a Shimmering/Sparkle effect. I was a little disappointed in how reflective the pearl particles ended up being even after the final gloss coat - I think potentially looking into some kind of glitter based paint may be an option if I tried something similar in future.
There's the Razer mercury and Corsair K70 Mk2 Special Edition both of which are great keyboards but cost over £140 RRP
Instead I had the great idea of purchasing the same keyboard that I currently own the Corsair STRAFE RGB with Cherry MX Silent keys, a great keyboard especially as both me and EmYataki stream the key press volume isn't as intrusive when streaming live. This part of the project actually took much longer than anything else, longer than cutting the case and building the PC itself by a long way.
The whole thing needed to be sanded down to create a better surface for adhesion of the paint, which is difficult when dodging the keys/switches even with the keycaps removed. Once that was complete a white base coat was applied - left to dry - lightly sanded - applied again - I did this for 3 coats then applied a "Pearl" finish Createx airbrush paint to give the keyboard a Shimmering/Sparkle effect. I was a little disappointed in how reflective the pearl particles ended up being even after the final gloss coat - I think potentially looking into some kind of glitter based paint may be an option if I tried something similar in future.
Build
The build itself was fairly straight forward - Although after building exclusively using intel for the last decade the AMD brackets for the H100I SE cooler did confuse me for the first few minutes of the build stream. How embarrassing.
That and the lack of supplied screws for the NVME M.2 SSD mounting were the only frustrations in what was an incredibly smooth and satisfying build with one of the best streams I have had on Dlive.tv with over 30 viewers for most of the stream and being featured on the homepage of the platform.
That and the lack of supplied screws for the NVME M.2 SSD mounting were the only frustrations in what was an incredibly smooth and satisfying build with one of the best streams I have had on Dlive.tv with over 30 viewers for most of the stream and being featured on the homepage of the platform.
