Brainstorm of new system build
Here's my brainstorming log (minus the sketches which are kinda tough to type) for an upcoming build. I'm planning now for a build over the next three months to culminate in a Gulftown system once that's released in March 2009. More details on another thread.
It is my hope that some idea on this thread might inspire someone else's case design project, or at least kick-start their brainstorming.
1. what about a clear hologram in the case window? that would give the illusion of something inside the case that was not actually there.
2. perhaps a lian li pc-343b case with six LED fan mounts in the front instead of drive bays? maybe the optical drive could be mounted in the rear instead.
3. ocz z-drive for the only storage, totally eliminate the SATA cable so I don't have to deal with sleeving it.
4. a zerg theme from starcraft / starcraft 2. bio-mechanical?
5. perhaps kerrigan theme from starcraft.
6. blizzard theme. blue blizzard logo cut out of the side of the case.
7. terminator look. shiny metal with red eyes.
8. huge skull for the case!
9. make my own case out of extruded aluminum, bend it around like a paper clip similar to the HP Blackbird 002.
10. B.S.A. Eagle Scout theme, white case with red and blue lights and fluids. Celebrate Scouting's 100th anniversary.
11. Stanford theme. Tree logo etched in the side of the case.
12. Clean up and mount my bronze casting of the Stanford logo on the side of the case?
13. Everquest theme. Perhaps my old guild, Final Empire.
14. Everquest character theme. Feature artwork of Bolas of Povar in action.
15. Chess theme. Black case with white details, chess board and chess pieces featured prominently in the design.
16. Bubble tubes inside the case. Perhaps run a line of bubbles through one of the reservoirs for appearance. Use an old aquarium pump to send a stream of bubbles through the fluid.
17. Hollow case window with a stream of bubbles flowing through the colored fluid in the window, for effect.
18. Four reservoirs, pillar style, one in each of the four corners of the case. Four loop system.
19. Thick acrylic case window, like 1", with hollow tubes laser etched into the interior of the case window, with fluid flowing through them, spelling out something interesting. Use intersecting lasers to burn the pattern in the interior so that it is not necessary to cut into the acrylic to get the tubes through the middle.
20. Magic: The Gathering theme. Five loops, one each of red, green, blue, white, black?
21. Legend of the Five Rings theme. Five interlocking rings. Emerald green case?
22. Emerald city theme, wizard of oz. Green with a yellow brick road.
23. Olympics theme. Five rings of different colors.
24. Warcraft III: Defense of the Ancients theme. Perhaps bloodseeker, with blood flowing through the cooling?
25. Angular design, like a Frank Lloyd Wright house. Perhaps falling water?
26. Interior waterfall.
27. Interior fountain?!?
28. Check out "great buildings" on the web and borrow from those designs.
29. Bucky ball case.
30. Tinker toy case.
31. Erector set case.
32. Lego case.
33. Intersecting cubes. Black and white?
34. Good vs Evil theme.
35. Fire and Water theme.
36. Fire and Ice theme.
37. Vampire theme.
38. Quad theme. Four of everything. Four loops, four gpu's, quad core cpu, four sided cube case, four drives, four pillar reservoirs.
39. 4x4 theme -- like the truck.
40. Holodeck from star trek.
41. Sexa-Hexa core theme -- focus on the Intel core i7 980X and theme around that.
42. Binary theme. Ones and Zeros featured prominently. Binary versions of letters of my name.
43. Matrix theme. Black with green falling symbols on the outside, green fluid and lighting inside.
44. Mountain Dew theme. Sell the computer to the pepsico execs for big bucks hah!
45. Etched case windows?
46. Celtic knot work. Tie the wiring into fancy knots prominently displayed. Etch knots on the glass and paint them on the metal.
47. Braided, individually wrapped cables. Every three cables braid together like braiding hair. Three different colors so that the braid work shows.
48. Sailor knots, nautical theme. Blue and white.
49. Gordian knot and a pair of scissors.
50. Make knots out of the liquid cooling tubing and not just the wiring?!?
51. Irish / St. Pat's theme. Black with spring green. Emerald Isle map on the side of the case, shamrocks featured prominently throughout. Leprechauns, pot of gold (power supply?).
52. Dolan family coat of arms on the side of the case or perhaps etched into the glass.
53. Pi Kappa Phi fraternity theme. Coat of arms on the side, White, Blue, Gold color scheme.
54. Thermaltake Level 10 case, modified for water cooling?
55. Design my own level 10 style case of combined cubes, but include radiators, reservoirs, pumps, and tubing routing for water cooling.
56. Borg cube design (star trek).
57. Aliens theme, bio-mechanical style. Ripley!!
58. Multiple intersecting cubes for the design, artistic sculpture style.
59. Dual intersecting shoe boxes, one with the comp and one with the cooling.
60. Waterfall theme, external. Water flows down the outside of the case. Or perhaps between two sheets of plastic making up the case window.
61. Pimp my ride build. Trick out a case to look like a pimp's car.
62. VW Bug case, ala Geek Squad.
63. Two layer design, with a partition between the layers. Maybe the motherboard could be the partition?
64. Fractal design. Have a small design element and repeat it at larger and larger intervals? Maybe use a dragon fractal and etch that on the side of the case or on the case window? Or a mandelbrot set with different zoom levels featured in different places in the case.
65. Pink Floyd theme. Dark side of the moon, with a prism and a beam coming in one side, then the multiple colors of water cooling coming out the other side.
66. Laser beam illumination for the case. Red laser with mirrors wrapped in wires that move to the sounds that the computer is making.
67. UV laser shining through a thick piece of UV reactive acrylic for the case window, with mirrors to reflect the laser to give a criss-cross pattern of laser beams in the case window.
68. Sharks with friggin' laser beams on their heads. Austin powers theme.
69. Dr. Evil theme. Big Boy?
70. Classified theme. Black with red, James Bond style. Hidden compartments, decoys, things that are more than they seem.
71. Smoke and mirrors theme. Smoky case glass, laser beams bouncing off of mirrors all over the case.
72. Twin towers 9/11 theme. Replica towers, with one for the comp and one for the cooling.
73. Evil Genius theme. (I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.) Evil geniuses for a better tomorrow!!
74. The Wretched card theme from M:TG. Black with green, artwork on side of case to match artwork on card.
75. Demonic Tutor card theme from M:TG. Black with red-orange, demons and pentagrams.
76. Serra Angel card theme from M:TG. White case, angel with sword on the side of the case.
77. Nuclear reactor theme. Three mile island cooling towers, radiation warning symbols.
78. RGB theme. Three loops, one for each color of red, green, blue.
79. Biblical theme. Moses parting the Red Sea.
80. Biblical theme. Jonah in the belly of the whale.
81. Biblical theme. Crown of Thorns.
82. Police theme, with red and blue flashing lights. Perhaps the huge rotating lights on the top of the case?
83. Black/blue for one half, Blue/black for the other half, of a case. One half do black paint and blue sleeving, the other half do blue paint and black sleeving. Swap sleeving at the points where the wires cross the mid point to the other side of the case.
84. Star wars theme, with cold cathode case lights as the light sabers.
85. "The Prisoner" theme. Prominently feature 6 and 2 in The Village, and so on.
86. Clear bay reservoirs with custom cover plates, with dots cut out of the plate to spell things out. Perhaps "Z A K" for a three loop system, or "Z D" for a two loop system.
87. LED lasers, UV, criss-crossing thru the fluid in the reservoirs, for effect.
88. Reservoirs that twist around each other, like a stick pretzel. Pretzel shape for the cooling tubes?!?
89. Small reservoir (cylinder) passing through the middle of a larger (cube) reservoir for a dual loop system. Or two small reservoirs (cylinders) through a larger reservoir (box) for a triple loop system.
90. Music theme, with lit up notes spelling out a favorite tune. Symbols from music featured throughout the case, laser cut covers for drive bays with notes from song.
91. Cursive handwriting in the acrylic window, perhaps tubes through the acrylic spelling my name with fluid flowing through them?
92. Rubic's cube theme. Cube case partitioned into nine squares on each side.
93. Pastels and Disney princess theme?!?
94. Babylon 5 theme.
95. AC/DC theme, with electricity prominently featured throughout the case.
96. Lightning bolts painted on dark blue case.
97. High voltage transformer and spark ladder. Inside the case or on top.
98. Globe with internal arcs for light, like the ones they sell at radio shack.
99. Laser theme, with prisms, mirrors, splitters, to bounce the beam(s) around inside the case.
100. Blu-Ray theme, with logo featured prominently.
101. Devil-Ray theme, with a manta logo.
102. Make the case out of solid stone. Granite? Sandstone?
103. Pine tree theme, make the case out of pine and have the stanford logo wood burned into the side.
104. Industrial all-metal look to the case, with different colors of metals featured throughout. Copper, bronze, gold, silver, aluminum, etc. Wire braids over the outside of all wires, wire fittings, wire tubing for fluids, and so on.
105. Laser hitting a rotating mirror ball, to bounce the light all over the case. Disco theme?
106. Color wheel theme. Red, Blue, Yellow combining to make Purple, Green, Orange.
107. ZD Wines logo etched in glass window of case. Merlot for the fluid running through the cooling loops.
108. OCZ Z-Drive theme. Feature initials ZD prominently in the design of the case and details.
109. Black for some cables, navy blue for others. Black and blue theme, with some clear and some bright nickel accents.
110. Cyborg theme.
111. Battlestar Galactica theme. Make the case look like an old-school cylon helmet, with red light sweeping back and forth.
112. Metal sculpture inside reservoir tank. Venus de Milo?
113. Snowcrash Cyberpunk theme.
114. Enigma theme. Get some old photos of the world war II enigma code machine, and design a computer case to look just like it.
115. Nazi theme. Red, White, Black, with swastikas and SS logos. (disclaimer: no I'm not anti-semitic, this is a brainstorm, anything goes for ideas)
116. Copper pipes instead of clear tubing. Copper theme for waterblocks, ala Danger Den. Maybe make the case look like a miniature house, with copper pipes? Like the miniature houses in the Christmas villages.
117. Crystal theme. Make the case look like a huge quartz crystal. Like crystals in the Superman movie or in Dark Crystal.
118. Blown glass for the case?
119. Ant farm for the case window. Ants crawling up and down between two sheets of glass would certainly give the case a unique look. Maybe a "bug's life" theme for the case?
120. :banana::banana::banana::banana:ography theme. Make the case look like the female form. Have plenty of storage and multiple ways to "connect".
121. Murderbox theme. Get murdermods, make up my own custom TJ07 case.
122. Wood case. Have my brother make me a custom wood case with inlays, sliding panels, and so on. use hollowed out routings for the cables to completely conceal them inside the wood. Disguise the case to look like a classic piece of furniture.
123. Build a desk and make the case part of the desk.
124. Pirate theme, with the case like a big treasure chest. Jolly roger, gold doubloons, swords, etc.
125. Highlander theme, with a severed head and sparks flying from a "quickening".
Well that's it for now, there's my first few case/theme ideas for my new project. Feel free to add or build on ideas on this thread. I've numbered them for easier reference.
