Fitted the fan controller behind the bay cover today. Thought it would take an hour or two, five hours later.

Measured up the cuts required on the bay cover, started cutting with my electric hand saw, WAY to strong. Would have broken the cover from all the vibration. Quick trip down to Bunnings to pick up a small hacksaw (Bunnings is a very, very large hardware conglomerate in Australia - you want it, Bunnings has got it. Kinda like Walmart).

Finished cutting some of the plastic work off the bay cover with the hack saw. HEAPS better cutting control - loved it.

THEN, out with my brand new dremel. Never used one before, but it made short work of smoothing the rough edges from the hack saw. Good bargain too I thought, came with the flexible extension, plus a mounting block and telescoping arm to hang the motor on, and a ton of fittings - all for AU$40


Then it was time to do some test drilling on the discarded offcuts. I was a bit dubious about how hard and brittle the bay cover plastic was. I picked the two drill sizes I needed to match the existing hole sizes in the fan controller front cover. Started to drill at very low speed (all drill bits were very sharp BTW), SNAP, , plastic clean snapped in two. tested again at a higher speed, same result, bugger, bugger, maybe I can't drill this stuff out without destroying the bay cover.


Then I test drilled with a smaller bit, perfect every time IF I was very careful.

Next, mark up the holes. Used the fan controller front cover as a template.


Very, VERY carefully drilled out the holes (crapped myself the whole time - I could see bits of plastic flying off everywhere ).

Then, used the dremel and slowly expanded the small drill holes out to the required size. Used drill bits the same size as the required holes to progressively test the correct diameter of the hole.

End result, top LED holes successfully dremelled (is dremelled a word?) to correct diameters and only SO slightly out of alignment (the tape protecting the front face plate is actually out of alignment - LOL).


Next, push up the cover in the vice ready to do the bigger control knob holes.


All holes finished, test fitted the fan controller.


Finished product mounted into drive bay (which still has to be replaced by Mountain Mods due to bad scratching). There's still a bit of tape adhesive on the cover plate, still have to give it a good clean.


And that's it, what I thought would take a couple of hours, well, five hours later

For a boofhead like myself who couldn't cut a piece of string into equal halves to save himself I am actually rather pleased with the end result

Nothing more to add until the week after Easter. I am on holidays from next Tuesday until the following Sunday. Hopefully the remaining parts will have been delivered to work next week so I can continue when I get back.