UPDATE 6.5
I'm back folks, quick build update before the final shots go live on Monday. JUICE had always planned to have a tempered glass side panel. Josh kindly hooked me up with a couple extra panels to aid my development a way to mount the glass.. which was easy enough. The vented portion of the panel was to be cut out leaving a frame (as the side panel makes up part of the chassis structural strength it had to be the basis for the tempered glass mod) to mount the glass. Which, was to be attached using six standoffs to provide enough clearance for ventilation. Easy right? Well, yeah... finding somewhere that could make the glass turned out to be far more expensive then I'd hoped. it's a small piece that needed to be tinted, tempered and have six mounting holes. When each of my quotes came back in the hundreds I decided to put a pin in it.
As I'm using the Noctua NF B9 REDUX, the fan sits just a few mm too high for the stock side panel to fit. This wasn't to be an issue with the tempered glass approach, so instead, I opted for a simple side panel cut out.
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Using one of the powder coated panels Josh sent ( I still have a beautiful BMW estoril blue side panel which I may give away to another S4 mini owner) I masked it off and marked out how I'd like it to look. The centre-left hole meant a clean, straight square frame wasn't an option. But that would have been boring anyway. So I left the vented section above that hole in place and kept a single vent down at the bottom right (a little nod to my love of Parvum Systems chassis).
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It was the first time using my oscillating tool and wow, for cutting at least, I've retired my dremel.
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I re-masked it and used some small hand files to clean up the lines.
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Then it was a couple primer coats (grey) and a couple more in a satin black automotive paint (It was all I had in my shed, left over from my old FT03 3D printed Matrix Orb mount, who remembers that?).
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Removed the tape and job done. you can see where the satin finish is still reflecting some light... I'd use matt black if I were to do it again.
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Really happy with how it turned out (sorry you guys have already seen this one). With the panel in place the whole chassis is rock solid, zero flex.
So that's it. The final shots go up on Monday once Gigabyte shares them, soon after I'll do the final build log update. I'll post all the photos and talk a bit more about the Matrix Orb display.
Thanks for checking it out.
J.
