Case mod: P180B to P182?

[abs0Lut]

Hey I am thinking of doing a mod to my current Antec P180B case and I was wondering if there is any veterans who give me some advice. What I want to do is be able to route my PSU cables behind the mother board tray like you are able to with the Antec P182. What sort of tools should I use to cut the metal material?



The red rectangles mark where there are no holes in my case and these are where I would want them to be. Also, what could be used to smooth the edges of the cut metal? Thanks in advance.

[chibi_man]

My advice is to get creative. If you can get a drill and a metal file, do it. just make sure your edges are either smooth or have some type of gasket around them. What I commonly do is make several drawing of possible styles of a mod.

For your application, I would most likely draw out the areas where I wish to remove the metal. Drill out the corners as best I can, then use a dremel tool to finish. At a time I used a hand file and took my time to get things just right.

[qwerty]

You can get the edging for your newly crafted holes at any electronics shop.

[Moneyless]

You can use a Dremel to cut the metal, then a sanding\buffing head to make the cuts smooth. Or use plastic\rubber U-channel.

[enaberif]

Power drill and a 2 1/4" bi-metal hole saw will work perfect for the wires to snake through and yes you can put a 24 pin connector through a 2 1/4" hole :D

[MpG]

In my P190, which has basically the same hole pattern as the P182, I found that the bottom notch could stand to be a little wider, since it has to accomodate most of the cables coming from the PSU. Just the ATX and 8-pin cables alone can fill up over half of that gap, nevermind the molex and HDD power cables you'll probably want to send that way too.

Also, if you're going to use the upper HDD tray, a second, lower notch on the side will let you route the power cables straight to the drives, instead of having to go up, then down again.