New guy and his fallout case ideas

[DaveW]

Hi everyone, i'm new to these forums and to case modding. I've been thingking about modding my cases for a while now, but until now i havn't had the time or money-now i have the money, but not the time! Funny how things work out. Sorry, got side tracked. I want to modify an old case and make it into a nifty fallout themed peice of kit. There are certain things that make this mod slightly different from other mods though:

1) The computer is by no means a beast of a machine. At current, it's running a crappy old CPU which i havn't even identified-OS is windows 95, so it's pretty damn old. Small chance i'll be able to upgrade this to a 750mhz Pentium 3, and a smaller chance i'll be able to upgrade this to an Athlon 1100Mhz. So you're probably wondering why i'm modding such a pile of scrap: i'm planning to put Linux on it and run it as a server so i can practice programming languages and run a website and FTP server. So it's going to be on all day, and thus i don't want it to consume power like some mental physics experiment does in the movies (you know, when all the lights go out).

2) The case i am modding is old. In fact, it's rubbishly old. It's one of the older horizontal cases that the monitor is supposed to sit ontop off. The whole lid, and side panels, slide off and thus if i'm modding the case then i'll have to do something about the fact that any mods put into the case will have to be unhooked to open the box.

So the theme of the mod is the fallout series of games, which you all have probably heard off, and if not, then shame on you. What i'm currently thinking off is a lid on top that lifts up on a prop, like the hood on a car? This lid will have hinges towards the rear of the case and will swing upwards, allowing access to the inards. This means i can modd the case properly. What i don't know how to do is paint the case, cut the case, etc. I havn't got any webspace or the USB lead for my camera right now, so i can't post pictures; i guess you can;t do much on description alone, but until i get pictures, can you maybe help me come up with some interesting features for this case? I'm tihnking of a Musketeer 3 for the second drive slot, maybe hard wire a musketeer 2 into the case for extra nice effects (or maybe just try and get some needles from old electrics). Alternative's to the Musketeer 2 (that's the one with the 3 round needle dials, right?) i'm thinking of a LCD screen that i saw in CustomPC, the Matrix Orbital MX610. This will ruin the theme of the case though, because it looks cool-is there any similar LCD screens that display green text, on a black screen, that give similar programming capabilities? I was thinking about removing the screen from the Matrix and mounting it on the case itself without all the buttons-or maybe replacing the buttons with those little red ones you got in the game, if you can remember. Anyway, all ideas appreciated; i was going for a pip-boy/vault-tek theme, with pip boy and the valut tek logo featuring on the case. I'll post a picture of my ideas if you promise not to laugh, maybe tommorow night. All ideas, comments, please-give me feedback!



Dave

[DaveW]

Right, here's a quick scribble of what i'm thinking...hope this helps...

For anyone who actually doesn't know about fallout, it's set in what now would be if there was a nuclear holocaust in the 50's. Then again, it's a fallout themed case, so i guess you'd have to have played the games.

[Redbeard]

Dave,

I am glad to see someone else wanting to build a fallout mod. While mine may never materialize seeing as how college has consumed almost all my free time I hope your case turns out great. A few things.

1. Are you wanting to have a clean look of vault 13, or a dirty, coroded look of vault 15? I Think that the look of something from the abandoned vaults like 15 is cooler looking but somewhat harder to pull off.

2. I suggest playing both 1 and 2 over agian and taking screen shots of everything vault tec (even the map when traveling between cities).

3. This may be too far fetched for you but I think it could work out to be great. I thought about in my design of modifing the cradle to my PDA to be part of the case so therefore I could insert my pipboy (PDA) into my computer like is done all through out the games.

Hope this helps, I'll try to think of more.

[DaveW]

Yeah, it's the dirty corroded look of vault 15 i was looking for. I know it's going to be harder to pull off, with the hardest part being the paintjob. I was thinking about plastering the box with fallout-esque theming, for example, w wanted to stick a couple of nika-cloa box caps to the top. But then again, that's a long way off for now-i need to get my basic ideas down on paper first. I was thinking about maybe cleaning up the case, painting it with an airgun, then using a heatgun to basically destroy the paintjob. After that, paint on things like rust at the corners? Anyone tried this before? Anyone got it working? I was looking at another dude's mods and saw someone who had UV lighting in their case, and had painted sticky-out-components with UV reactive paint. It looked really good, and i figured it would look a hell of a lot better than a green cathode tube, which was what i was going for before, to go with the prominance of the colour green in the game. But i think that painting the components with UV would look a hellova lot cooler-what do you think?

Also any ideas on a little green display like the pip boy's display? I was thinking about one of those matrix diplays, like this one >here< but what do you guys think? Anyone here programmed one of these before? I don't think this one in particular is aimed at the case modding community. Seriously guys, i'll need some help to pull this off...

Oh, and thanks for the excuse to play fallout again

-Dave

[Redbeard]

sounds like you have some good ideas, I personally wouldn't use UV on this mod but that's just me. By the way I just remembered one of the coolest ideas I had. Think back to the first fallout in the intro where the stupid overseer is blabbering about water supplies being so low. The scene where they show the water through the window and the water is bright blue and bubbles are going through the water. The scene gave me the idea to do something like that on a case mod. Granted it would be hard to do, especially with your case shape. But I thought I should mention it. Also I have a real fallout shelter sign that is weathered from 50+ years and was wanting to include in somehow but it was too big and I didn't want to ruin my precious sign. Maybe you might want to use some symbols like that too? Just a thought.

[DaveW]

I never thought about the water idea, that's quite nice...wasn't sure at first whether or not to use UV or green light, but i think UV would highlight the electronics more, and that's what would give it a more fallouty feel. Than again, i'm still fiddling with ideas. I know the case shape is a bitch, and although i have other cases that i could mod, this one's a bit unusual and i think that it would be more fun to mod. I'm thinking about removing the plastic front and either just using the metal underneath or maybe making a metal front, that i could dent and paint to my heart's content. Currently, the main ideas for this case are:

1)Panel lid which swings up like an access panel or car bonnet.
2)Faded rusty paintjob
3)Pip-boy esque green LCD display ( i need to find one, anyone got any ideas? )
4)Fallouty red plastic buttons
5)Pip-boy and vault-tek logos
6)Old warning signs
7)Needle Gauges-musketeer3. Not sure about putting a 2 in anymore.

I still need to mod the computer to ensure low power consumption, long life, and quiet running. All ideas welcome.

[DaveW]

I havn't seen this screen before! I was looking for screenshots of the vault tek logo and i found this. The story behind it is that all the children were cut from the European version of the game because of 'moral' reasons. Apparently, it's not ok for us to have the option to kill children in a videogame in Europe. But it is in America. I don't even know what to think about that one-nanny state bad, or American freedom bad? Suffice to say i downloaded the patch that put the kids back in.

Anyway, drew up some more ideas-anyone got any ideas on how to paint this case? Or anyone know where i can get an LCD display? Come on, someone must be reading this thread....


-Dave

[crazybillybob]

What Size LCD display are you looking for?
Do you want it full color?
Details!!! (Then I can give you a link, or an Idea!)


Crazybillybob

[Redbeard]

I had completely forgotten about the European version. Trust me I really don't think that you missed out on anything. Ian once killed a kid in a fight and I recieved the dreaded child killer/slayer title (or something like that). After that everyone hated my charcter and most tried to kill him. Makes sense though I suppose, except I didn't even do it.

[SgtSteve]

I've actually been planning a fallout mod for a long time.. mostly as a small "utility PC" for my dad's garage. I have all sorts of sketches modelling it after one of those monitors that litter the vaults and high tech buildings, with a small form-factor mobo behind an LCD Monitor mounted at a downward angle. To give it more of a Fallout look, i was going to take an old round Television glass and mount it in front of the LCD. The keyboard would be mounted underneath, and plenty of blinking LEDs.. Some hooked up to a curcuit based off of a 555 for random-looking effects, and some to gauge things such as Temp, Power, Activity... etc.

A great idea I'd like to share with you is using a series of LEDs as a temp monitor, but set up to look like the AP scale in the UI. I wish I could find a place for that in my planned mod, but I would love to see it done here.