Peace, Love & Rockets

Adam “DOHCDragon” Owen is an old hand at winning the QuakeCon mod contest, although the last two times he won (not a typo), he bested the competition in the Scratch Build category. For QuakeCon 2015, Owen decided to mix things up a bit and enter the Bethesda/id Software category, and as you can see that worked out pretty well for him. “I have made a goal every year to build a computer for QuakeCon,” Owen says. “This year being the 20th year, I wanted to do something that celebrated the event. Every year, the best description I see for QuakeCon is ‘A weekend of peace, love, and rockets.’ This case was designed to celebrate both the 20 years of QuakeCon and the 10 years that I have been attending. It is going to become my home server, and will sit on a pedestal next to my 3D printer in my man cave. It will serve as a reminder of all the good times I have had at the event, and as a symbol of what has been and what is to come.” You might remember Owen’s 3D printer—or at least its handiwork—from the 2014 QuakeCon mod contest, in which Owen stormed the field with his operational WWII Tiger tank PC. And that’s not the only connection this mod has to QuakeCons past.

In The Beginning 
Owen won the Cooler Master HAF XB that is Peace, Love & Rockets’ foundation as part of his prize package for winning the Scratch Build category of the 2013 QuakeCon case mod contest. As you can see, the left, top, and right panels each have a unique construction that represents part of the mod’s name (and, of course, the QuakeCon logo itself is proudly displayed on the front panel). The original plan also included dry ice, but Owen says he had to scrap that idea after doing a 1:1 scale mockup and test. Then he began to work on his side panel designs in SketchUp. “The only part that changed dramatically was love,” he says. “The original design didn’t look enough like a heart, so I scratched it and redesigned it. Once it was all designed in SketchUp, it pretty much came out exactly as designed. I believe the original design had room to grow, and the final work was better than I had imagined.”

Can We Build It? 
Owen removed all of the rivets from the HAF XB, then masked the outer surfaces of the case, along with select parts of the inside. He painted the case’s interior white, and then went to work on each of the outer surfaces in turn. Peace. “I cut a hole in the right side of the case and inserted a plasma shield,” says Owen. “I added a ground strap to the side of the case to prevent people from getting shocked, then I 3D-printed a holder and covers to make the shield look like the peace sign. After I got all this done, the electronics that came with the plasma driver stopped working. I was able to purchase a $20 plasma ball from Walmart and use its internal electronics to fix my plasma plate. Then I custom-built a white cover to house the new electronics and painted an orange Q on the back to go along with the theme of the case.” Love. “I replaced the top of the HAF XB with a piece of Plexiglas. I masked off the windows and painted the edges black to match the case, then cut a hole in the center of it for the 140mm fan that I use to power the heart. The gears I borrowed from the 3D artwork I used in the 3D Printed Tiger Tank from last year; I wanted to show people how complex and yet functional the 3D printer can be. Next, I engraved ‘2015’ on both sides of the heart. The top gear goes around once for every 50 times the fan spins all the way around.” Rockets. “I wanted to use something from Quake in the build, so I took the 2D rocket image from Quake and converted it into a 3D rocket. It is lit with orange and white LEDs. The entire fixture mounts to the outside of the case.”

The Finishing 
Touch Owen made the QuakeCon logo on the front panel with—you guessed it—his 3D printer. He then built a custom shroud for his video card that bears the message, “20 Years Of,” along with symbols for Peace, Love, and Rockets. In addition to the HAF XB, this mod contains an Intel Core i7-3960X, an ASUS SABERTOOTH X79 motherboard, 32GB of G.Skill DDR3-2400, an EVGA GeForce GTX 980, a Cooler Master Silent Pro Hybrid 1300W PSU, three OCZ Revo 3 240GB PCIe SSDs, a 3TB Western Digital Black hard drive, and a custom cooling loop and “miscellaneous fans.” Owen says he’s already begun work on his mod for QuakeCon 2016, but like many master craftsmen, he’s not ready to give up many details yet. He says he plans to start a work log on Modders-Inc.com, but not until “early November.” We’ll be watching, Adam!