Lian Li Sacrifice case for G5 - £35 Bargain

For anyone looking for a motherboard tray and back plate, I just bought a Lian Li PC-A10B case for £35 delivered just out of curiosity

Wow - what a bargain considering the build quality and the "parts" one gets for £35 for 8Kg of metal work !!.
3 more still available on eBay here for UK folks.

I'm tempted to get another just for more spares
Just the screw pack that's included more than £10 if one was to go out buy them separately.
Just the tray is more than £30 if bought separately.

I will looking to do a build with Laserhive backplate and i/o panel eventually but first I thought I'd "practice" using the parts from this case for my first mod:

1. Motherboard tray
2. backplate
3. PCI I/O panel
4. 2-bay HDD bay with anti-vibration grommets.
5. 3-bay HDD bay (may be ?)
6. firewire/USB/Audio front panel I/O (may be unless I find a USB3.0 equivalent)
7. 120mm rear fan grill
8. other quality Aluminium metal pieces for modding
9. PSU ATX Extension cable

The case is unbranded - OEM and as such does not include any fans or a vent on the top of the case.
There's review of the branded case here if you more details.

Here are some shots I took with my phone with temperamental flash (sorry for the quality as the SLR has been borrowed).






I have started stripping the case:



Changed the fan grill from the black mesh to the aluminium one (included in the box of bits) to see what it would look like:



The plan is to do more planning on how to use and fits these parts to the stripped G5.
Initial thoughts are to flush-mount the backplate to the G5 and spray it grey (like minihack did with one of his mods).
But, I'm also tempted to keep it a sliding tray by using the slide guides. Will see.
Watch this space.

Questions to the experts:

1. I will need to remove the rivets from the tray and the backplate. Are there flush mounting nut rivets (or normal rivets) available to replace them ?
2. Instead of riveting them back, can the backplate and the PCI I/O panel be glued together (JB Weld) ?
3. Any recommendation on the specific weld glue to use ?

Hello, a sacrifice that is worth it. I did the same thing with another lian-li and it can only perfect, beside many Euros to saving yourself in exchange for something I work. You repented. A greeting from Spain.

I'm willing to bet that the back panel of the lian li case is going to be too wide to fit on the back of the G5 without cutting into where the 120mm fan mounts. It would be an extremely interesting project if it does fit and you are able to incorporate the the slide-out functionality of the motherboard tray.

rehpotsirhc said:

I'm willing to bet that the back panel of the lian li case is going to be too wide to fit on the back of the G5 without cutting into where the 120mm fan mounts. It would be an extremely interesting project if it does fit and you are able to incorporate the the slide-out functionality of the motherboard tray.

Click to expand...

Gained bet, but there is no that it could not correct with a few cuts and anything of lime.Queria to put some photography but not to do it to him.http://www.subirimagenes.com/fotos-img20131119160001-8742368.html

rehpotsirhc said:

I'm willing to bet that the back panel of the lian li case is going to be too wide to fit on the back of the G5 without cutting into where the 120mm fan mounts. It would be an extremely interesting project if it does fit and you are able to incorporate the the slide-out functionality of the motherboard tray.

Click to expand...

I'll take your bet

the G5 is approximately 199.5mm wide (between the door and the side panel).
The PC-A10 back plate is 192.5mm wide (at its widest point).

So there's 7mm to play with - i.e. it will fit.

For the slide rails, the key would be getting the rails mounted at teh right height on the G5 so that the back plate fits within the 199.5mm wide of the G5.

That really would and will be a interesting build.
All ways fun to see something new come out of our modding.
My 3 G5s and one G4 that I have done were all out of old pc cases I had laying around.

A drill bit smaller that the rivet will drill it out with out making the hole bigger.
Use some small nuts and bolts to hold the base and back together.
Then when all is right you can go back and rivet but I just use the bolts myself.

heretolearn said:

That really would and will be a interesting build.
All ways fun to see something new come out of our modding.
My 3 G5s and one G4 that I have done were all out of old pc cases I had laying around.

A drill bit smaller that the rivet will drill it out with out making the hole bigger.
Use some small nuts and bolts to hold the base and back together.
Then when all is right you can go back and rivet but I just use the bolts myself.

Click to expand...

Thx for the tips.

After removing the rivets, I was really hoping to use M3 rivet nut and a flush countersunk socket screw to replace them like this one:


But for the I/O panel, there's no room for them as you can see from this:


The original rivet is 3.2mm and next to it, I placed the rivet nut to compare the size and next to that is an M3 Self Clinching nut but even that is too big

So eventually, I will have to use pop rivets. Probably use flush/flat countersunk pop rivets.