One thing I wanted to do was to minimize the amount of visible wiring down to almost nothing. On top of that I wanted all wires to be sleeved and of custom length to cleanly snake around the cases hidden crevices. This clean wiring all started with my Power Supply.
I chose an Antec True Power 550w that had been pre modified with removable Molex and Intel wires as well as sleeving. This gives me the ability to remove all of the wires I don’t use, helping to minimize clutter. You can find these at many mod shops (mine was from Performance-pcs.com), or you can also do it yourself but for the sake of saving time, I splurged.
I have future plans to do voltage mods on the +5, +3.3 and +12 volt lines later on in the project.
Case Wiring
Next thing I did was to remove all of the wired components from the case to be sleeved. The components were the fan speed selector, LED’s, switches and motherboard connectors. For sleeving I used Blue UV reactive Flexible mesh sleeving and blue/orange heat shrink tubing. The process of sleeving is simple:
- Remove connectors if possible.
- Slide sleeving over wires.
- Cut heat shrink tubing to length.
- Place heat shrink over the frayed ends of the sleeving.
- Use a heat gun to shrink the heat shrink.
- Presto! Pretty wires.
TIP: When using this style of sleeving, use a lighter to singe and melt the ends of the cut sleeving. This prevents fraying while you work. Also if you don’t own a heat gun, try a hairdryer set on high heat.
As you can see, the results of sleeving give a more finished look to any jumbled mess of case wires. You will find that a good wiring scheme will not only help to promote good airflow throughout your case, but also improve its overall look drastically.
