Day 2: (Cont`d)

The Victim	Drilling Starting Hole	Jig-Saw Action	Nice Hole!
Getting Rid Of the Roughness	Applying Rubber Liner	Fresh Window	Window In
Inserting Locking Strip	All Done!	Front View	Final Product

   This was a simple mod that Hank said he does numerous times a day. I think he did 2 of them the day I was there. He can do these very quickly now since he has done so many, as you do stuff more you find faster and better ways to do it. Don't think he sacrifices quality for speed. What amazed me is how much pride he puts into his work, he is very picky and wants it to be perfect. His modding style reflects him and he wants the customer to be more than happy with his custom work.

Incoming Shipment

Thermaltake PSU's

Thermaltake Water cooling

Outgoing Packages

   This was one of the incoming UPS shipments that I barely caught sight of. It was a bunch of stuff from Thermaltake including their new power supply and some water cooling gear. Hank told me they would only let him order 1 case (4 PSU's) because they are so limited. Near the door was the outgoing shipments, you can see the quantity of outgoing shipments at midday. So you think you're sleeving material? Lets find out.

Sleeving Antec Neo Cables

Sleeving SATA Cables

Sleeving Antec Neo Cables Again

My Work In Progress

   I could of spent all day taking pictures of them sleeving but then I would not of had time to show you the place, so I sat down for about 10 minutes and snapped the progress. After this I was given a lesson in sleeving. I picked up on it right away.

   After finishing some of my fan extension cables, I thought to make some new modular cables for my Modstream. Matt made up the cables and I sleeved them like a champ. By the end of the day I was ready to crimp my own pins, place a head on, and sleeve it. I was working on the following fan above, I did 4 of them.

   Now to my take on sleeving; sleeving looks great in a case if done right. However sloppy sleeving can make a case look terrible. I quickly realized that the right tools can get it done a lot easier. Even if you have the right tools you still need to know techniques to make it look best. I caught on pretty fast and went sleeving crazy. If you don't have the right tools I suggest you leave it to them, it will save you a lot of headaches. They recommend you use a heat knife to cut the sleeving to prevent fraying. Also a hair dryer will not cut it for melting heat shrink, you need a heatgun, much hotter than that. If you are making custom cables and some how screw up the wire pairing you can fry your hardware. Unless you are very confident playing with your hardware ,then let them do it for you, they do it everyday. Trying to save yourself money up front, might end up costing you allot more if you ruin expensive hardware.

RMA For Ultra@!~

Lighted Keyboard

Hank's Work

    These are just some random pictures I took during the day. The first one is an RMA of the wonderful Ultra PSU's. Ok, so honestly though they are terrible. I found it quite funny because I had heard they are garbage from other unrelated sources and this only solidifies that rumor! GG!

   The second picture is one of lighted keyboard. The unique feature of this lighted keyboard is that the keys are lit individually instead of random LED's under the keys. This looks very nice, my camera was having problems trying to take pictures of it, but it is worth checking out. The last picture is a case that Hank modded for a customer. This was not your normal mod, the customer requested that Hank place a Rheobus fan controller on the top of the case and hide it if possible. Hank did a great job on this for being the first time, it turned out really nice and I'm sure the customer will be very happy with it.

   The end of the day was approaching and the employees were leaving, it was just Hank and I left. I was finishing up sleeving some of the goodies I picked up and Hank was finishing up some mods. After he was done we drove over to UPS to drop off the last package because he was not done with it when the UPS guy came. So we thought we would try the Japanese place again. They were open this time! So we went in and had a great dinner as I was enjoying my last night in Florida.

My flight home departed was the next afternoon. I got back to my hotel to discover my Mexican buddies sleeping peacefully, I was rather disappointed since I wanted to say bye. I was out cold pretty fast.