Sunbeam VH Acrylic Case Review
Date : Thursday, 10th April
2003
Author : Wolfman
Provided by : Sunbeam
Tech
Introduction
Sunbeam Tech have been in the modding market for quite some time now and in that time, they've made a name for themselves with some very cool and innovative products. They started off by offering their very own line of CCFL tubes and kits and from there, slowly expanded their product line to include numerous other modding stuff, like LED Fans, Fan Grills, Etches, etc. Now their products are now sold all over the world and many of the online mod stores carries at least one of their product line. They've recently added a new product to their inventory in the form of their very own acrylic cases. I guess with all that modding kits they sell, they needed a case to put them all in! Anyway, they were kind enough to design a special edition acrylic case just for VH and that's what we're gonna take a look at today.
The Case
The only other acrylic case that I've worked with was the BeanTech BT84 Acrylic Case that I reviewed earlier, so I was curious to see if there were major differences between these two case. When the package arrived, the first difference was obvious. While I received the BeanTech BT84 Acrylic Case in a standard mid-tower case package, the Sunbeam acrylic case came in a flat box, something more suitable for an LCD monitor. That's because the acrylic case from Sunbeam came unassembled, flat-packed for saving freight space and more importantly, safe-guarding the fragile acrylic pieces from damages and scratches. Inside the package, the flat-packed acrylic pieces are placed in a styrofoam packaging. 8 major acrylic panels, all individually packed in styrofoam sheets, form the case, with numerous other parts included.
 The package |
 Flat-packed |
The Major Parts
 Laid out |
 Panel in styrofoam sheet |
This VH Edition acrylic case from Sunbeam features blue decals and custom laser-etched VH Logos on the panels. The side panel fan placement also differs from the standard acrylic case that's available from Sunbeam. According to Sunbeam, the colours are actually printed onto the acrylic panels itself, although they did not give me much details on the printing method. Here's a look at the major panels of the case.
 Side Panel w/ etching and decal |
 Rear panel |
 Front Panel |
 Drive panel |
 Top Panel |
 Bottom Panel |
Acrylic feet
You can clearly see the "BioHazard-VH" logo etched onto the motherboard side panel. The rear panel utilizes an aluminium expansion plate and upon close inspection, they are identical to the ones you see on Chieftec cases. I assume Sunbeam bought the panel off Chieftec factory and included them into their acrylic case. Even the I/O Plate is identical to the Chieftec ones. a VH Logo is also etched on the top of the front panel/bezel. You'll also find the internal drive panels, top panel with an 80mm blowhole and the bottom panel, with acrylic feets already installed onto them. Now with all these individual panels, how is the case assembled together? Read on then folks....
Accessories
Sunbeam included a whole phletora of accessories to get you started with the assembly of the case. There's a 4 page part list and assembly instruction included and tons of screws/stand-offs. There's also a pair of cotton gloves for the user to prevent scratching or leaving fingerprints on the case during assembly. I highly recommend you use them! :O) Sunbeam also clearly labelled the individual packs of screws and accessories to prevent you from using the wrong screw/accessory during assembly. Apart from the screws, there's also the expansion slot covers, drive bay covers for the 3.5" and 5.25" bays, a speaker and also the Power/Reset/LEDs PCB assembly.
 Parts list and assembly instruction |
 Lots of 'em! |
Clearly labelled packs
Assembly
I followed the assembly instruction included with the case and if you do the same, it should take more than an hour to get everything fixed up. The most critical component here is these 1" x 1" cubes with threaded fasteners in them. These are what the case panels would be secured onto to form the case structure. Each cube has 3 threaded fasteners to accomodate the different panels. Pay attention to the direction that these fasteners points to.
Fastener Cubes
Secure all 8 fastener cubes to the top and bottom panel first. Remember not to over-tighten the screws to prevent the acrylic from cracking under intense pressure. Here's how it should look like after all 8 fasteners are secured. The next step is to assemble the drive panels onto the top and bottom panel. Once you got that in, the case will now begin to take its' form and it can now stand upright in it's intended position. BTW, the screws used to secure these panels are the gold ones with the big flat heads, with straight slot in them.
 Bottom Panel |
 Top Panel |
 Drive Panels installed |
 Connecting screws |
Before installing the rear panel, you'll have to secure the I/O and Expansion plate onto the panel itself first. Use the self-threading screws to do this and again, do not over tighten or exert excessive force. Turn the screw clockwise a little, then counter-clockwise to ease the pressure and repeat these two steps until the screws are firmly in place. There's 11 screws altogether so be patient and take your time to do this.
 Plate secured with screws |
 Rear Panel |
 Rear Panel installed |
Before assembling the front panel to the case, you need to install the Power/Reset/LEDs PCB Assembly onto it first. You'l first need to install two short stand-offs and then secure the PCB assembly onto it, with the buttons and LEDs in the respective holes. Now while other acrylic cases uses ugly red button switches, Sunbeam utilized chrome buttons which looks pretty pimp if I do say so myself! ;^) The only thing lacking here is front USB/Firewire ports. Only thing left here is both the side panels which is pretty straight forward. Once you got that done, the case is now ready and looks pretty fine with all the blue printings and etches.
 Power/Reset/LEDs PCB Assembly |
 PCB on Front Panel |
 Front Panel installed |
 Mobo-Side Panel installed |
 Other side panel installed |
 The VH Logo etching |
The final touch to the case is the drive bay covers itself. They're basically just pieces of acrylics, secured to the front panel with push-pins. These pins dun actually lock the covers in place but simply just hold them there and for aesthetic purposes as well.
 Push Pins |
 Covers in placeS |
Extras
Before I put in any hardwares inside the case, let me show you what else came with the case. :O) Sunbeam included 5 units of their UV CCFL Fans for the case, with one being a sound-activated model. Since the whole case is themed VH Blue, the UV fans are also Blue. You can find out more about the UV CCFL Fans in this review here.
 UV CCFL Fan |
 Close-up |
 Laser cut acrylic VH Fan grills |
 Close-up on the translucent blue grill |
Apart from that, I also got 5 Laser Cut Blue Acrylic VH Grills from Directron. These compliments the case and UV Fans very well indeed! These acrylic grills are exact replicas of the stainless steel version that's currently manufactured/available at ZXMods.Com. They are available in orange, red, green, blue, yellow, clear, and mirror shades in a variety of designs and there will be a UV Reactive ones soon. Currently, they're only available in the 80mm size. Be sure to use the supplied fan screws to secure the fans onto the case. This is due to the thickness of the acrylic panels so regular fan screws would not reach the fans to secure it properly.
 Fan and grill installed |
 Pimpy! |
 Full view |
 Side view |
Parts Installation
Drives installation is a little bit more involved due to the space between the drive panels installed in the case. For 3.5" devices, stand-offs are provided to ensure proper installation of the devices. I prefer the drive installation on the BeanTech BT84 Acrylic Case a little better. In any case, Sunbeam provided different stand-offs for your harddrives and floppy drive, due to the different threads on these devices. However, installation procedure is the same for both devices. And you'll have to remove both side panels in order to access the drive panels screw holes. Install the stand-offs onto the drives and then secure the whole assembly of stand-offs and drive into the case as you would with a normal case. The drive will appear to be "floating" in mid-air.
 Stand-offs on FDD |
 Close up |
 FDD Installed |
 HDD Installed |
No stand-offs are required for 5.25" drives though, as it installs normally as it would on any standard cases. One thing I noticed with this case is that the absence of some kind of support for the PSU mounting. As we know, the PSU is one of the heaviest hardware in the case and most of the time, it's installed at the top of the case. With steel or aluminium cases, it's not a problem as the case structure is able to handle the load but with the acrylic cases, not having some kind of support could lead to problems. Here you can see that installed PSU slants a little forward due to the absence of a support underneath it. So far, nothing has happened yet but I'll be sure to check that part frequently just to be sure.
 5.25" devices |
 Drive installed |
 Only 4 screws holding the PSU in place |
 Slanted... |
With this case, motherboard installation has to be done last as the motherboard itself it installed ON the side panel and not on an intermediate panel within the case. So let's say if you want to add another 3.5" or 5.25" device, you'll have to remove your expansion cards, then the motherboard and finally the side panel. A little too much work if you ask me. A separate motherboard tray or panel would be a welcomed change here. And because of that, the stand-offs used to mount the motherboard are a little longer than your normal ones. Other than that, the installation is pretty much straight forward.
 The mobo side panel |
 Stand-offs |
 Mobo installed |
 mobo and drives... |
Cooling
Cooling wise, the case has well-placed fan ports to cool every part of the system. It's well-balanced with an intake up front to help cool your hard drives, two side intakes to help with the cooling of the motherboard and expansion cards as well as general intake for the case. There's one exhaust fan at the rear and also a chimney exhaust at the top of the case. All the fan ports are of the 80mm size.
 Front view |
 Side view |
 Rear view |
Conclusion
Sunbeam has done quite well with their version of the acrylic case. Like most acrylic case packages, Sunbeam flat-packed theirs to protect the panels and also save up on freight space. The overall design of the case is rather squarish but with the laser etches and printings, it gives the case a unique look. Builiding the case from the ground up seems to be the part I enjoyed most. It could be a little intimidating for some but with the supplied instruction manual, you can't go wrong. Once built, the frame is very sturdy, with clear polished edges and none of that sharp edges from alu/steel cases. The PCB assembly of the chrome switches and LEDs are a nice change too from the normal red switches that comes with most other acrylic cases. Too bad though it doesn't come with front USB/Firewire ports which is a standard with most cases nowadays. Ad the stock case do not come with any fans at all too. I also don't like the way the motherboard is intall on the side panel. No doubt it saves on material in the case but it's a hassle to remove all your expansion cards and motherboard to add a new 3.5" or 5.25" device. Sunbeam might wanna look at adding a support panel for the PSU as well.
 System turned on |
 Eerie!! |
 Unf! |
 Pretty pimp eh? :O) |
 Close up on UV fans |
Pros
Cons
A big thank you goes out to Bright and Keven at Sunbeam for the customized review sample. The acrylic cases are also available in Light Blue and Light Red tints. Thanks for reading and enjoy the site folks! Over and out!
