"Alien Inferno" LED Fan Flame Mod

    The flame mod went through no less than five revisions and was a project in the making for a good amount of time, many ideas were swapped back and forth on how best to make a simulated flame and the end result is entirely worth the time invested.  The finished mod compliments the alien theme of the case, it looks like an other worldly flame and really sets off the entire top of the case.

    If your case does not have a top blowhole then the first step to doing this mod is cutting one.  For the hole shown below an 80mm hole saw was used, a Dremel would also work but is the long way to do it.  After your hole is cut you should file the edges smooth.  Notice that there is also a fan grill ring on top of the blowhole, I used a Dremel with a cut off wheel to remove the center from an alien fan grill I had lying around and then filed the edges where the cuts were made.

    For the fan flame mod I used 2 80mm Cooler Master blue fans, one I cut the guts out of so it would act as a funnel for the other fan.  To light it all up I used four Laser LED Cannons, two blue and two green.

    After trying a few different types of cloth with mixed results I finally found one that worked well, silk.  The flames were cut free hand and if you look closely you can see the slits that were cut to connect them together, one down the middle on the top of one and the other up the bottom.  I affixed a small piece of Velcro to the bottom corners of both pieces of silk, these will hold the cloth in place.  I also used a small amount of white tape on the slits to keep both pieces of silk connected and also to add a small amount of support to the flame.

    I screwed the blank fan frame to the Coolermaster LED fan, making note of the airflow direction (it has to blow out) and then removed the LED cannons from their clips.  I drilled a small hole into each clip and attached one to each corner of the fan as shown in the picture below.  The cloth flames were then attached to the inside of the funnel in an X pattern using the aforementioned Velcro tabs.

    Since I wanted to be able to turn the fan and LED's on and off independent of each other I hooked up a couple on/off switches in the front of my case where the USB ports would normally be.  Front mounting the switches makes the best sense because reaching behind the PC to turn things on/off blows, and since the front USB ports aren't hooked up or used it winds up being an excellent way to stealth them.

    To eliminate wiring clutter I removed the Molex ends from the LED cannons and wired them all together and used heat shrink to keep everything neat.  In the picture below you can see the yellow wire going to the LED cannons, it was pre-wired to the switch used and is not a 12v line... LED cannons are 5v and we don't want anyone getting confused and burning up a bunch of LED's... unless they are the type to only look at the pictures and not read the guide, to them we say "have fun" (but they never hear us because they don't read).

Below shows the fan with the LED cannons connected, the fan grill was added as an afterthought... hearing what an LED cannon caught in an 80mm fan sounds like motivates afterthought.  The grill also prevents the wiring or anything else getting caught up in the fan, which is important if you poke around in your case a lot.

    Adjust the LED cannons so that they shine up through the fan and onto the silk and then position it inside the top of the case.  Screw everything down and plug the fan and LED cannons into their respective Molex ends.  Mouse over the picture below to see how good it looks in the dark.

    I also took a short video of the alien inferno fan flame in action because a still picture cannot do this mod justice.  Please right click and choose "save target as" instead of streaming it directly, see a short video of the fan mod in action here.  Below is a close up of the flame taken at night with no flash, pretty sweet.

    The alien inferno fan flame mod is something that most modders should have little trouble recreating if they follow the above guide.  I am entirely happy with the way this turned out and everyone that has seen it agrees that it does a fine job of imitating flames coming out of the top of my case.  I estimate the complete cost of this mod at under $25 USD, not bad for how cool the effect is.

Happy Modding

- Guide written by Marklar and Troy

Disclaimer: This how-to guide is presented for informative purposes only.  CaseModGod.com can not and will not be held responsible for damages to or resulting from anything that you may decide to do to your case or hardware and also can not and will not be held responsible for injury to your self or others as a result of attempting any of the things that are shown on this site.  Basically you are responsible for your own actions whether said actions were based on information garnered from this site or elsewhere, learn to deal with it.