Divine's 5680 goes to the painters! 640 and 2048 res pics!

they painted over the mouse buttons?
did you have to dismantle it and take it to them or did they do it for you?
this voids the warranty doesn't it? or not?
how long did it take?

Well, lacking Madcat's reply, I think you can count out the option of them (whomever them is) having disassembled and reassembled the machine, that would take at least an hour each way, and that's for someone familiar with the machine. I would assume the paint shop didn't recently hire a former CLEVO technician so it would probably taken a lot longer. At going rates for good auto shop painters, that would have taken the whole of the reported cost plus some.

So I think you have to assume whatever disassembly and reassembly was done by Madcat Inc. Its possible they didn't disassemble it at all. I've seen some good painters and preppers that could pull it off and that was 30 years ago.

Its a beauty, at least what I can see. Tremendous gloss. Given its auto paint, I guess its pretty hard too. The question is what kind of wax to use.

Congrats man. Looking fabulous. Any side effects?

looks real nice

why did you want the stripe to be off to the left instead of symetrical?

Also the paint on the rubber feet wont stay looks like its already chipping off

Divine that looks divine .
Positively evil on the eyes. I wish mine looked like that.

And Marquis the only side effect I could think of is more offers from the women to have your children .

looks great, how much and why is the stripe to the left and uncentered???

its centered with the touchpad

wow...that looks great. kind of makes me want to paint my beast now. ::contemplates::

From the pics it looks really good for a $106 paintjob, did they just paint over all the screws?

Unfortunately, it looks like you have a LOT of orange peel in it though which is one of the things I've battled to get the finish as smooth as possible. If you don't know what orange peel is, here's what I mean:


Click on image to enlarge

Which comes from the paint not laying down well or paint runs.

Keep in mind if they painted directly over the speaker vents you probably have paint on the speakers themselves and they will not last long. The reason is the paint hardens on the paper cone speaker and the paper/foam surround and as the speaker moves/vibes with sound it will tear it apart over probably a short period of time. Also, if they got any paint in the CPU heatsink vents please pull out the heatsink and try to get the paint off or it will affect the cooling either now or once you get a little dust in it.

If they tore it down to tape it all off so nothing got on the speakers or in any of the vents you got a hell of a deal because that's a lot of labor to only charge $106.

One of the other issues we ran into was the prep, with the factory paint on there, it's a bit of a pain to get the paint to stick to it without chipping over time. Even the many experienced painters we had do demos for us we took keys to them and we could get paint chips to come off. Once one little chip came off, it was over because it would keep chipping. Once everything was over, when we found the proper prep materials to last and the proper paint to lay down well, the price for a glossy black paint job was over the $106 you were charged just for the paint and materials used. I have no idea how they did that without just throwing a layer of black paint on it after taping a few things off.

i think that orange peel, if it is uniform over the entire area, is a pretty cool texture with automotive paints.
i actually kind of dig the way it looks. as long as it is over the entire product. not smooth in some areas and bumpy in others

lol, well you'd be easy to paint for =). That's the first I've ever in my life heard of someone liking orange peel on a high gloss paint.

Do a search on google for "orange peel paint" and all your results will be how to fix it and how to prevent it.

Divine, did they mix the clear coat in with the black or apply it on after the black paint? We tried both and found applying the clear coat on top was best with any potential scratching which also takes more work. Do you know what they prepped it with or did they prep/prime it at all? Also, we have to bake the units after painting to help the paint harden and finish which I'm assuming they didn't do right?

yea im just wacky i guess.
but i would paint my lappy myself anyway and there would be no orange peel anywhere because i sand every coat

normally just scuffing the plastic with a medium grit sandpaper will help the primer to bond properly as long as you apply a light dusting before laying on thicker layers.
i think it looks fantastic for the price

DM- that looks freakin sweet! Great paint job. The black looks great and the blue stripe makes it even better. Plus it was only $106, which is a great price. Hell, I'd settle for that orange peel crap if it would only cost $106. Great looking laptop!!

Unfortunately yes, Sager will void it if anyone other than them tore it down and put it together.

Even the battery gets voided if painted (the manufacturer won't take it back) which we also void, but we cover it in house if anyone has a problem with their battery.

It's good they applied the clear coat after, you could actually wet sand it for a smooth finish if you had the time. Ours has some orange peel also and the 8890 with its texture is rough anyways.

Since you tore it down doing most of the labor work you know what it takes which is a few hours work. Still though for them to sand, primer, paint, and clearcoat it for $106 is really good. After much research, the materials we chose to use that we know will last a long time cost more than that.

If others are confident in their ability to disassemble and reassemble their system to get it painted, they may opt to do what you have done and save a LOT of $, but it will void the warranty if tore down by anyone but Sager (even me and I've done it many times =).

I worked years in a lab with electronics and with many motherboards, chips, and other components. The problem is when you tear something down, you have the potential touch many parts and just the ESD built up in your body can bleed off through these components. Sometimes it will instantly fry them, but MOST of the time it will simply damage them and shorten their life. Even if you had the proper equipment such as ESD floor mats, ESD counter mats with grounding clips, ESD straps, and wear the proper clothing, they are going to void the warranty if you take it apart and handle it. I know, I've torn these systems down as far as they can be torn down short of the solder holding the components on... and I know you can't do it without touching many parts so I understand their policy. Now, if you have a hard drive seize up on your or something they can easily tell couldn't have anything to do with it, they make help you out, but the official word I've been told and mentioned many times is if you take the system apart (pulling out the motherboard is doing this to the extreme) they will void the warranty.