When I search for this, all the results I can find are people trying to figure out how to attach stickers TO powder coat, but the previous owner of this sweet gaming case I scored had that totally figured out, these things are stuck like old-school plastered posters to a phone pole:
Some of them are only chipping off in tiny bits, and I'm afraid the chipping itself could damage the powder coat. What chemical is safe to use? The WD40 in the background?
A heat gun is my usual go-to for sticker removal. Gets the sticker goo loosened up.
Rubber eraser wheel should blow them right off.
Heat gun or hair dryer. If that doesn't work and you can take the thing totally apart, soak the case in water for a while.
Put more stickers over them?
EvanB said:Put more stickers over them?
One of the stickers I got off did have a second sticker under it...
I can try heating them up with a hairdryer, I'll just need to check the melting point of lexan first (I think that's what the side window's made of, could be acrylic). soaking it will be difficult due to the sheer size of the panel.
Update, the hair dryer got most of them to peel off in one or a few pieces, but the stubborn ones were still just about as stubborn. Here's how far the hair dryer got me:
Next, I decided to make this case a guinea pig and test some chemicals on it. I soaked the remaining stickers with WD40. About 8 cycles of soaking and scraping over the course of a few days got the remaining stickers and glue off. Next I washed the panel with dish soap to remove the WD40. It could just barely fit in a bathtub or utility sink, so soaking could've been an option too...maybe an easier option. Well at least I found out that WD40 will do the job! If you look closely at it you can see "shadows" where the stickers were, I think this computer used to get sunlight on it.
Next, transferring my home server's parts largely-cheapo parts over from the old cheapo case, with a few new bits...
Even with an extension, the CPU aux. power wires could barely reach if I took the short and ugly route. This case needs a PSU with really long wires if you want to hide them all behind the mainboard tray, or maybe even if you don't.
Some of the new bits were these drive rails I had to get 3D printed because they're NLA. 12 in all, costing a bit more than the case itself did in the first place...
Final result:
I'm running positive pressure air cooling as usual, this printer covers the 200mm blowhole exhaust fan opening (for which I've removed the fan) but if it weren't there, I'd put a clear panel in its place to keep dust from falling in from above.
Full-usage heat-soaked CPU temperatures have dropped from the low 60s with the old case to the low 50s with this one, so there's plenty of room for overclocking as soon as I can afford to risk frying some computer parts.
An eraser wheel would have ripped those off in seconds and not hurt the finish at all.
As you've discovered WD40 works for removing stickers. Alcohol is good for removing WD40.
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