Custom or downer case ?

paulstung

New member
Iv'e had an idea floating around in my head for a while for a fully symmetrical case, so no matter what side of your desk it sits on you can see the internals. This would involve the motherboard to be mounted in the centre with the rear IO now being a top IO, with a rad and a res either side of that, and possibly a plinth bellow, to house a full width rad, and the drives, and psu.

My dilemma comes from should I go full custom and design and build it myself or get 3 cheap cases to make the 2 parts needed ? Iv'e got the cases pinned down to either the NZXT S340, or the Define S, both cases have what I need besides being cheep, I'll try to break it down now.

I figure that on case number 1 9 project case ) , need to remove the back panel, and replace with downer case number 1's, front internal and front bezel , then replace the top panel from project case, with the a rear IO and a custom motherboard tray with a 120mm fan either side. Then with downer case number 2 make the bottom plinth but cutting down to size, and repeating the front bezel mod to mirror the main case, I would have to do a smaller plinth for the top for the top IO cables to come out of the back, but with after cutting downer case number 2 down to about 150mm in height there is plenty to play with. The psu would be in the bottom plinth, in the centre, on it's side, with an extension for the power cord, to come out where I need it. For the front, I'm toying with a few ideas, either a full 10mm acrylic window, or the same but with a 2 1/2 inch frame of brushed ally around the outer edge so the internal case frame for the original front panel attached, can't be seen, the acrylic edges would be polished, so LED's can be placed inside for the edge to glow, that idea could be used to join all the sections together, for one big front panel.


I hope you follow my idea, it is a bit hard to explain, so here is a very rough sketch of my idea, but imagine the res being full rad height. ( 360 mm ) and the bottom plinth rad with be a 420, or a 480, depending on what case I decide to go for.


Please excuse my very crude plan, I have never used paint before, and it sucked....

I think out of the 2 the S340 would look the best with it having such a clean front, but the width is giving me a concern, but the define s has the extra width, what would you guys do, go full custom from the ground up, but then what materials to use, or use 3 cases to make one perfect case ? Or even if you have a better idea to achieve my idea, I'd love to hear it, cheers guys.
 
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What cane to my mind first was, Parvum!
they can make what you want, even a complete clean front and the rad space you need.
(No I don't get money from them) :lol:
 
I though about them, but I'm not really into the full acrylic case, plus, I think for the size I need it to be it wouldn't be cheep. i also thought about Protocase, I even contacted them and they would be able to design and build it, even from a crude hand drawn sketch, and dimensions. The extreme option was Caselabs, with you being able to buy a basic case, and buy all the extra individual parts that I would need.

It would have been the SMA8 with the extended 120mm top , with the extra 2 pieces to make the front panel ( it would be 1 reverse ATX front and 1 normal, to give it the same look either side, because of the Caselabs logo on the bottom) This was my first and favourite option but the price was £584.30 before shipping, and tax, so it would be nice but OTT.

I've just been playing around with length of wood and some chalk, measuring out both case options and nether would work, for my initial layout, the reservoirs would have to be mounted horizontally, so I would either have to extend the width, which would mean having to buy a fourth case, or go for a 900D, which is almost there, I would just have to think of a new front panel, maybe contact Coldzero, or MNPCtech. Looking at the side on pictures it is fully symmetrical, it might not take much to achieve what I need.
 
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Quite an ambitious project, go for it!

Get to know Sketchup to put your ideas in to three dimensional space. If you know a better CAD program use that, then get a company to make the bits for you, it'll be a lot less than £500 you mention earlier!

I did this for my first scratch build - designed it in Sketchup, then built it out of 10mm plywood, then got the panels made out of glass effect acrylic (before the days of Parvum).
 
I was thinking about wood for the build, but only for the frame, as it would be covered by the panels any way, even then, I have found a local store that sells an awesome black brushed aluminium sticky vinyl. I think it might make sense for my first scratch build as, the materials are easy to come by, if a mistake is made, and I'm a whole lot more familiar with wood than say steal, or aluminium.

As for drawing it up in Sketchup, I wish my brain worked that way, but sadly it doesn't, I'm more of a jump in and see what happens kind of guy, and it works for me. Thanks for the advise though dude.
 
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