CRITICALThinker
New member
Recently started a thread asking for advice on a project I have had in mind for a while, and since i'm in the middle of waiting for glue to dry for it, I figured i'd start a project thread of sorts.
I finally finished modelling the case in sketchup (after using some references from the warehouse) that took into account a lot of advice from other users. It ended up having an external volume of 21.5 L (14x7.5x12.5)
I then grabbed two sheets of 1/2 inch scrap plywood that juuust managed to fit all the pieces of the frame onto it (1 shown)
Once the pieces were all cut out with a table saw, a dry fit looked promising
After gluing and nailing the case together sans the top, I measured out where the I/O and GPU fit in, and cut them out with a jigsaw. A rasp was used to widen the I/O plate hole until it fit and that too was glued in place. A fan was used to trace the holes out for that and they too fell to the jigsaw. The PSU cutout was fun to trace but not everything ends up being simple.
Started mounting my hardware, an e5-2630 V2 on a very chinese motherboard that I couldn't bios mod the overclocking options back into, and a GTX 950. the 16gb kit of ram was left over from before I upgraded my PC, and the RM 650 was from an RMA that I replaced while waiting for the replacement to ship in since the power supply I wanted to use was stuck in another build (OCZ modxstream 600W). Overall the tech parts have a current value of around ~250 USD from aliexpress and the used market. (not including spare 120mm fans). For those wondering the motherboard tray is from an old HP prebuilt.
Some minor issues with the design so far:
- Due to tolerances, the motherboard cannot come out without removing the power supply, and I am unsure if a properly sized mATX board would fit in the current config. Depends on PSU mounting(i'll get back to this)
- Because of where the board is mounted in the case, and the motherboard layout, it is extremely hard to plug anything at the bottom of the board in. Another 1/2 inch would have made a difference here.
- Due to the cutout for the GPU being sized as it is, the GPU has to be installed and removed with the motherboard
- The power supply design makes it so that I cannot have the fan pointed inwards, and since I wasn't anticipating this, I didn't model in a 1/2 inch there between the fan for the connectors, so I will have to flip it.
- Cable management is going to be hella fun
I should finish painting this and mounting the PSU tomorrow if all goes well (need to leave the nest to go find paint of some sort) I didn't want to make more holes in the case but the PSU fan might turn on at some point (who knows with less than a 50% load)
I finally finished modelling the case in sketchup (after using some references from the warehouse) that took into account a lot of advice from other users. It ended up having an external volume of 21.5 L (14x7.5x12.5)
I then grabbed two sheets of 1/2 inch scrap plywood that juuust managed to fit all the pieces of the frame onto it (1 shown)
Once the pieces were all cut out with a table saw, a dry fit looked promising
After gluing and nailing the case together sans the top, I measured out where the I/O and GPU fit in, and cut them out with a jigsaw. A rasp was used to widen the I/O plate hole until it fit and that too was glued in place. A fan was used to trace the holes out for that and they too fell to the jigsaw. The PSU cutout was fun to trace but not everything ends up being simple.
Started mounting my hardware, an e5-2630 V2 on a very chinese motherboard that I couldn't bios mod the overclocking options back into, and a GTX 950. the 16gb kit of ram was left over from before I upgraded my PC, and the RM 650 was from an RMA that I replaced while waiting for the replacement to ship in since the power supply I wanted to use was stuck in another build (OCZ modxstream 600W). Overall the tech parts have a current value of around ~250 USD from aliexpress and the used market. (not including spare 120mm fans). For those wondering the motherboard tray is from an old HP prebuilt.
Some minor issues with the design so far:
- Due to tolerances, the motherboard cannot come out without removing the power supply, and I am unsure if a properly sized mATX board would fit in the current config. Depends on PSU mounting(i'll get back to this)
- Because of where the board is mounted in the case, and the motherboard layout, it is extremely hard to plug anything at the bottom of the board in. Another 1/2 inch would have made a difference here.
- Due to the cutout for the GPU being sized as it is, the GPU has to be installed and removed with the motherboard
- The power supply design makes it so that I cannot have the fan pointed inwards, and since I wasn't anticipating this, I didn't model in a 1/2 inch there between the fan for the connectors, so I will have to flip it.
- Cable management is going to be hella fun
I should finish painting this and mounting the PSU tomorrow if all goes well (need to leave the nest to go find paint of some sort) I didn't want to make more holes in the case but the PSU fan might turn on at some point (who knows with less than a 50% load)
