Building a computer case

Almost done with this project.

HDDs have been placed, PSU holder has been made, the dreaded front panel has been moulded.

Whats left now of this project is the optical drive holder, and the case would be fully functional.

And when thats done, all I gotta do is cosmetics, which includes fan mounts, vents, painting, putting on the vinyl I already bought, and front panel.

I've uploaded the photos, and you can check them out at my techspot gallery.

Here's a link to them.
Safety First
Aluminum Angles
Fresh 45 degree angle
Closeup
A bunch of cut 45 degree angle
LianLi removable tray
Another pic of the tray
The Frame
Corner (external)
Corner (internal)
1mm Aluminum sheet
PSU holding bracket (unfinished)
PSU holding bracket (finished)
PSU holding bracket (with PSU)

That's looking really good. The aluminum angle joints cut at 45 degree angles look very professional. I'm interested how you will be mounting the motherboard tray in the frame, and what the whole internal layout will look like when assembled. Also, what did you end up molding the front panel from?

what did you end up molding the front panel from?

I haven't finished yet with the front panel.

Not sure if I mentioned it earlier, but I've given up on the fibreglass part of the case, and decided to use aluminum for everything. As it is, I've got a lot to learn about working with aluminum, and to learn how to work with fibreglass with it.... means more time and money, both of which are running out.

Right now, my idea of a front panel would be something really simple: curved aluminum sides, roughly 1.5cm radius, and then the usual flat bit for the optical drive.

However, my optical drive will end up sitting on one side, instead of smack center, due to the graphics card taking up the left side of the front panel. It doesn't come all the way to the front, but there just isn't enough space (about 7-8cm short) to fit the graphics card, and still have the optical drive centered.

edit: the curved sides are made by wrapping/bending the sheet around a 1.5cm radius pole. Clever calculations were done to ensure that we end up with the correct width. But it still got it wrong, so clever un-bend and re-bend techniques were used. Pictures will be posted when I finish cutting the piece to size.

Just for the heck of it, here's another pic.

In case you wanted to see them for some more ideas, here are the finished pictures of my build:

http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21741&page=3

Hmm...

I must say that I'm a big fan of what you did with the switches.

I was going to do something similar, but with an IDE cable instead, which would have plugged straight into the motherboard (together with the Power LED).

I'm also going to incorporate a 2x PWM fan controller into the case, with transistor switches for total shutdown of all LEDs with a single switch. I will post pics when that is done, right now I'm waiting on the ICs I ordered online.

Wow that's amazing, I'd klike to do that one day.

Thanks. I did note that I have absolutely no experience working with metals, I'm no handyman of any kind whatsoever neither. I might have a knack of picking things up quick, but thats about it. So if you're looking at this, and saying you want to do it, go ahead. If I could, you could.

Do note that I did spend a VERY long time thinking through the process of how I was going to do every single part before starting. I think I should have stopped thinking and start doing, cos what I thought I would do, just never happened lol. As I did things, I realised there were better ways of doing what I wanted, or that something just doesn't work.


For others who are just following, more pics coming soon, I'm about to paint the thing, optical drive bay is done, and I've got the fan controller circuits up (needs some tweaking). I should've brought the pics to work to upload them

Piccas

Updated Frame
Front of frame
Closeup pic of PSU holding bracket's base + motherboard tray seat.
Frame with PSU bracket.
Front with PSU
Another pic with PSU installed
Optical drive holding brackets
Now with the optical drive

And here's a side-project.

As mentioned, I will be putting in PWM fan controllers built into the case. As this is a small case, I don't have the space for many fans, and I plan to have only the CPU fan, and the rear 120mm fan controlled this way.

This means building a circuit of my own, since commercial PWM fan controllers are too large (usually controlling 4 or more fans), requiring a whole 3.5" bay at least. They're also crammed with tons of features I don't want.

I'm also designing a circuit for some LEDs to show the fan activity (dimmer if fans aren't turning that fast, etc), and a single switch to disable ALL LEDs in the case for total darkness. With my current case, I realised while the lights look pretty, when you're trying to sleep, they get irritating. My comp runs 24/7 btw.

Anyway, to build these circuits, I will need to test them. Which means I need a benchtop power supply, which I don't have. My choices are to buy one (which costs about $50 bux for a basic one, which provides only a 12V rail), run it off a computer (which means I put all my hardware at risk if I stuff up), or build my own.

And since I'm on this BYO (build your own) spree, I decided to build my own. Its simple enough, and will provide me with all the voltages a computer uses, which is 0, +12, +5, +3.3, -5, -12. This doesn't include all the different voltages from combining 2 voltages (+7 from +12 and +5 for example). This benchtop power will also provide more amps than anything of similar cost.

In reality, this side-project took 3 days to do, but I put together the final project in about 2 hours. Someone who doesn't need to refer everywhere, and with all electronics tools probably can do it in 30 mins.

Here's pics.

PSU
PSU showing mods.
Closeup of mods.
Internals of PSU

Posted on TBCS

Sorry this hasn't been updated. Just dawdling along. I think I've reached the stage where I feel real lazy to do anything to it, even though its ALMOST there..... Its been at this stage for months, just didn't post it up.

Closer look at the back panel
The Innards all done

That's looking really nice. Did you paint the aluminum, or have it anodized?

Pretty cool stuff, though last month (maybe 2 months ago) Lian Li released a mini-ITX case that fits all but 1 of your requirements, the PC-Q08. Support up to the following:

- one 5.25" bay
- four HDD bays (six HDD bays if you are using an expansion card shorter than 7.2")
- ATX standard PSU
- 140mm front intake (obscured by the drive cage though...) and 120mm top exhaust
- the best part (I think), clearance for a 300mm expansion card (11.8")

Clearance for the CPU heatsink is about 75mm at best, so it's a little short (definitely too short for a "full sized heatsink"), but there are some decent low profile heatsinks out there, and with some fandangling you can actually install a corsair h50 in this thing.

Anyways, the only reason this sounds like an advert is because I actually have one and tossed a dedicated raid controller and 4 Samsung F3 1TB drives for a dual RAID 1 (I'm silly I know), though most people seem to like it since they can actually fit full sized video cards.

However, do keep at it and finish it, I want to see your finished work. I too, wish to one day break personal ground and build my own case; it's one of the few things I have not done yet regarding computer building.

Actually, the Q08 was out before I started the project. However, I really wanted to overclock, so the standard cooler just didn't cut it for me.

With Sandy Bridge, the point might be moot.

Either way, the LianLi is a great case, and if I ever need a second ITX case (and they still make them) I'd probably buy that.


Btw, I painted it. Anodizing would have cost me upwards of 100 bux... Painting costs me 20. I did enquire though, and my piece doesn't come close to their smallest part size, so I'll end up paying much more than needed really...

Apparently the Q09 and Q11 were released recently... but the Q09 doesn't really make much sense (since it's basically like every other mini ITX case sans being anodized aluminum), and well, I doubt the Q11 would work out. It looks like it has a lot of space, but compared to the Q08, it's the same width, a quarter of a Q08 taller, and a quarter of a Q08 less deep.

Not sure where Lian Li wants to go with either case.*

Either way I think you're right to definitely keep an eye out on sandy bridge, can't wait until reviews start coming out later this year (hopefully). How does your case look painted? pics please. =)


*The same could be said for the Q07 and Q08, but those two cases were niche filling cases where there wasn't really any precedence before them.