Fan hole for steel case

[jb444]

I was going to put a 250mm fan in the side of my antec P180 case to get good air flow with little noise, but since I have little experience with cutting cases (a while ago I made a side panel but thats it), I thought I'd practice on the case of my old PC first which needed a case fan anyway.
I picked up some heavy duty cut of bits for a dremel thingy, but when cutting I ground 3 bits down to nothing and shattered another two and only got about 1/4 of the way round the circle (I then gave up on the dremel and hacksawed and filed it to shape).
The case looks to be 1mm steel.
I just wanted to know, will the antec case (layers of aluminium and plastic) be as hard to cut???
Has anyone found actual saw blades rather than grinding wheels for a dremel (I couldnt)?
I cant hacksaw and file the antec case as I want the fan hole in the centre of the side panel. I was thinking maybe drill holes every 10mm and just dremel between them?
Thanks
Chris
ps. dont suggest a jigsaw I spent 20 mins trying to clamp it down so it didnt jump up and down and only managed to slightly reduce the amount of dents the panel ended up with.

 

[halo71]

Just out of curiosity. Was the blade in the jigsaw a metal cutting blade? I have used a jigsaw before with a fine metal cutting blade with good results. The saw also had an adjustable speed motor. I would say that is your best bet! I only used a dremmel to smooth the edges after cutting. The aluminum case will be easier to cut also.

 

[SNGX1275]

1mm steel? Good luck, that is like the body of my truck. Guess you could drill a ton of holes, but you'll want them closer than 1cm apart if you are distroying dremel bits that fast.

 

[mailpup]

For cutting holes in sheet metal use a hole saw. If you want, you can drill a pilot hole first. Center punch the sheet metal first to prevent "walking" of the drill bit. Then chuck the hole saw bit into a drill and cut a perfectly round hole. Use an emery cloth or similar to clean up the edges. Hole saw kit example:

This is just for illustration purposes. You can buy individual hole saws (you must get a mandrel too) at hardware stores. Just be sure it is for metal, not wood only.

Using a Dremel or hacksaw is pure butchery.

 

[SNGX1275]

mailpup - I've never seen a one that cut 250mm holes. Thats approaching 10 inches.

Drill a big hole (1 inch or bigger probably) then use metal shears. Take lots of breaks

 

[halo71]

That is true. I have NEVER seen one along the 250mm size! And I do a fair amount of woodworking in my ex-wifes Dad's shop.Looks like the example pictured is for wood cutting though.

Hey...he could always take the case to a machine shop. A good plasma cutter could cut the hole!

 

[mailpup]

My bad. I overlooked the size. A hole saw for the corner radii and tin snips (shears) for the straights would be good way to cut a clean line. If you are trying to cut a large circular hole, there are tins snips for cutting curved lines, different ones for right or left curves.

BTW, the hole saw kit pictured above is a bimetal kit for metal.

 

[Tmagic650]

That is true. I have NEVER seen one along the 250mm size! And I do a fair amount of woodworking in my ex-wifes Dad's shop.Looks like the example pictured is for wood cutting though.

Hey...he could always take the case to a machine shop. A good plasma cutter could cut the hole!

That's a great idea! We have several auto/truck fabricating shops here. I'm sure just about any machine shop could do this very quickly, and at a nominal cost

 

[jb444]

woooow thanks for the millions of responses...wasnt expecting so much.
Yes halo71 it was a metal cutting blade but it was a crappy $20 jigsaw with one speed only which probably explains my lack of success.
I like the idea of drilling holes and cutting between them with tin snips...sounds like the quickest way...Plus im gonna need to sand down the edges anyway so i can just use the strait line ones I already have then Dremel it down to size (is Dremel a verb yet?)
If I could I would take the panel up to a specialist to laser- or plasma- cut the hole but nearest shop to me is >80km away up in London and is far too much hastle.
Sorry I havent replied before...wasnt expecting so much response so I thought I'd check back in a few hours...thanks all for your input, never thought of using tin snips to cut the hole before
Thanks again
Chris

 

[jb444]

Using a Dremel or hacksaw is pure butchery.

Lol, butchery is what the case I dremeled required...1mm steel ugly beige painted case ought to be butchered as much as possible
(Im thinking of sanding it down as plain metal has got to look getter than a beige box)

 

[halo71]

Lol, butchery is what the case I dremeled required...1mm steel ugly beige painted case ought to be butchered as much as possible
(Im thinking of sanding it down as plain metal has got to look getter than a beige box)

I have seen some cases where they were painted to look like brushed aluminum. I think after painting they take a scotch bright pad to it to make the brushed effect.

 

[HPCE_Larry]

On an alluminum case even high quality wood drill bits work. On my case I made a grid of a bunch of holes and put a fan on that and it runs fine.

 

[tweakboy]

You might need the kit pictures in the above thread, gl,