Unospazmatic

Okay, my brother and I are planning out a pc case to build. I have been building computers for about ten years now and want to venture into the world of cases. My brother is a certified aircraft mechanic so by crossing his knowledge of construction/fabrication with my knowledge of motherboards and pc requirements this will definately be interesting.

A slight outline of my plan:

Dimensions(in inches);24x24x12 for ease

Material; probably sheet aluminum, but would love to make an entire case out of diamond plate for style.

Features; with this size I intend to put a 25cm fan in the front of the case between the drives(5.25 in top and 3.5 in bottom). Top mounted usb, firewire, audio, power and reset(with led's). With the size of the side panels I could easily have four 25cm fans blowing in. Dual 12cm fans on back as exhaust. The PSU will sit in the top rear of the case turned on its side with the (bottom)fan blowing out the right hand side of the case, the remaining space in the case beside the psu is going to be turned into a spare part/unused wire stow with a hinged latching door. I also intend on making an interesting 5.25 bay with two disk drives and a fan controller facing front(off center) with a 5.25 multicard reader coming out the top of the case. The hdd cage is just going to sit in the front bottom with either dual 12cm fans or one 25cm blowing across them.


Now I am no cad expert. . .in fact I have never even used a cad program, so the best schematic I could draw would be something borderline primitive in paint, but if you guys want to "see" my idea I guess say so and I will draw something up.

P.S. to all you guys with more experience in this world than myself; please give me ANY pointers you may have in this situation. I am going to need all the help I can get.

MyKobalt

You should hook up with MAGNETHEAD on this one.

magnethead

thanks for the reference. forcifier is another good one.

for fans, i use 3 of the thermaltake 250's form the armor in hybrid. performance-pcs.com also carries their own in house LED and non LED 250's as well as the antec 200 (which flows a little more than the thermaltake, but cant use LED's).

as to the sheet aluminum, most mfgr's use 3 to 5 mm thick- thats 0.1 to 0.2 inches. I'm not sure about the standoffs, but all chassis screws that i know of are 6-32 machine screws. So make sure you have that size tap on hand. As to plotting out the ATX spec bolt pattern, the best I can say is to find a piece of posterboard or something, cut ti down to about a 14" square or so, and using an existing case, punch out where the holes are. Then transfer it by sharpie or however to the sheet aluminum, and tap it for the standoffs.

Do you know how you'll make the PCI slots/supports? On hybrid, I use the mobo tray and I/O rear panel off an existing computer and just cut them out. I think forcifer used an inverted approach, screwing the cards from the device outward into a wooden block.

24x24x12 is pretty big, especially if dimaond plate. Plan on using a forklift or casters to move it? I think hybrid is 24x21x9, and it's pretty heavy even being 1/4" plywood.

How will you be framing the 5.25 and 3.5" bays? again, i used the 5.25 from an existing computer, and did the 3.5 out of raw sheet metal.

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catal...1a0050d024ec72

Here's what i woudl personally choose. they were more expensive when i built hybrid.

http://www.performance-pcs.com/catal...ducts_id=20929

magnethead

Here's hybrid's thread- Project Log: Hybrid Twist

Here's Fiery PC's thread (forcifier)- Project: Fiery PC

Unospazmatic

Yeah, the weight of the diamond plate is the one major flaw in that aproach.

After thinking about it a bit I plan on taking some aluminum plate and some 90 degree 'L's and using those to make the front, top, back and bottom. With the aluminum I think I am going to ensure these sides are sturdy before I go from there. Seeing as I have to make a custom 5.25 rack I think I will design that and figure out the dimensions and just make it out of aluminum and rivet/bolt it to the top of the case.

I may just get a 3.5 rack from somewhere but it wouldn't be too hard to make one out of aluminum. with it being on the bottom I will probably go with rivets or bolts instead of welding just because it is too easy to mess up a weld on aluminum.

I figure that on the mobo tray I can pull the tray out of on of my current cases with no problem, no reason to sweat that. Bending the aluminum accurately to fit the mobo tray properly is going to be a bit of a pain but I think we can do it. Will probably work on more of the design tomorrow to get it figured out a bit more.

Unospazmatic

Um, I can't seem to find this anywhere but does anyone know the dimensions of 3.5" drives?




Edit: nvm, google is your friend, just wasn't typing it in right.

Unospazmatic

Project is on hiatus until I can find a program that will let me draw everything out with scaling. Having to draw the lines so long and whatnot in paint is just aggravating the crap out of me.

magnethead

might i suggest graph paper.

Unospazmatic

Good point, I have been doing some sketches on some and have a fairly good idea of the dimensions of everything. It will be a tight fit but Hopefully it will work out.



Man, work sucks xD

stressfreesoul

If its going to be a tight fit for the components, make sure you have a good airflow plan. You dont want your hardware cooking before you have had chance to enjoy it!! This just means making sure that, 1)The only major objects in the stream of air are those you want to cool, and 2)source quiet, efficient fans ( Noctua NF-P12 and the Noctua NF-S12 are both excellent choices in this, quiet/efficient, category)

Unospazmatic

Well, thought I would do a small update. I basically have had to start over completely with my designs as my basement flooded a few days ago and all of my sketches/drafts that were in my basement are ruined.


It sucks having to start over but at least I still know what to do. Now to find more graph paper.

stressfreesoul

Thats unfortunate. Look on the bright side...You might get more inspiration from the destruction once you start drawing up again.