Scratch Build – In Progress Project: SFX (water-cooled Z68 ITX SFF)

A new update! Finally finished the bending - double bend was not easy but I seem to have pulled it off quite well Just need to add the curves and cut it down to size once I've done a test fit with the hardware.



Decided to use a donor case for the switched and motherboard tray. Thankfully this old Akasa Enigma was laying around gathering dust, and the switches were in perfect chromy condition. I'll be having me some of those lights too!



The rest is test-fitting the cooling gear and hardware after cutting out the I/O and PSU slots - some tidying up to do there.













I want plenty of slack on the rad so it's easy to remove in case I need to get at the hardware, so it's attached to the two side routes of tubing that will make up the windowed sections in the sides as per the last render



The thing that's giving me the most grief is the graphics card. As it's not a reference PCB, there's no full cover block for it and the GPU block is pointing the tubing a little too close to the sides. I'll be making the roof this week so we'll see if it fits!

You can see more here and I'll be posting this and more in the log soon. Sadly my attempt at bending a large aluminium sheet to shape to fit the roof hasn't gone according to plan so I'm going to be using clear acrylic with either spray paint or brushed metal film. This should, though, allow me to make the windows much more easily. Watch this space!

 

I think the trouble I had was that the curve is very long but the sheet is very wide and getting the precise angle was just impossible without gaps. I'll see if I can post some images, but the sheet is pretty ruined now so I've decided to go with acrylic instead

 

I had to raise the height a little to accommodate some internal layout changes but it's still only around 35cm wide, just under 20cm tall and less than 30cm deep - smaller than a SilverStone SG04. Don't forget the PSU is SFX - a full size one would take up half the case! If I'd used a single 120mm rad instead of the 180mm here and got rid of the side tubing features it would be a lot smaller, but less sexy...

It is 1/2in - unfortunately all my fittings are 1/2in that I've transplanted from another build and I didn't want to spend even more downsizing to 3/8. Would have cost upwards of £50 at least. It has been a tight squeeze in places admittedly but it's worked!

 

Thanks for the advice guys. I shall certainly give all those things a go and see if I can resurrect the alu sheet, but I think I've borked it unfortunately and don't want to waste another £20 on another

Ha ha! Yep I have indeed - I'll be posting photos of the custom waterblock soon - just haven't had time to yet. I used a sheet of 0.9mm copper, cut to size to fit over the VRMs and chipset, with thermal pads and a modified EK VRM block on the top using Phobya thermal adhesive. Haven't tested it yet, and not sure how effective it will be, but the case is so small that I knew I had to watercool them as the passive stock heatsink got extremely hot!!!

PS have you seen Asus' P8Z77-I Deluxe Mike? WANT!

 

All shall be revealed

In the mean time, I've created a SketchUp video of SFX next to a TJ07 and Lian Li 351 to get an idea of scale. Not the smallest, but it's pretty small!

 

Just added more detail to the latest front page update to SFX - check it out here I'll be updating the log with even more info soon!

 

Ha ha! Well it's actually a bit bigger than I'd like, but at least it means it's easy to work with and won't cook itself. Will be housing a 4.7GHz 2500K and overclocked GTX 560 ti afterall!