Hi all, welcome to project NEU.TRON the next gen. SFF case to my first scratch build T.R.O.N. V4 Anyhoo, like most projects I used Sketch-Up to design TRON and though everything went according to the S.U plan, I hit a couple of construction issues and minor faults in the original design during the build process. At the time I was trying to make a decent gaming rig in a small portable case. Though the case is more than OK and fit the brief I have the thirst for modding now and am keen to get another project on the go and to challenge myself to squeeze it all in an even smaller space envelope whilst addressing the issue I uncovered during TRON. The parts list is as follows: - Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe ITX Motherboard - Intel CPU Core i5 3570K Quad Core IvyBridge Processor - Scythe Big Shuriken 2 Rev.B Low Profile CPU Cooler - Corsair Air Series SP120 High Performance Edition - 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance Blue, (1600) CAS 9 - 1 x 128GB Crucial RealSSD M4, 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s SSD - 1 x 256GB Crucial RealSSD M4, 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s SSD - MSI GeForce GTX 670 Power Edition OC - Silverstone Strider SST-ST45SF, 450W PSU - White LightTape and 12Vdc Smart Driver (PSU) And the case, measuring: 144 mm (W) x 283 mm [case] /317 mm [case and foot stand] (H) × 212 mm (D) 8.6Ltrs [case only, ex foot stand] 9.6Ltr [inc foot stand]): NEU.TRON vs TJ07 P8Z77-I Deluxe Sketch-up model, have uploaded this onto Jez's site if you wish to use for your own projects. NEU.TRON Video Comparison against a SilverStone TJ07: TJ07 - 220 mm (W) × 560 mm (H) × 565 mm (D) = 69608000 mm cubed Neutron - 144 mm (W) × 283/317 mm (H) × 212 mm (D) = 8639424 mm cubed Main parts are on order (ex., GPU and 128Gb SSD which will be ordered a little later when the funds become available) and should be with me mid this week. The sheet Aluminium and fixings will go on order later this week once I tot up how much I'll need based on the Sketch-Up model. Garage has been cleared (not allowed to used the conservatory as workshop this time round! wife's orders, lol), fabrication should start next weekend with a bit of luck. Please give me your thoughts on the design; all comments and suggestions are welcome!
After having watched you plan through this in your other thread this will be a treat to watch you build!
Thanks guys! That’s the first batch of materials through the door. I knew the PSU was small, but seeing it in the flesh put into perspective how small!: Replaced the standard 12mm thin Scythe Big Shuriken fan for a 120 SilverStone Air Penetrator RAM clearance under the Scythe Big Shuriken Acrylic has arrived and will be working on it this afternoon. More pics later. Being inspired by seeing the size of the PSU I thought I'd make up a cardboard mock up of the case (not quite to final dimension - marginally larger than final product due to a little miss calculation when cutting) but gives a sense of scale: Fixings and sleeving is on order and expect to receive that early next week, I am told the Motherboard will not be in stock till the 30th of May, so will have to patiently wait for that to come in Alu is going to be order this evening. Stay tuned, should have some more pics this evening with some progress on the Acrylic
After an age (it feels) I have finally managed to get myself onto starting the fabrication of the case (had hoped to get started on Saturday or Sunday but the good weather and family came first - don’t often see sunshine in Aberdeen! ). Anyhoo a wee update on tonight’s work. Didn’t quite get finished as I had to nip to the local B&Q to get a replacement set of jigsaw blades after the one I put in started to tear up the test piece of acrylic. By the time I got that sorted and fed it was nearing 9pm and the quiet neighbourhood I live in amplifies the sound my power tools so had to stop at 10pm to avoid cheesing them off. Still for an hour I was able to mark it all up, cut the majority of one piece and bevel the outer edges with the router too. I did however balls up the first piece by setting the router a little too deep: First Sheet: OOPs!! Second Sheet: How it should like! Last section on this piece will be done tomorrow and the First piece hopefully restarted and finished too. More tomorrow (hopefully).
Tonight’s rather small update (cutting out and filling down those small triangles was quite time consuming) got there in the end, though manage to crack the acrylic in two places near to one of the triangle cut outs, glued and sanded down ok, considering doing it again though :
Hi Andy. First of all, I'm all for SFF-projects and currently I own only SFF-PCs. However, as my main-rig was seated in a Sugo 05 before I can say that powerful hardware really isn't perfect for small cases like this, which is the reason I trashed my Sugo and bought a bigger LiLi Q08 instead. I hope that it works out for you, but I'd be very concerned about temps and noise in this samll case. I'm planning something currently myself, but it'll be a little bigger to address the problem with temps and noise, but still using mini ITX as a basis.
Hi JRS77, like yourself I have mostly just been an SFF guy, with exception of two gens ago when I mistakenly drifted to a full tower Cosmos (never again, was a nightmare to store and transport to LAN sessions at my mates). I also had a hot SUGU05, but haven’t suffered the same issue my Tron case, that’s not saying you're wrong, it might just come down to lucky fan and equipment selection/arrangment. Granted both of those cases are almost twice the size of the Neutron case and Neutron will therefore warm up quicker due to the reduced volume of air. I have accepted that it might be a little warm (well within TDP though). I'm not intending to OC this rig - I only use the Comp for gaming, web browsing and media, none of which really require thrashing the CPU especially a 2600K. I've been there and water-cooled to 4.2Ghz etc but in the end for me it was just to prove I could rather than a need to do it, if anything I've found the GPU is the more key component to get the eye candy gaming, I've seldom found the CPU hindering the game play (only on Total War, which i’ve lost interest in). I have recently been reviewing my components and decided to go for the XFX 7870 (instead of the 7950) which as per the reviews on BT is a nice low temp/power and quiet GPU (and performance isn’t too far off the 7950). With the XFX version the GPU is a dual fan with non-rear exhausting design which works better with the design having the GPU I/O at the bottom of the case. Also have tried to alleviate temp issues in the design by using a compartmentalising screen to segregate the hottest components (PSU, GPU and CPU) away from each other. Time will tell in the end, fingers crossed!
A quick update with some of this weekend’s work. The Aluminium turned up on Saturday morning but had already organised to have some friends over for a BBQ that day to take advantage of the rare (for Aberdeen) glowing orb in the sky . As the house and garden was in a state I had to launch a cleanup operation which took from 8am to 1pm helped along by some cold beers to keep up the motivation I also had taken Friday afternoon off to pick up my son from my folks who had been babysitting for couple of nights, so had to go into work this morning to make up the hours. So, eventually this afternoon I got round to marking up and cutting some bits of alu. The results are as follows: Clamped the 2 pieces of alu bar together to file down after cutting to ensure they were the same length. Marked up the rear panel ready for cutting (will get round to doing that tomorrow evening). Started off the PSU mount, the pre-cut pieces from the supplier was pretty rough, so required a fair amount of filing and sanding to get smooth. Used the ATX-SFX PSU plate that came with PSU to mark out the drill points and cut-out. The cut out was redesigned a little to place a larger margin in the material to avoid it being too thin and reduce the potential for it cracking as previously experienced in the TRON build. After some drilling and jig-sawing in a similar fashion to the previous Acrylic grill plate and some more filing and sanding: Needs a little more tidying up and bend to be put in, but should be pretty much done ready for priming and painting next weekend. More to come in the next couple of days.
Dude, there are better Whiskys in Scotland than Jack Daniels Just kidding! Awsome Design, i will follow this..!
Awesome design mate! Absolutely loving it! I found the VRMs on my old ITX mobo got very warm indeed, so maybe make sure the shroud doesn't go below the heatsink so some airflow can get onto them.
Very true, but I have to ashamedly admit (for a Scot) that I'm not massive into whiskies (yet) , I do like a good pint of Bourbon though Will take your advice on board when cutting and fitting the shroud Well not really progressed at all this week unfort. I am off to France for work end of next week and then on holiday the week after so have been busy working late to meet all my deadlines for the next fortnight. I got the Light Tape through the door though: Round at a mates today for a LAN gaming sessions so won't be working on the case, however since the TRON case (my previous scratch build - link in sig. below) was dismantled though I'd take some photos of the cardboard mock-up against it:
Who cares if there is better whiskey (whisky) in Scotland? I just love non-politically correct ways of showing scale! That's why I always use a cigarette pack! Besides that, this is going to be a beautiful case!
Nice little case. Whats wrong with Tennessee whiskey? Its the Diet Coke that will kill ya, it contains aspartame or phenylalanine! It even has it in bold on the bottle....all diet soda does. Just so ya know.