Scratch Build Tenuis

[Gtek]

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FINAL PICS
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Hi all!

I didn't post here for some time, so I decided to share one of the things, I've been working on recently.
In short, Tenuis is a prototype of a miniITX based system, made of aluminium and solid walnut. It's designed as a living room PC, or, as in my case at the moment ,as a general use computer, sitting next to my desk. It can house as mentioned, any miniITX board, full size graphics card up to 190mm long, nimiITX PSU, two HDDs/SSDs, and slot loader optical drive. Not for hardcore gaming, but it plays D3 at full no problem, if you as me .

Few progress photos I took occasionally:

how to in ̶̶̶7 steps:

step 1. sketch



step 2. sketch more,
figuring out smallest possible dimensions, components positioning and materials calculation,



step 3. quick model to confirm,



step 4. get some walnut



step 5. make chassis parts and assemble,













step 6. add walnut (step 4) and paint it black (you cannot go wrong with black )







step 7. stuff it with components to make it work and show off


... next time

[Gtek]

[Gtek]

Thank you guys!

Originally Posted by sixfootsideburns

pretty sessy little build you got there mate. This build definitely makes me a little jealous and I'll explain why... For the past few months I've been telling my girlfriend I would build her a new comp for home use, and if you gave her this she would probably love you more than me!

Congrats man, very classy little system

lol thanks! I'm sure your build will be awesome, and if for some reason not you can have this one

Originally Posted by hoochy

Would be nice to have a set of speakers or similar for the unit in the same style

Thanks! and yes, that is exactly what I was thinking about, and I will make a set of matching speakers at some point for it, maybe on a special request. just need to sacrifice gtx 650 for some nice sound card a learn some more about speakers lol.

[Gtek]

Thanks a lot for all your nice comments!

Originally Posted by Attila

Gorgeous piece there Gtek. Oh, and the quickest project log I've ever seen.

Thank you Attila! Yeah, record breaking I believe

Originally Posted by Ripitup121

]

Rip

[Gtek]

Originally Posted by LKummer

Wow, it is amazing!
The finish looks awsome, but what about airflow?

Yes airflow... good question. this was an area of my biggest concern tbh, and I think I wouldn't get away with current design few years ago. lets just take Q6600 with 95+W TDP vs. i5 3550S with 65W or even i5 3570 with 77W TDP. So I basically designed it for future technology, because Ivy Bridge was not out yet at the time. But I also learned a good lesson about cooling tight systems with my project CUBO, and here I'm using practically the same setup, just stretched. cold air enters bottom of case and is exhausted on the top by 2 80mm fans. From my experience the main killer is warm air building up, what just cannot happen here.
Let's take the worst hardware scenario for Tenuis. i5 3750 - TDP 77W and GTX 650 - TDP - 65W. My current setup is 73W CPU overclocked from 2.8 to 3.6Ghz and 61W GPU with no temperatures issue so far.

Originally Posted by Lorquis

That looks epic!

Thank you!

Originally Posted by Angel OD

My mods are a bit more intricate and that is how I usually like them.

But the simplicity and beauty of this mod is just amazing. (Not saying it's an easy mod in any way! )

This is hands down in my top 5 of incredibly beautiful mods! This truly deserves a spot on the MOTY for the design! Great job man!

Thanks Angel OD!

[Gtek]

Originally Posted by KidMod-Southpaw

I would be happy to buy one of these! I'm a huge fan of walnut!

That shouln't be a problem

[Gtek]

Originally Posted by suenstar

That is some beautiful craftsmanship there!
Fantastic job on the design and the end product, it looks astoundingly clean.

I think it would make one hell of a nice case to put into my living room when I move to the new place next month... I'd put it next to the tower speakers and nobody would be any wiser.

Thank you. I moved to a new house recently as well and can't wait till living room is finished so I can put it there

Originally Posted by Editor22

Really is stunning dude!

Thanks man! ...and thanks for sharing

Originally Posted by Primum Agmen

Out of interest, why didn't you choose to use mitred joints for the wood? You would have had a more pleasing top panel then.

Additionally, aren't 80mm fans usually a pain to keep quiet?

Elegant build, quite like the use of a riser card to keep everything nice and slim. The height of the build probably helps with a stack effect for cooling, no? The fans set on lowest combined with being able to draw air from near the ground and exhausting it much higher should make cooling it nice and easy.

Temps and noise would be nice to know. Really fond of the simple style, it's not a common one in the modding community.

why not mitred joins... first, I felt like I would have to do the the same with aluminium half, and that is for practical reasons not possible. also, I wanted to achieve this ''monolithic'' look on sides/front, but I wanted to break it a little bit on the top, to make it little bit interesting. current version is actually the simplest one. So, I will stick with this fragmented, honest look on the top but will fill gaps between wooden parts, as it really doesn't look that good.

noise levels depend on chosen hw obviously. and yes 80mm fans can be a pain the ear. My testing setup uses 1400rpm, 16 CFM, 11dBA fans from Fractal, and they are... OK, but I think I can find lower dBA per CFM. for CPU I'm using Akasa low profile cooler and that is just unacceptably noisy and I will have to test other coolers and pick the best one. GPU is single slot cooler and it's not too bad but I believe that double slot cooler like one on GTX 650, will be better. Worth mentioning is PSU. I'm using 350W from BeQuiet and that thing is just noiseless. I actually had to have a look if fan is spinning to make sure it's on when I was testing it

Simple, minimalistic design is tricky territory, it can look great, but can go very wrong as well.

Originally Posted by Angel OD

Give us a price!

Originally Posted by Lance

I am fairly confident in the fact that I couldn't afford it, but what pricing would you be thinking for custom builds?

aiming for around 600-1000 GBP for whole system, depending on hardware configuration of course.

Originally Posted by maestro0428

Love it. Its like nothing I have seen. I feel like I missed half the work log though.

Thanks. I will extend this worklog for an audio version with speakers later, I promise

Originally Posted by slipperyskip

Awesome design. It looks like it was a lot of fun to build.

Thank you! Sure it was, as always

[Gtek]

Originally Posted by Cheapskate

SWWWEEEEEEEEEET!!!!!

lovely simple elegant thingamajiggy.

Thaaaaaaaannnnkk youuuuu!

Originally Posted by dullonien

This is quite possibly my favorite PC ever. As an architecture student, it really does appeal to me. The subtle design features look incredibly simple, but I know how difficult they can be to get just right on such a minimalist design. The gap between the walnut and alu really finishes the design, and incorporating the slot-load optical drive in this gap is perfect.

£600-1000 sounds very reasonable indeed for such a unique design. I'm sure you could sell plenty of them for much, much more to the kind of people who also spend a lot on high-end audio.

Would it be worth offering custom height and wood finish options (although black and walnut is the best combination for sure), so people could tie this system in with their specific set of floorstanding speakers. I know I'd be anal enough to want something like this to match the height of my speakers that I'd place it next to. Teaming up with an acoustic expert to produce high quality, matching floorstanding speakers would be even better.

Any plans to approach high-end audio stores. Some might be willing to advertise/stock this system?

Edit. One final thing. A matching storage add-on could be an interesting idea. Most people could use this as a media PC I'm guessing, and with HD content, storage is important. 2 hard drives might not be enough for some. Having a matching unit that I could fill with hard drives (and a PSU) would be of interest to me.

Yes, my GF is architecture student and we sometimes discuss, how similar can designing a building and computer get. How many times you imagine/sketch a great looking building/PC, but you just can't get it right inside

As I mentioned before, I'm going to build one more audio orientated version with matching speakers, but no I didn't think about approaching any audio store or any other retailer. This would probably need a regular manufacturing process, which would require much bigger investment a me to quit my fairly easy and fairly well paid job. and probably to get someone else on board. With chassis for another product sitting on my desk right now and a couple more on paper, I'm already completely out of fee time...

When it comes to storage I hoped that a couple of TB of space will do. also it can be easily modified to take two 3.5" HDD AND two SSDs. I will do some research on that, thanks for advice

[Gtek]

Originally Posted by IcyAero

How much for shipping costs?

to Finland? 30 GBP 3-5 day standard via UPS or Express for much more

Originally Posted by Primum Agmen

45 degree cuts along the non-aluminium facing pieces of wood would leave you with a smooth join on all parts as well as a nice monolithic look. It is, admittedly, a rather weak joint, but since it's not under load that's not really such a problem. Either way, I guess it's your preference.

For the CPU cooler you might want to look at the Scythe Kozuti SCKZT-1000. 40mm tall, 31dB on low speed though certainly not going to win any prizes for temps. The Silverstone NT07-775 is also apparently quite quiet, but Frostytech don't seem to have their test results for it on their site.

Scyte Kozuti is recommended only up to 65W TDP I think, But I want to try Shurikens, both low enough to fit and Zalman CNPS8000B is also a candidate.

[Gtek]

Originally Posted by KidMod-Southpaw

Get a Scythe Shuriken. You'll love it!

[Gtek]

Thank you all!

Originally Posted by Pranja

Can we get some pictures of components inside,please?

Yes, I will post some, at some point...

Originally Posted by TheGreatSatan

It reminds me of a taller, prettier version of my project Thinner

wow! how tall was yours?

Originally Posted by oracleron

Damn, I am a hardcore Mac user, but your product makes me jealous, it is truly stunning from a practical application, small foot print, beautifully styled and functional, perfect trifecta!

Thanks! ... time to join the dark side?

[Gtek]

Thanks again guys!

Originally Posted by fxyrslf

nice enough that I felt compelled to register and tell you!

I have been looking at high end cases recently, from (sadly defunct) Japanese maker Windy and Abee cases. Both insanely expensive to import from Japan. Your case reminds me of this:

http://www.abee.co.jp/Product/CASE/a...A40/index.html

Thank you! ...but wth is this

[Gtek]

Once again, THANK YOU ALL for your nice words and support.

Originally Posted by Lance

Its costing you that much or you'd want to sell it for that much? You want to get in touch with some rich businessmen. Seriously I work for a HNI who commissions a lot of custom furniture and 600 doesn't get you much in that world.

Tempting very tempting.

To clarify, estimated price for ''case only'' is 280 GBP, that includes fans and slot load DVD drive. That is for how much I'm selling it. I would really like price to be lower, but it's just not possible for me to make it any cheaper atm. And you don't get much for 600 from me either I increased minimum price to 650 since then, but even so, system for 650 will work, but not much more. one the other side 1000 is not maximum either. I had a request from customer from France who wants a machine for photo editing of it, and asked for i7, 16GB of ram (fast), min 256BG SSD, 2TB HDD, graphics card, blu-ray writer, wifi, etc.. I will also need to modify back panel to allow more air in, just to make sure. Price for that will be aprox. 1250 GBP (no OS, no postage). So as I mentioned before, all depends on specs.

[Gtek]

Thanks guys!

here is aluminium part of Tenuis for customer. It looks like I'm going to build just a few of them, simply because I have no time to build them. I will have to get all the parts laser cut in future, to reduce building time.

[Gtek]

Own brand new plasma or laser is not an option for me just now. I spend over 2 grand on my cnc already, but I was thinking about swapping spindle for plasma cutter. but I'm not very sure about the idea, tbh

[Gtek]

hey Bindi

280 GBP including fans and DVD slot loader. There is no need to make it wider as Tenuis is designed to take PCI express card via 90 degree raiser (which I can supply). GTX 670 pcb will fit in.

however I'm not going to make any more of hand build versions, as I just cannot keep up with orders (I can still make one for you). Major part will by fabricated by contractor in future, but I don't now exactly how much will it cost yet.

[Gtek]

sorry for late reply.

Originally Posted by Karrek

Incredible! I like it very much. Can you give us some pics of the inside with the components installed?
How difficult was the wiring - did you have to use wiring extensions?
Do you have internal USB ports for wireless dongles (keyboard, mouse, etc)?
I really like the stealthed drive and the hidden ports - well done!

Thanks! I will post new set of photos, including internals soon. hopefully

Originally Posted by Rgart

It's very nice...

And i decided to inspire to your project


I don't need of dvd player and don't put the botton and I/O in the top of tower for simplify the project but if you want you can give us a foto of the joint between wood and steal in the lateral face...

I don't understand how did you do it...

Thank you. There is no wood on that photo, it's just aluminium chassis, but if you ask how I joined wood to alu, answer is that i simply glued it together, using Rhinobond. It's a PU adhesive, and it's really reliable from my experience. Here is a test bond, 5mm walnut + 5mm alu. It's almost impossible to separate them without using brute force, that would most likely destroy at least one of them . No chance wood panels falling off Tenuis or something

[Gtek]

Hi all. I took some fresh photos of another Tenuis, so I thought I could share them

[Gtek]

Originally Posted by KidMod-Southpaw

SO MUCH GORGEOUS!

Thanks man

Originally Posted by Waynio

Veeeeeeerrrrry nice.

Didn't know about the slide out piece for IO access, nice.

\

Thank you Wayne. I need to take a pick of the mechanism behind it one day

Originally Posted by Editor22

Ooo I feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside when I see this

Thanks Nate

Originally Posted by theshadow2001

OK, so this may be some kind of design sacrilege but if you scaled the dimensions slightly to fit a micro-atx mobo, such as a nice asus gene 5. You could totally put a watercooling loop in there and have a sexy gaming rig.

Yeah, some people asked me for microATX version, but... I'm working on completely new design for microATX system, so...

Originally Posted by Mankz

In some of those shots it looks so good its almost a render

Thanks. Good to hear, because I'm rubbish photographer

[Gtek]

Thanks guys!

Different woods, I can do mahagony, but I don't really like that wood. Black stained oak is very nice, maybe with combination with silver, or polished alu, but I would have to find supplier who can do 5mm thick boards... cheap.

When It comes to other variations of Tenuis and other form factors, I'm working on 34mm thin-ITX version with options of i3, i5, i7 desktop chips and up to 16GB 1600 memory, as I see a lot of potential in this new form factor. other than that... miniITX desktop/barebone version? I don't
know... maybe

Self assembly. Would be possible if there was no wood