Scratch Build – In Progress The best micro atx case ever to grace the world with its existence, filled with posibilities and opp

Hey everyone here at bit-tech

It's been a while since I've posted anything here in this part of the forums, but I think it's time to get working again now. Most of the mods these days are filled with awesome names, expensive hardware and stuff, but sadly this will feature none of these (maybe apart from my GFX - thanks miners)

About 1½ year ago, I made myself a SFF case, 300x300x210 I believe it was, that featured a 240 mm radiator, an ATX sized PSU, full lenght graphics card - all water cooled. It was a blast, and I had a lot of fun making it, but due to not being fully satisfied with the end result I didn't post anything here. I did however learn a lot about drawing in sketchup and what to look out for, when designing your own case.

Here's a picture for those interrested



The case itself was fine. It was cramped, but that's the limits of the SFF. It had a custom made reservoir made from acryllic glued together, but after moving it home from a LAN, the reservoir cracked, started leaking, and now my PC is partially disassembled and not moveable. Hence I began working on a new design.

I had a few things I wanted to be able to do. It had to be able to feature an ATX PSU, at least 360 + 240mm radiator space and a micro ATX board. I really wanted a custom milled midplate, hard tubing and a big reservoir milled as well.

After several hours in SketchUp, I came out with a rough design that looks like this:



Some more precise 2D drawing, and this was the end result



The case will be made in lasercut acryllic, 5 mm for everything weightbearing, and 3 mm for the sidepanels. The reservoir and midplate will be milled in 15 mm acryllic, which will also be screwed together with the case to increase the strenght and force absorbtion throughout the parts.

For those interrested in parts it'll feature the following:

Processor
Intel i5-4670k currently clocked at 4.6 ghz

RAM
16 gb Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR3 at 1866 Mhz

Motherboard
Asus Maximus Gene VII Z97

PSU
eVGA G2 SuperNova 850w

GFX
Amd Radeon Vega 56 - I won the silicone lottery with this baby. It hits 1730 Mhz on the core and 980 Mhz on the RAM on the stock 56 bios

HDD/SSD
128 GB Samsung 840 for Windows
500 GB Samsuing 840 for storage
Possibly a 2 TB HDD of some sort if I can find one at a good deal

I visited a local fablab. I was lucky I went there with almost no other persons, so I had the lasercutter almost entirely to myself.

First thing was to load up the parts in AutoCad and export to Adobe Illustrator



Secondly to place the material in the cutter, and let it work its magic.




I wanted to add some colour to give the case some life, and decided on making the radiator and fan mount in blue acryllic






After a full day of cutting, I test-assembled the case. Everything fit together, and I could watch the fruit of my labour




Next thing up is measuring for motherboard cutouts and drawing the reservoir and midplate. Then it's one more trip to the fablab to borrow their CNC-machine and get the last parts done. I also need to order sleeving and a few bits and odd ends for shortening the cables and water cooling.

I hope you'll tag along in this adventure of mine!

 

Well... That title had me filled with hope.
Where's the stamp-cast titanium? Where's the quantum mag-lev case feet? Where's the iridium interwoven carbon fiber?
Case looks promising. Just had to reply to your cheekiness.

 

Haha all those parts will come in good time! Nah, as I said this wont be featuring sponsored products, high res pictures taken with photogear that costs more than my PC combined, or extreme, high end hardware. So I wanted to grab peoples attention in a different manner. The thread's title IS cheeky, but it's all for a good laugh.

 

I do love me some eBay. Oh, and also Aliexpress...



Yesterday I got the last one of my packages I was expecting, and oh boy I instantly wanted to open all of it and start putting stuff together. It took all of my combined willpower, because I knew I would be sad if I didn't get some proper pictures.

But what was actually in it? Well first of all, I had to buy myself a crimping tool. Since I plan to mod all my PSU cables, this bad boy will make things a lot easier. Last time I tried this, I soldered all the pins, and oh that was a nightmare. Cost on Aliexpress including delivery was 10.8$



Do you need screws, nuts or bolts? Check out Bolt Base UK on eBay. I bought 50 M3x30mm, 20 M3x5mm and 20 M3x16mm for only 11£ including postage to Denmark. Their prices are extremely good and their delivery is really fast - that's at least my experience



As I said in the start of this log, I said I wanted to try out hardtubing. I've heard a lot of good things about Barrow fittings, so I picked up ten 12/10mm hardtube fittings. They sure do look good!



As for the sleeving, I'm going to use parachord in a royal blue colour. Price including postage was 8.5'ish £ on eBay. The quality feels really good, and there's no see-through despite compressing or stretching the chord.



Only things left to order are a lot of odds and ends from aquatuning, but I'm going to wait with getting those until the case is more complete.

Anyways... This update isn't all about unboxing, since I actually put all of the screws to good use.

The hardware is going to be cooled by two 360 radiators from Alphacool. One 45mm and one 60mm. Each radiator is going to be sporting 3 Corsair SP120PE to push the air. Not the most modern setup, but performance is still great on these parts. Also, what? Are you saying overkill? There's no such thing as overkill




The fit in the bottom is going to be tight, but it's wide enough for a DDC pump and all of the fan cables I need



Here's a quick snapshot of the fan area with the sidepanels on. Words can't express how happy I am with the blue edge. It took me a while to figure out how to do it, but man it looks great!




Soooo what's next? I went to visit the local fablab, and turns out they have the tools I need to make the midplate and the reservoir. Now it's back to the drawing board. I need to learn how to draw in Fusion 360 as opposed to SketchUp, and then I need to order materials and get the work done. Hopefully I'll have it in 2-3 weeks time.

Thanks for your time, see you soon!

 

Ali express: Nice score. When I was shopping for a crimper, I was having to deal with "$6, but $375 postage," scams everywhere. (I found a $1500 sheet of sandpaper once ) I managed to get my crimper for $20.
Did I hear, "homemade reservoir" ?

 

Don't buy Barrow stuff of Alie. I'll show you what happened to my connectors after 3 months use: the paint bubbled, they 'rusted' and seized up!

 

Really?? All of my connectors are Barrow and go into EK compression fittings. I haven’t noticed any of the sort, though. I’ve had mine for almost two years. Maybe you got unlucky with the batch...?

 

I've luckily only had good experiences dealing with various chinese dealers, and I think the market has gotten a lot better over the last couple of years after both parts, both customers and sellers, has realised how big the market potential is. And yes It WILL be a homemade reservoir. The fablab has a ShopBot CNC machine, so I'm going to try milling for the first time. I'm equally scared, equally excited. Now I'm off to search for some cast acryllic, since I've read that extruded has a tendency to chip while milling

I've bought a lot of various stuff on Aliexpress over the years. Everything from carbon handlebars for my road bike to cellphone batteries. So far I've only been lucky. I'm giving the Barrow fittings a try. They were cheap, I wanted to try out the brand, and I bought it from a seller with high rating and lots of good comments on the product subsite. If they turn out to be a bad batch, I'll just cut my losses and buy some from a known brand.

That's most of the experiences I've heard as well. Almost everyone keeps talking about it's a Bitspower OEM brand, so I thought I'll give it a try this time

 

All my white barbs are ****ed. The blocks and rads get got bad quick. Tried changing fluids .. Never again tbh. It's all thrown in a big box now

 

That’s such a shame. I’ve had some issues with my EK fittings, but I’ll put that down to untreated deionized water.

I’ll be on the lookout and doing some research into the Barrow line, though. Thank you!

 

Part scared.
Part excited.
All modder.

 

Even cast will chip at the end of a pass with a big enough bit. The big problem with extruded is the low melting point. I just did a paperweight out of fused extruded scrap, and an older bit I was using is now one with a big glob of plastic. [/ramble]
-So my advice is to invest in a new bit. It will flatten the learning curve a little. Finishing passes of .002 or so double your work time, but they are worth it too.
Shopbot: Holy sh*t, they are expensive.

 

Yep, they got a big ass Shopbot. The fablab is actually really well equipped. They got the Shopbot, a Roland MDX-540, like 10 3D printers in various sizes and two laser cutters

What kind of bits do I need to buy? The smallest bit they had available was 3 mm, so I was actually thinking of buying a 2,5 mm for the M3 screwholes. My guess would be a 6 mm for the rough cut and then the 2,5 mm for screwholes, o-ring channel and edge finish?

And any advices on speed and settings would be great

 

I looked at the shopbot to see if it was a router type. To be honest, I don't know what speeds are good for routers since I run my setup pretty slow. (4500 rpm, 7 IPM, 2 IPM plunge, 1/32" passes.) For tap holes I usually make a positioning pocket about 1/16" deep and finish with the drill press. (Slowly, with water, and lots of peck plunging to clear the chips.)
For bits, It depends on what shank sizes they have collets for. If you are cutting a deep pocket, a bit with a cutter the same size or larger than the shank is important.
[rant]-And make sure they are center cutting bits. China has flooded Amazon and E-Bay with their crappy version of Amway. So now there are thousands of sellers with the exact same super-crappy bits with poor descriptions. Because of that, the old Interstate brand Chinese bits are priced like they are made of gold now.[/rant] Anyway, there's a lot of non-center cutting bits on the market right now. You can't drill/plunge with them.

 

Sooo, time to bring a small update to the case. Everything is on track, but since the FabLab is only open to public on wednesdays from 9 to 16, and I have to juggle university lectures in between, I can't work as much as I want to.
Also, it's extremely difficult to get your hands on cast acrylic here in Denmark, but I finally managed to find a supplier.


Anyways... I had to cut out a motherboard tray and the piece that's going to seal the reservoir. All fine and nice looking. I placed the pieces next to each other to get a feel of how the inside of the case will look. In my opinion, it's going to have just the right size


I brought back the pieces, and mounted them inside the case


But oh... What is that? I forgot to take into account, that the motherboard has to be placed ~3 mm from the back, which turned into this nice gap


On the plus side, all screw holes lined up properly, and everything else was a perfect fit - only problem was this. FeelsBadMan.jpg. So I'll have to remake it, but lesson learnt.

In terms of milling, the ShopBot wasn't available when I went there, so I have to set up a new date and reserve the machine for my work. Hopefully it won't take too long. Once I'm done with the milling, "all that's left to do" is all the inside work, but at that point I won't be limited by workshop hours at least

Until next time!

 

Someone who uses alphacools rads. I'm not the only one!

 

I've always used Alphacool radiators apart from one build. I like that they're full copper and they have a slightly smaller footprint than the EK rads I've used. Also they're a bit cheaper, which, when you're a student, is also something to take into consideration

 

the fact that they don't drown them in paint is what I like.

 

Oh my seeing 2 bits of plex that thick does all sorts of funny things to me love where this is going keep up the good work.

 

That gap is in an internal wire cover panel, right? Just leave it and add spacers to your mounting cubes.
Those plates... You're up to something good.