Scratch Build – In Progress The Free-Case V2

Hi all,

I was building the Free-Case in a previous thread and during the build process I had a good number of improvements in mind that ware not feasible on the first build. The first Free-Case exists two times, on my desk and in the basement (workshop).

The Free-Case V2 will have a little bigger production volume this time, please do not ask me why, but I ordered material for 12 Free-Cases.

The Free-Case V2 consists of:
- a 8mm base plate CNC machined; drilling and threading is done by myself, surface finish not defined yet
- a 2mm back plate laser cut with bend relives for PCIe mounts; threading and bending by myself
- bottom plates on the left and right consisting of acrylic, wood and aluminum with front IO and power button
- radiator mount for watercooling
- mounting for two additional 2,5' SSDs


Drilling of the base plate:



The Crosshair VI 's new home:
Drilling in the 8mm wide side of the base plate is a challange, but found a proper way to do it:




Only one hole is a little off center, will be fixed later ;-)


Bending of the PCIe bracket on the back plate was up next. I used a bending insert for the vice. This bending insert works in theory, only. I had to add two angles, one plastic and the second made from aluminium to get proper results:




Here we have a teaser how the Free-Case V2 could look like with the respective component arrangement:



So, there is a lot of work to be done in the next months,

Goran

 

I did a test run on one of the aluminum top plates of the bottom sides for surface finish. The raw aluminum look is fine, but you have a lot of imperfections from laser cutting and small scratches from handling. So, I took several pieces of sandpaper form 180 to 1000 and it resulted in a kind of satin shiny surface. I think I will proceed on the remaining parts acordingly.
Feel free to give me some advice on surface finish and techniques, as I am not used to metal working at all and I have a lot of material prepared for more experiments.

I hope you like the result.

 

So, I got the case sanded down and now everything has an uniform look, need to clean up some fingerprints
Next up is sanding of the wood and maybe the acrylic bottom plate. I think I ordered the acrylic plate in the wrong material/color, it is a little mismatched. We will see how it will look like after some sanding.

 

The bending done @home is well done

 

Lately I finished the bottom plates. The top aluminum plate was attached with nails to the wood. The wood was sanded and oiled prior to get a nice finish. The bottom acrylic plate was fastened with screws and the front IO with USB audio and a power button were put in place.
There are holes in the side of the wood to screw the buttom plates to the center piece, the 8mm base plate.

 

So I went with another big challange for me, hard line water cooling. Never did it before and underestimated it entirely. After the first test bends I realized that my biggest issue is space for bends. As I ordered fittings, I did not consider some 90° rotary fittings because I thought you can bend any shape you want... I had to learn that you need space for bends and a minimum of a straight line after the bend to assamble the fitting. So I ended the weekend with some ruined tubing, some tubing that starts in a fitting and ends in a fitting, a tube that was impossible to fit, and the confidence that the loop will be fine when the 90° rotary fittings arrive.

Here are some pics, I guess I will re-do the tubing soon, but for now ;-)

 

I'm going to take a wild guess and say the multi-axis 45 degree bends are what busted your butt. For geometry that complex you'd do better if you made a jig to bend the entire run.
-Guy that avoids bending plastic.

 

You are totally right. This multi axis thing is tricky and I need a proper jig for this

 

I want to share some progress with you all. Actually, I did not invest much time in this project for several weeks.

So, I did some cable crimping, additional practicing in hard tube bending and found a proper place and method to mount the pump.

One of the tubes runs outside the frame and I think I will change this for proper handling.

Right now, I am waiting for the leak tester to arrive in the mail. Then some final work needs to be done, cables for SSDs on the back side, front IO and power switch, some screws, water...

 

NOICE!
I always liked visible copper wire. Your black twist tie or whatever that is has to go, though.

 

For sure, the black twist tie has no function anymore and will be removed or replaced by something appropriate,... not sure what color the new one will be

 

The firs Free-Case is almost done!!
...11 Free-cases left

Simple design but well done

 

Thanks a lot.
It's the second Free-Case already... the first of the 12 Free-Cases is sitting on my girlfriends desk, fully air cooled. But I did not post pictures in finished state, as it has a Morpheus on the GPU and I find it hard to appreciate the esthetics of retrofitted GPU coolers.
If this one, meaning the second one works well, I plan to upgrade her's with a GPU water block, too.

 

Thanks, I appreciate your statement very much. Makes me feel really proud

 

...then I tought why not post the first of the 12 Free-Cases, although it is in preliminary state with air cooled Morpheus modded GPU. It's the daily driver of my girlfriend since some time. It will be upgraded to GPU water cooling, as soon as the second one proves to be good and working without issues

Additional task from her side, a rubber or mouse pad like surface to prevent scratching of the table. Meanwhile, it's is an ordinary kitchen towel.

 

Hobby foam.

 

I will check that foam out, thanks for the adive.

 

So, had the watercooled one finished, filled up and tested.
I realized that the GPU did not have good contact to the cooler, resulting in overheating GPU
And then one thing happened, what I did not experience ever before, a USB socket broke when I plugged in the keyboard
It's a Asrock B550 board without ability to a plug a temperature sensor of the watercooling loop, so control was happening with CPU temperature ...I wasn't happy with either of theses issues.

So repasted the GPU and gave it thinner thermal pads.
Swapped the mainboard to the Crosshair VI hero.
Added a temperature sensor to the loop.

So, the current setup is a Ryzen 3600 at 4.0GHz, Rx 5700xt AE, 16GB Ram at 3600MHz.

Loop filled and tested...
GPU temperatures are more reasonable, but not perfect. At 2.0GHz, GPU temp ~60°C, Hotspot ~80°C. Maybe there is room for improvement for a later repaste ...had a Morpheus air cooler mounted before and maybe the PCB of the GPU is bent a little.
Feel free to give me feedback and advice if you have similar experiene.

I have the pump running at 2000rpm constantly and the fans are controlled with the water temperature sensor in the outlet of the radiator.
In "silent" operation I hear the pump ratteling a little. Maybe a little piece of foam between pump and the aluminum plate will help when I drain the loop next time. When the fans "ramp up" it is the most silent system I have ever build at full load, I think at least

I added some LED stripes into the bottom and it glows throuh the acrylic in the front where the USB ports and the power swith is located, but it does not glow through the sides. I need to work on this on the next case, as I initially wanted the whole bottom plate to light up, just a little bit.

 

I never thought I would enjoy a case like this. But I do!