Scratch Build – In Progress Project: ? (Mario Cube)

Wow, that's pretty tiny! It's weird to thin of a case that's smaller than two 120mm fans side by side (or for that matter, only one 140mm with a little more than 1/2 inch on each side).

It's looking really cool though, keep up the good work. I'm really interested to see how you fit it all in there

 

nice build so far! i love that psu, though i can't seem to find anyone in the states that sells them (would solve a LOT of my problems atm)

can't wait to see more!

 

Liking your work so far mate, will be back for more

 

Good idea for the feet
I love small cubic case keep on modding man

 

Thanks

Hopefully i will be able to fit everything in, i'm still flying on a wing and a prayer ATM , All i have done is eye things up i haven't done any modelling or anything (mainly because i fail at it )

Thanks

I've had a look on a few American sites and i can't find it either, i had a mightily hard job of finding it over here (UK) too, i even emailed Listan/Be Quiet (a few months ago) and still haven't had a reply from them... Great support there...
But it just happened to come in stock at ebuyer (only a few pieces) so i jumped on it

Thanks

Hopefully i should be able to get the ball rolling with some interesting pictures soon rather than what's going on currently, i should have the roof cut out by thursday (if things go to plan) so i can start playing around with the rad, i may have to sand a small section out of the side panel to fit it (i wanted the top cutout to be as central as possible so that it didn't look strange from a top view ), as i'm not sure if the endtank with fit, it should do but it will be VERY tight. If it doesn't not biggy, i'll just have to make the side panel a bit groovy

Thanks

The feet were something that i just spotted as i was wandering around in the stores at work, i did have some castle nuts in my hand:



But then i just spotted the low head socket caps and it just clicked, so i grabbed 4 and some 1/2 lock nuts

I'm not sure on the best way to cut the rubber for the feet though, as even if you get someone with a steady hand to cut the rubber, you can still tell that it has been cut by hand, and it just looks horrible.

What's the best way around it?

Clamp the rubber between 2 bits of wood and then use a hole cutter to cut through?

Would that work?

I do want some form of dampening on the feet otherwise it is just a solid surface on a solid surface so any vibration would be hellish

 

Quick update:

Got the hole cut out, then realised that i was an idiot...

I measured up for the RAD to be at the very top, when i am having the fan at the very top



Rough marking for recutting:



I'm also attaching the fan to the RAD via socket caps now rather than the threaded bar (look tidier):





And then attaching the fan to the roof of the cube using socket buttons:





Now the barb shot:



Obviously, that isn't really practical now is it , but i think i'll be using 3/8 angled barbs as the flow reduction isn't going to be too drastic, that way i don't lose as much space to the barbs sticking out of the bottom and can instead run the tubing from above to wherever it is needed.

Another piccy of the top hole as it stands after my mis drawing :



And the Power + Reset holes marked:

 

A few more quick updates :

The roof has been circularised with a jigsaw:





The holes have been drilled for the switches:









And that's it for this little update

 

I am having to seriously reconsider the watercooling route...

I've just quickly placed things in, and when the sides are on and the roof, there is extremely minimal room for everything else, the PSU then eats a further half of the room, leaving a minute area for HDDs and the pump as well as the CPU block and tubing...

170mm x 170mm just isn't large enough to house it all when using an internal SFX PSU.

I think that by water cooling, it may actually impact negatively on the system temperatures due to the severely reduced component spacing, for example, if i went with the water cooling route, then the RAD would only have airflow over half due to the PSU actually touching the other half aswell as the Mobo.

So annoyingly, i think i am going to have to call time on the watercooling adventures

Fun as it would be, it would not be beneficial to the overall system without making the overall system larger, which is something that i am unwilling to do...

Who knows, i may revisit it in the future and add another 170mm x 170mm cube that houses purely Rads and all other WC gear and run the tubing through the wall, and paint it up as a standard block.

 

Don't give up mate. How about putting the Mobo on one side of the cube and the other stuff on to opposit side. Then vent the bottem so the air is drawn up through to the rad at the top?

Just a thought.

 

You have come across the same issues that i had! Check out the Swiftech Apogee Drive, perhaps that will help?

 

I haven't totally given up on it, it's just been pushed right to the very back of my list as unimportant, in other words when the majority is done, i'll have another look at it, and try and fit it again.

Unfortunately, the mobo won't fit alongside the RAD/Fan so i can't put it on a side , the cube is just to small to be able to do that

PeterStoba and Hokiealumnus suggested the Apogee Drive when i first started on this over at Overclockers Tech, as well as RADs with integrated pumps, but there isn't a 120mm available yet

ATM i'm having a total shakeup of placements, and currently i've got the PSU marked out to go underneath the mobo, which would mean that the HDDs and everything else goes under too. The only problem with that is that the internals are 170mm x 170mm and so is the mobo, so to get cables up from underneath i need to make a few recesses in the 6mm mdf sides.

Does anyone know of a 140mm fan with 120mm placements which is 20mm thick?.

Alternatively a 140mm x 20mm as i don't want to have to cut the top hole again, the mounting holes can just be plugged easily

But i'm currently working on the premise of it being aircooled, however that is liable to change once i have the PSU cutouts done and can have another quick putting together

But it will be watercooled eventually, even if it is just an addon later of another cube filled with Rads

 

Good work so far! I can't wait to see it finished.
The switches are really sweet.

 

Gonna love this mod!

 

Just got part of the backplate cut out, more specifically the PSU hole:





With the PSU installed:



Showing the backplate against the bottom plate, looks like perfect measurements :



Marking out the bottom plate for the PSU fan hole:



And a few pics to show the distinct lack of room, and the reasoning behind having to reconsider putting it under water:

 

Righty, righty

Been a while now.

I still haven't had time to do anything worth updating on, but here's a few little bits

Thanks to Format, i now have a 150w Pico PSU to stick in :









One problem with the PicoPSU, is the direction that the cables come off of it :



But that is easily solved via an extension cable for the ATX plug

You may also notice that the PicoPSU is 24 pin whereas the mobo is 20pin:



But again, that is easily sorted, via a 24pin to 20pin cable, which removes the need for a 24pin extension ofcourse, so one cables kills 2 birds (it's not very tidy having an over hang now is it?)

Also thanks to Format is a slot loader :



and something that i wasn't expecting, it has an ATAPI-50 to PATA converter:



However i need a SATA connection which GoNz0 helped me out with:

http://forums.hexus.net/wanted/183777-wtd-atapi-50-sata-converter.html

Cheers Gonz , it should be on the fail boat as we speak

Next up is back to the feet, as i wanted to have some form of rubber on there to stop vibratory noise, after the previous failed attempt i decided to just buy some from ebay, much tidier, and cheap too :





Here it is stuck to the foot:







At the same time as that i bought a few different sizes of heatshrink:





and some (500) 2.5 x 100 cable ties:



All from an Ebay seller going by FullspeedIT, based in Hull: http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/fullspeedit

And that is as far as i have got

 

The PicoPSU is pure magic. Love that bit of kit

 

It should be very helpful In that i should be able to fit everything in now


I forgot to add this piccy too:



Just to stop things getting into the fan

 

If you switch to sheet metal, you would gain almost 12mm on the inside.

I'm bummed you are no longer water cooling. Have you thought about using the exhaust fan on the power supply to feed the radiator?

 

Yay so your going back to water?

 

I am watercooling again, hence having to ditch the smaller PSU for an even smaller one

And also switching to shhet metal wouldn't gain me anything internally, as i have specified that i want the internals to be 170x170x170 (i.e. the measurements of an itx board ) or in other words the smallest cube that you can have with an ITX board (without having the mobo on an angle )

There's some logic there somewhere, honest

Yep, yep, hopefully so