I was thinking about making my own customized mobo tray/system tray for a HTPC case, but my design will be a bit intricate, and probably need alot of welding. However, I am not a welder, nor do I have equipment for welding. How would it be to fabricate the parts out of copper sheets and copper tubes, which I then solder together using either a soldering iron or a blowtorch? Would it be strong enough to withstand normal use? Does anybody have any examples of things made in copper and soldered together? I have seen turpijas home-made watercooling project log, which is quite impressive.
I'm not sure about the properties of copper as a mounting mechanism. Perhaps a base coat then airbrush would be more feasible. The thing with copper is that its rather malleable, good for the outside but the actual mounting tray....meh. For copper soldered together, just look at the plumbing in your house.
Yes the copper soldered with a BLOWTORCH, not a soldering iron will withstand normal use. Just make sure you sand down the fittings and use flux so u get a nice clean joint. Yes copper does bend rather easily but it should be able to hold computer components. Dont get the copper to hot because it will turn it green and other ugly colors. Now i want to make a case out of copper, damn. I found a guy who made his case of copper: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1915934,00.asp I am definitley going to make a case of copper now.
if it dose change colour, you can use copper spray, which turpija used in this mod, see this post to see what i mean/he did
The bad thing about copper is in sheet form, its really expensive, especially if you need to get it in thick enough sheets to hold up heavy computer equiptment. My friend tried to make a case out of copper tubing though and it turned out alright, although the fact that it was out of tubing made it hard to attach things....since they're round
Yeah, I checked the prices on sheet copper, and it was a bit steeper than steel or aluminum... Looks ok to fabricate with, though. I was thinking of maybe spray painting it anyway, so it turning green won't be a big problem. I did find, however, chromed copper pipes. Will the chrome plating make it harder/impossible to solder, or doesn't it make a difference?
If you really mainly want the look, a couple of thin sheets sandwiched over a steel/aluminium centre, like a sandwich should give you enough strength. WHich the chrome, I doubt It will make too much difference, may need to strip it
Brass (in terms of structural tubing) may be another alternative. Usually brass is available with a better variety of sizes, and I believe it's a bit stronger than plain copper. Aluminum channeling is pretty strong stuff and is pretty cheap and should be readily available.
if you're going to be spraypainting it then why use copper? isnt copper heavier than steel, and aluminum? If you're after thermal dissapation then you might as well spend the money for materials on a nice zalman passive case
if you use copper just because you can braze or solder it, than your using it for the wrong reason. It takes a little skilll to get very strong solder or brazed joints, and trying to fabricate whole cases out of tube isn't the easiest. Its doable but it can be a pain at times. Also the ultimate joint strength of the tube will never be as high as the base material and copper even when it is hard tempered tends to anneal around the joints and always remains a relatively soft metal (i.e sheet will warp easily). Don't forget it's rather heavy as well. 1" copper pipe weights between .65-.89 pounds a foot and at the 20' you would need thats about 18 pounds. I'm not sure what design you're going for but you can get things copper plated or you can copper plate things yourself if you just want the looks. In terms of ease of construction I say pop rivet L channel frames are the easiest to make and make square. brass can be soldered/brazed but it is annoying and never takes well the zinc in it really just makes it annoying and dangerous at times to work with. I don't won't to discourage you from working with copper, but just be warned, tubing frames are not the most fun to work with and copper isn't the easiest material to fabricate structures with. I don't want you going into this just because you can solder copper pipe ( you could braze steel with a blowtorch as well). I haven't started yet but hopefully within the next two weeks I'll have all the copper pipe for my project down so check it out in my sig
I made a chassi for one of my radio controlled cars a few years back. It was a pretty heavy monstertruck (tamiya Clod Buster for those who know). I made it out of 5 and 6mm brass tubing soldered with a propane torch and some silver tin. (3%silver) It was actually wery strong. Using something like this should be more than strong enough for a computer. Just remember that this can't be done with a soldering iron. I have also made boxes out of chopper shhets in the past (for radio equipment). It's pretty easy to work with, but it's pretty heavy. i tried soldering this with a soldering iron, but i had to give up. (it's ok for small parts, but for a box larger than about 2 cm it's useless.)
i think that since copper is so expensive, you might as well make friends with a local welder. steel is easier to work with (as with replacint parts if you screw up) and it it a lot cheaper. go to a local fab shop that does steel and ask to buy some scrap. most of the time, or at least if you are me, they give you peices for free. btw you can also weld steel using a torch, its called brazing. nice little info.
