Scratch Build – In Progress [Project] Full ATX SFF Build

lol

 

I think that this is a great scratch build and is looking to be a really good.
I was just wondering what you are going to do with hard drives as that is an issue that I'm having with designing my SFF cube as I have 4 HDD's.

 

What happened to all the pics of the build?

 

I see all of the pics. Firewall issues maybe? Blocking third-party images?

 

Hey Craig....yea you were right. At home I see them just fine, at work I couldnt see them.

Thanks
Ram

 

G5 and a MacPro - no card readers seen. Put it wherever! Macs are cool. I own several cases.




john

 

Hi Everyone so its been almost 3 years since I updated this.. wow The project just got abandoned but after seeing the guts of the project in the shed a few weeks ago I decided get stuck in again.

So, I wanted to build a Small Form Factor Machine, that could take a Full ATX case, a couple of HDDs and a decent GPU and I wanted it to be light and portable. Its made out of aluminium and stainless steel.

I think back in 08 the specs were Q6600 / 4870, its now a Core i5 2500k / GTX 560

Its almost finished now, still have to decide on a few things but Im posting from it as we speak

I think its quite neat and tidy considering its size, it currently has a 80GB Intel X25-M SSD and a 1.5TB WD HDD and there is room for another HDD and I could fit more if I made additional brackets etc..

The GTX 560 is a smallish card (9") but has rear power ports, I could fit an 11" card if it had side mount power ports. And I could fit any size card or even two cards if I moved the PSU up higher which isnt a major job but would make cable management a nightmare!

I had a limited budget and the GTX 560 is the best card I could afford but its a great card for the money.

Some other things that still need to be done:

Handle,
Proper power switch,
Front USB

Anyway here are the pictures:

Heres the lower portion of the case, you can see my Velcro mounted SSD!



The budget-tastic CoolerMaster TX3



Here is the Stainless Steel shell



And with the Stainless Steel Grill



And here is the rear, I think this really shows how small it is, My engineering is a little rough around the edges, I tend to rush things That lead is a temporary power switch.



And with the front plate that i may or may not use, opinions?



Seen as the PSU's "kettle lead" is not accesible, I put a femal socket on the back of the case and this feeds the PSU, the connections are soldered, its sleeved and earthed to the case.



Incase you were wondering how the HDD is mounted... Its mounted using 4 long screws, you can see a rubber O-ring on the outside and there are rubber "pillars" inside the case to absorb vibrations and give it some room to breath



more pics:








And here is a link to a Picasa Album, there are some additional images there.

I know I could have done more extravagant things but I was on a limited budget and wanted it up and running finally!

Im quite happy with the size, its 29.4 litres and the average mid-tower case is about 44 litres so its only 2/3 the size. You could make a much smaller case but I think this is a small as you can make it while keeping things relatively simple!


Thanks for looking!

 

Holy project-revival batman

 

Wow, yes. quite a revival. It does look good and compact. I'm not too crazy about the front plate. Maybe if it was much thinner around the edges. I loke the stainless steel mesh look better. But maybe add a thin dust filter on the backside of it to even out the look (so that you can't see the fan outlines), and help prevent dust.

If you wanted more air, you could put the SSD on top of the other HDD, and add a fan to the bottom (lifting up the case with some type of feet).

well done!

 

I have a SFF plan in my head also, but it uses mATX motherboard. Anyway, nice to see this one alive