Hokay, after continuously googling, rummaging around and generally head-desking; I've come to the conclusion that the only way I'm going to get a case to meet my needs is by building the thing myself. Base chassis I used for inspiration, as far as the design goes, is the Fortress FT03, although I don't possess the materials or the skill needed to bend the aluminium in the same way that has been done on that case. hence i'm just going to refer to it as the FT-0-Box for now. At the moment i'd say I'm about 1/2 way through planning it in Sketchup, assuming I'm using 2mm Aluminium sheets, and 4mm Alu Square Bar, (Thankfully I've found a place that'll sell me both of those for a wonderfully cheap price, and in good sizes too) So far I've got the power-supply planned out, airflow path, and motherboard tray set in place, although none of it is set in stone, so it could all change. My variant is considerably larger than the FT-03, standing at two feet by a foot square (Ish) at the moment, and packing two 230mm fans (I'll clean up the reference model I cobbled together so it can be placed in the Sketchup Gallery). At the moment i'd like some ideas, While I've got suggested mounting for Hard-drives and the Power Supply sorted out, i've still got to sort Power switches, Front panel, and Disk-drives. Anyway, Tl;DR version: How can I improve the picture below? Edit; So i've done some more work on it, finished the outer chassis, and added in Optical Drive and Front-panel I/O, Now I've just got to work out where and how I'm going to mount Power and Reset switches, followed by dumping a load of hardware into the design to see if I've got my scaling right. So far the whole construction stands at 735mm tall, by 349mm^2 So two and a quarter feet by a foot square, for those of you that think in Imperial. I've also decided to stop being a plagarizing ******* and simply change the name to "Air Tower" Anyway, Current Progress: I'm going to keep working on the mounting of most of the components, as well as actually building the mounts for the Hard-drives and the like, so they're no longer sitting there floating, Then find an Accurate M-atx motherboard model and hope that I've not managed to ruin the Motherboard tray during my work. Double-edit. So I've had a toy, tweaked some more stuff on the model, and priced up how much Aluminium i'd need. Then winced. Grand total, for the sheets and L bar i'd need; I'm looking at £130. So I've come to a dilemma; Do I keep the Alu Panels, or should I be a cheapskate and change to something like Acrylic or Perspex while keeping the frame as Alu? Okay. So after rummaging around; I've figured I can swap some of the materials out and wind up cheaper. Hence; i'm now planning an Alu. Chassis with White perspex panels, rather than just spraying Aluminium Panels white. (Less work = More win.) I've also changed the Alu. Angle bars for 30^2 Alu Square Tubing, because it works out cheaper than buying Angle bars and then fabricating the parts needed to connect them to the main plates. As a result I've had to shuffle everything around a little more, so it's much tighter than i'd like, and relies on the theory that the Bitfenix fans are well within that 5mm~ Tolerance in sizing that they're manufactured to. Then I sat down, worked on some textures, and put together a proper Render, rather than just SU screenshots. (Sadly the Alu. Texture is far, far shinier than i'd like. I'll have to see if I can't fix that later.)
Hey Tundra, interesting idea. Most people would just tell you to get the FT03 and Mod it. (Might be a bit easier, even if it'll cost a bit more.) A few questions: 1. Overall dimensions? - Urm. Nevermind Just spotted it. 2. Why is there separation between the two compartments? I mean, i would imagine that the bottom compartment has 1x 180mm Air Penetrator intake? Is that going to be enough? 3. Shouldn't the PSU intake from outside? 4. Similarly, if you are intaking from bottom to up, then it might be a goo idea to turn the HDD + SSD sideways like the DVD Drive.
The case is about 70CM tall, so rather large, but only 25-35 CM either side, the issue I had was that it devoured money simply for the Alu and Acrylic needed, so it's shelved for the moment until I've got £300 spare plus the needed tools to cut it all to shape. The bottom seperation is for looks and cable-management, that way I could happily cable-route everything down the bottom for the Hard-drives and the like while keeping the upper compartment clear of any excess. The Fans, on the other hand, are 200Mm reference, although I could change them out for a spare 180mm AP model I've got lying around here somewhere. At the moment, as I've said, it's all on hold till I can scrounge up enough money to afford the materials needed plus tools required to assemble.
The only bit that I see to change is the psu setup. The way it's venting to the underside means it will be cooled with it's own exhaust.
True. I should change the model. I'd likely use another Silverstone Strider, and those fans actually run exhaust, so the whole setup works in that scenario, because the whole thing is contributing to the vertical airflow.
Is this an E-Atx chassis? Seems like an mATX chassis, but then it's quite big for one. Also, another idea that was suggested was to have a separate hole for cables to come out at the bottom, so that they don't dangle down the back. I assume you want this case to stand on your desk since the IO ports + DVD are at the bottom. Does the Front Windowed panel come off? I'm just trying to think how you'd put the components together once you've constructed it.
The entire thing should just be Acrylic panels on an Aluminium chassis, so I can turn it from a whole case to a barebones chassis, Plus locking-in side-panels are a sod to create, just making stuff that bolts into place, while slightly cruder, is still a fair way of fabricating the thing. I do agree that it's very large, I'll likely work on downscaling or simply shifting the thing over to full ATX. This is more or less just a rough testbed of a design at the moment.
