Alu-Alure This project will become the case for my main PC. I intend it to cool the computer effectively and quietly. Being a tertiary student I have a limited budget so I will be limiting myself to one material and won't be implementing water-cooling, although the case will be designed to fit it (hey hey sponsors, if you want to send me water-cooling parts I'll put them in ). So the background to this is that at the moment I have a Lian Li B25-B. It looks nice and fits everything I want in it so far. However it is a little small to work in, is difficult to move about, overheats occasionally in Summer (30+°C days) and isn't all that quiet because it is built of thin aluminium. This case will be a box around 500x300x550mm (HxWxD). Vents in the bottom will allow air to be blown upwards through the components by a pair of Silverstone Air Penetrator 180mm fans. The air will be exhausted through the roof of the case. This will be a rotated-motherboard design with all the I/O ports on top, similar to the Silverstone Fortress family of cases. There will be space for two 9x120mm radiator cores to be mounted internally. Of course these won't be installed in the near future so that space will be taken up with sound dampening foam. Almost this entire build will be from a single 1200x2400x2mm sheet of aluminium. Here it is in all its' lustrous glory. It's so beautiful I don't want to cut it; just mount it on the wall and admire it or something. I'm doing most of the project at the workshop of my Summer employer, I've been very fortunate to have access to such a facility. This gives me plenty of space and some neat equipment to use. No, I won't be using either of the 160T-rated cranes. I'll be doing most of the cutting using a technique shown by oldnewby in his project log for Cygnus X1, possibly the best looking case ever built. The masking tape protects the aluminium from surface scratching and is easier to mark out on. To anyone using a saw to cut metal; don't forget to use ear and eye protection. I was wearing safety goggles and a speck of aluminium still managed to bounce in one of the ventilation holes and get in my eye... I've cut out most of the parts. That's it for today. Tomorrow I'll cut out the remaining parts and hopefully do some folding.
Thanks guys Today I finished the cutting (not including internal cuts for the fan holes and such). I also began folding. I'd never used a bending brake before so this was something new. Turns out they are pretty easy to use though and I made good progress. I used the small bending brake as it is more appropriately sized for my application. Here's the result. Also my fans arrived today. They're quite large, as shown by the backplate off an old graphics card that you can see down the bottom of the picture. Tomorrow I intend to finish the folding and start sticking some of the pieces together. I'll try and get some more interesting photos to stick on here too.
Saaaaaweeeeet facility access , I'd be like a kid in a sweet shop there . Nice how your gonna make it all from the 1 sheet too . Subscribed .
very nice! yep jigsaw is every mans best friend! I wish my alloy wasnt already scratched to hell but taping it up was the smart move! I wish I had access to that mint equipment
The weather was really nice today so I didn't spend a lot of time inside working. I did finish the folding. I didn't take any pictures of that as it was just more of the same. I drilled the mounting holes in the side panels. There are way more than are necessary but that is for aesthetics. This will be a fairly industrial looking build, as suits my current work environment. Then de-burring the holes. Gently to avoid countersinking the holes. Sorry that this is a little out of focus, the drill was running at the time. Here are most of the outer panels arranged so you can get some idea of how they will fit together. Most of the components will be mounted on a removable motherboard tray (not shown here) that will lift out the top. I now need to file a lot of the pieces down to exact size and cut out some holes. This will take a while so I won't be making another update for a couple of days. Next week my holiday ends so I'll slow down a bit. I hope to make substantial progress next weekend.
Hi guys. Sorry it's taken me so long to update this! I've been working ten hour days, which hasn't left me much time for recreational work. I had cut my aluminium into small enough pieces to fit in the back of my parents car. Having got the bits home it was time to start trimming them to exact size. This involved a lot of filing, and using my Dremel to cut and grind. The process was long and tedious so I didn't take a lot of photos. Essentially I'm left with the same pieces of aluminium I had before but now the edges are straighter and more precise. I'm now up to the stage of marking out and cutting the holes in the panels. This will be a painstaking process (especially with the motherboard backplate) so will take a while unfortunately.
