I'm in the planning stages of building a case from scratch and I need to know what are some good materials (sturdy) for making a frame. The case should be around 18" tall and need to support 3-4 drives, psu, mobo,, waterblock, and 3 cards. I'd rather not have this be extremely heavy so thats why I'm asking instead of using sheet steel. Oh yeah, the outside is being made out of sheet styrene and most likely bondo'd over to get it smooth. This is a rough sketchup design of what I'm planning. I have some aluminum L's and hollow square rods to use as supports for some of the more weight intensive areas. Also is there a good how-to somewhere on making a mobo tray and dimensions for the card slots?
why dont you build a skeleton frame out something like box section aluminium & fix your styrene onto that
I do plan on using some box aluminum bars for the support on the mobo tray and drive cages but I can't use it for the edges since they need to be bent at 130 and 150 degrees. So I need to know what type of metal and thickness would be enough to support a decent amount of weight without misshaping over time. Has anyone built a case frame out of sheet metals? Most of what I see on here is the aluminum bars.
For the drive bays: * Take two strips of 1/8" thick acrylic, about 8" wide, and in your case about 16" long. * Drill into each strip two rows of 9 holes with 5/32" diameter at 1.7" pitch. * Mount 5.25" things like CD-ROM, removable HD enclosures and 3.25" adapters between strips. You may need longer screws because instead of 1mm steel you have 3mm acrylic and a washer. The PS could also go in (takes 2 bays), but you need some extra brackets and the exhaust fan would be facing to the front. The assembly will be wobbly sideways, so at the front you need 1/4" weather strips as cushion and air seal on the sides and squeeze the whole thing between your vertical front beams. Somehow you have to fix it there, but you'll have to figure that out as you go. Many small screws are better than a few big ones because the acrylic tends to crack at pressure points. The small screws distribute the load.
