Scratch Build – In Progress EXO-S: TRANSPORT CASE DONE!

Working Title ExoSkeleton
Me and my buddy starting thinking about our own casemod. My Buddy SqUed is great with with iron and has always good input and solutions. Together we decided to build a new case for me, from scratch.
Transport of the case will be easy. We bought ourselves an American Audio ABS DDR-4 flightcase 4 HE[/b]. That was our first limitation. It had to fit in this flightcase for transport to lan-parties.


Hardware
Hardware which will be used (it’s currently in my own game-pc:
-MSI G41M-P21
-Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q9550
-4GB RAM
-MSI HD6870DC
-Corsair 120GB SSD
-Corsair H50 waterkoeling
-Coolermaster 600Watt PSU Silent Pro M

As you can see, minimal in it’s hardware as well. So no dvd player, 3,5inch harddisk etc.


Global Idea at start of project

-Should fit in our flightcase and should be easy to put in and out.
-SSD will not be visible and will come together with the PSU in the bottom of the case.
-Cablemanagement
-Led lighting with led controller to adjust colour of light.
-Case will black non shining.

First drawings for the impression:



Idea is to work with iron bars, that will go through halfway the case at both sides. In the double bottom the PSU and SSD will be located. On top of the PSU/SSD cover will be the motherboard.



A detail what we want to do with the PSU cover. We want to use metal shields to cover the PSU-box.


Update 1

First we created the bottom, using 20mm metal studs. They have been cut open and soldered together with silver.

Soldering the bottom frame.






Bottom getting into shape. This is the bottom view.



Fits like a glove, after polishing and sanding.



Polishing, probably this will be matte black with some power coating.



Putting the PSU on the bottom. You see that we have narrowed down the bottom frame in order to get the PSU to fit.



In the bottom a hole will be drilled for the PSU. If we unscrew the bottom plate, only the bottomplate will be come loose. All other elements will be fitted to the top part of the frame.

Some additional pictures.





Update 2

The PSU Cover
Continued with the PSU cover. We had a look to the angle, but this seems to be a nice angle to start with.





The idea of the bars is clear in below picture. Between the bars we will get 3mm space for the led lightning. Basic shape has been arrived, no we should further work on the detail.





Possible also bars on the top, depending on how it looks.



We have created ‘spacers’ for the bottom plate using m5 bolts.





Backside of the PSU. We needed a bracket to fit the PSU.




Getting in a comfortable angle…

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Update 3
Created a hole in the bottom in the plate for the PSU fan. Looking for the right drill


This size was a little bit to big...


This seems to be just right.



Starting drilling with some oil of course. The iron is really though.



Some additional pics.



Bottomside.



This was the original idea with the bars..



But we came with a new and better plan… For that we needed to adjust the PSU cover.
It looks worse, but it is not so bad…




The new idea is shown below. In the oblique angle the SSD will be placed on raisers. This SSD will be visible for 80%, 20% will be covered by the PSU cover. Ideal for the cablemanagement!



In the oblique angle the 2 usb ports will be located.





Update 4

Started working on the motherboard tray, which consists of these metal studs. Backside of motherboard will be visible through the holes. The backplate will be made in such a way that is can also be used for ATX boards and not only my current mATX board.






We started drawing the shields on the PSU cover, and it took us over 50 drawings and 100 of lines to get to this design which is not symetric.
Our inspiration was found by Lamborghini Aventador.



The lines you see below will be the space between the shields. Space between the shields will be around 2mm.

Side



Front/top



The round button will be for the power en reset button. In the part above the SSD-bay will be 2 usb ports located.

Side/top




In global the idea will look like this.



Update 5

Some more work done.





These buttons for power and reset will be bought.




Unfortunately the idea with the leds did not work good. The leds are laying down in a ‘ring’ which makes it impossible to shine their light to the side. It can only shine to the top. Therefor we switched to CCFL.







Did some shopping...

4 CCFL blue 10cm
1 Converter
1 Sleeved PSU 24 pin extensioncable
2 Sleeved GPU 6pin extensioncable
1 Internal USB hub
2 Power switch
2 Power switch cable

Global ideal, final lights will be blue, but this gives a good impression of our ideas. Also the SSD bay will have its own lightning.



Dremel the cover.





Impression.













With some proud I can announce our first sponsor.


Thanks Andrea for your fantastic mail, we are getting a mouse sponsored which fits the case!


And our second sponsor will be NDF Special Light Products in Roosendaal. They will produce custom CCFL's of 2.4mm to our specific design wishes! Thank you so much Coen, for your support and all the tips you gave us in relation to lightning!


And we also have our third sponsor right now.



Rotako is a company located in Zevenbergen, The Netherlands which is a divers company in the metal-world can be divided in four lines of business:

Engineering: From idea to solution, through innovative assembly
Assembly: Created solutions, installed at site.
Production: Watercutting technique and construction work
Maintenance: Professional maintenance.

We want to thank Hans Rongen and Rotako for the help, with the watercutting machine for our Exo-S logo!

 

Okay, this night we finally finished the shielded PSU cover. It took some time, it was quite labor intensive, but we are here . Only some sanding and finishing touch in general. But it gives a good idea and we are very happy with the result so far...

Furthermore the idea we have with regards to the cooling and how to implement it in the case.









And with the watercooling unit in it...


Case will be end up matte black.

 

Double post... it is tough to be a rookie on this forum

 

OMG

wow

 

Excellent! Congrats on the MOTM nomination!

 

Amazing work and congrats on the MOTN nomination!!

 

Just saw it in the MOTM nomination - Congrats.
It's a nice plan and start. I'm looking forward for the upcoming updates.

 

Very cool
Sub'd

 

Wow, MOTM, I didn't even knew that!!! thanks, this is really surpising me.. I gonna call my buddy right now!!

 

Got my vote. Superb metal work!

 

This looks awesome! Great job!

 

Great idea for the mobo-tray and fantastic job on the psu cover!!!
I' m very curious about next step.....

 

amazing metal working skills you've got there ! will be watching this one

 

And the next update after a night with a big set-back! The frame was 1cm to short to fit the motherboard nicely. It was getting to close to the radiator on top of the case. So we extended the frame with one cm (we don't have more space, due to the fact that it would not fit into the ABS Flightcase.

Furthermore we created the top framework above the radiator of the Corsair cooling unit.
And we created the topbar (part of the framework for the radiator) in which the CFFL will be placed which will shine its light on the motherboard.

Pictures say more than words....

Adding the 1cm to the length of the frame...


Topbar in place of the frame.


Radiator frame almost finished.


Sloppy overview picture of the work done today..

 

Fantastic work. I like the extra work going into the patterns.

BUT... Your friend needs to wear some eye protection. You have some very young and impressionable viewers here. They do things like use grinders between their legs.

 

This looks amazing!

Give us a final weight when you finish?

 

I am not sure what photo shows his face without eye-protection? We do use eye-protection and ear protection a lot. On a quick occasion due to stress but that is really exceptional. Protection is very important. Like I always say: Safety first, think twice!

/Edit.... I found the picture without the eye-protection... Bad example! Don't do this at home!!!

Weight is not really a big issue. It is not that heavy and not that big... Maybe photo's are misleading...

 

This case is looking more amazing by the minute.... Congrats on the MOTM nomination.

If your friend's right foot came out from under him on this one; eye protection would be the last thing he'd have to worry about.



But hey... on the positive side; at least he won't hear himself screaming....

 

Amazing build so far. Can't wait to see that PSU cover finished.

 

I hope we can show you tomorrow the following:
-Motherboard holes are drilled for the raisers
-Finished topframe
-IO bracket-frame
-Blue light under the shielded PSU cover. We have not seen this ourselves yet. So we are very curious what effect it will have. Last Monday we were to busy fixing the topframe and extending the frame with 1 cm.
-Drilled holes for the 2 start and reset bulgin switches.