Planning Few questions about plexi design

This is what i have in my mind. A plexi case (sort of retro looks) with a removable mobo tray.



1) My main concern is will the joint of the mobo tray (2) and the back piece (1) will be sturdy enough? I will use a metal tray from an old case attached to that area.

2) The bottom layer (4) of the upper (transparent body) and the top lid is extruded about an inch, do you think that looks ok or all transparent front layers (3) should be same shape? (flat or extruded)

3) The bottom front panel (6) will include 4 toggle switches and 4 fan controlling knobs, on the left and right there will be power and reset switches, and usb ports. I want to have some backlight and when backlight is on labels will be visible to see what controls what.. (like it will say power-reset-cpu fan-gpu fan-backlight-blue leds-red leds-uv.. etc) How can i do that? Any ideas? Please see the pic below as my english is not best to explain what i am trying to do. That was my initial design but then instead of plexi rods i decided to go with layers of laser cut curvy edges



4) I made a design mistake (5) that connection rod has to start from the second top layer or else i can not remove the lid , so i will correct that..

5) Any comments and ideas are welcome.. Please keep in mind that its very difficult for me to get my hands on most of the parts i need as its kinda hard to find them here in Turkey.

And here is the sketchup file for those who might want to have a closer look. Click for sketchup file (467 kb)

 

Also couldnt decide with the choice of color..

 

I like the design fine. I think the fins should stick out a little

Is the color going to in the acrylic or clear acrylic with colored lighting inside? I ask because I like all the colors.

john

 

I was thinking coloured plexi to use for the fins.. But that can be handled with lighting as well.. I guess it will be best to opt for transculent plexi for the fins then use leds inside with different colors and connect them to toggle switches to use the color of choice. I always find lighting a bit tricky as the result you get is somehow different than expected most of the time..

I will try and see how all the fins sticking out will look..

Thanks for the comments jhanlon

 

How about using clear plexi and use RGB lighting?
You can have it any colour you want/feel like

 

Thats what I decided to do exactly.. Only instead of RGB it will be RUB which is Red-UV-Blue.. All will be switch controlled. I am only not sure how many leds to use where.. Do all leds have same brightness or some of are more dimmed? Coz i dont want it to be too bright.. Instead a nice glowing will be more eyecandy..

Here is the led setup i am thinking for the lower corner fins..


That looks too many leds to me.. But if its possible to find not so bright leds it should be fine.. One red one blue led from top to bottom..

 

For lights peeking through the lettering, Use the classic technique used in stereo equipment. Use a clear panel with the inside painted black. The letters can be etched through the paint.

 

Thanks cheapskate.. Will look into that..
Today my led stripes, toggle switches, and few more bits arrived, i also found some nice air vent housing and mesh in my garage.. I will use those in the lower section to let the warm air escape.. There will be a 80 fan to cool my hdds.
I bought two kinds of led stripes..
One is this:


And its not too bright so i am kinda happy with this one..

But these are too bright so i guess i will use these for front panel backlighting:


Am happy with my toggle switches.. More happy with the air vent housings and meshes.. Kids stole my camera so i will add pictures of those later.

Also found a nice plastic piece i will use to house my UV leds.. I will see how that will work out..

 

Alright! Pictures of the kids - WOOT.

 

Ok first these are the kids and thats what they stole my camera for



And these are the parts i collected till now..



1) male and female 4 pin headers for fan and led connections.. Couldnt find 3 or even 2 pin headers.. But these will do the job

2) Led stripes blue and red in color.. And these are not so bright ones..

3) Sleeving and shrink insulators

4) Airflow housing and grills

5) My UV led housing (thats a piece of plastic from an old wardrobe

6) toggle switches

7) pins for headers

I am working on the design still.. Once 3 d is completed, i will switch to corel draw and prepare the 2d sketches for laser cutting. Too bad i can not do that with sketchup..Thats a double work

 

Looks very interesting,

Where you planning on presenting this case in your home. Kinda reminds me of a part from a very expensive audio stack.

 

I will use this as my main pc. I have a study room and usually, work, watch tv, play games and surf the net there..

Ok my nanoxia fans arrived yesterday and today I boght one square meter 5 mm clear plexi and one square meter black semi transparent..

I ve finished drawing my design (lot of changes from the initial design) on coreldraw as well. I use SU to design but it needs to be converted to either AutoCad or Corel for laser machine to work on it. I tried exporting to Autocad (dwg) but the dimensions were somehow not the same. So I diceded not to risk and re-draw everything in 2D using CorelDraw.

This is how it looks in 2d for clear plexi cutting.



So its about time to visit the laser cutting guys..

 

And this is for black plexi;