This project has been under way for for quite some time now. This is mainly down to me not being able to through money at it all in one go. I've slowly acquired the components I need over the months. I've picked up the pace recently since all I now require to finish the project is a CPU water block and tubing which I intend to buy new. Also the long weekend has given me the perfect opportunity to spend some at my parents (where the power tools live) and really get on with it. The reason I'm building this case instead of simply modding an existing case is mostly down to a lack of suitable cases on the market. My requirements were a case able to hold two PA120.2s while not wasting space. Nothing like this seemed to exists, most cases able to hold my radiators wasted space with an extended ATX motherboard and a dozen drive bays. I formulated my layout and went to work on sketch up. The resulting case looked like a monolith, but smaller than most water cooled PCs. So doing what anyone else would do I decided to call the log minilith. Anyway, on with the show . Firstly I used 25mm right angle aluminium to make the frame, The top and bottom were glued together to create smooth faces. I then riveted the vertical struts to to top and bottom parts of the frame. After a 10 months hiatus from building the case ending today it was then time to sort out the mother board tray! I decided on using arcrilic for the tray since it's easier to work with and would match the case panels. I worked out where the mother board should sit and then used a mother board tray scavenged from an old PC to help get the holes in place. The middle hole proved impossible to drill with the pillar drill so I resorted to a hand drill. This was then followed by tapping the holes for the stand offs. I appreciate I do not need to use stand offs with a plastic tray, but it will give me a bit more room for cable routing. And then the moment of truth, had my holes been in the right place? would the tapped holes hold the mother board? The answer of course was yes. The tray still needs to be cut down and have channels cut for cable management, but that will have to wait till I find the jigsaw cutter. Next on my list of things to do is paint the frame a nice shade of blue to compliment my gigabyte mother board and sapphire graphics card.
Unfortunately not, they were lost when I went from win7 RC to win7. They were never more than badly skinned components in a frame though, I'm not as skilled in CAD as a lot of other members of this forum. I'll do my best to find the picture of the components laid out in the frame to give an idea of the layout though. P.S. I see I'm meant to update the topics title with the date when I update the log. I can't see a way of doing that though
Morning Tea update Last night I started putting a couple of coats of paint on the frame, I've got to do a bit of cutting so there will be some more painting later. To save painting the garden blue I Macgyvered together a hanging support for the frame. So far this morning I've Cut down the motherboard to allow for the PSU and rivets. And since I've lost my sketch up work here is a rough layout of the PC. I will have a tray between the mobo and PSU. The pump will either sit in the top right or in the tray on the case, I've not decided for sure yet. I'm leaning towards the tray though.
Just edit the first post The post title of that = the thread title. And great project you have going here! Looks like a compact solution
Afternoon tea update After going into town to try and find some black rivets I returned with some brass nuts and bolts to hold things in place till I can get some rivets from the internet. I've drilled the rear panel and frame and bolted it on, next to mark out for the for the rear ports and then mount the front and top panels too. And then marking out the radiator holes on those. There should be 5mm of frame between the edge of the side and the panel, but due to the imperfections in the frame there is a small amount of variation. I'll look at making a more accurate frame in the future, for now this will have to do.
Friday the 16th I'm down for the weekend again and hope to finish the job. Just after my last update there was a bit of a disaster. While drilling a hole for the back plate the acrylic cracked. I glued the piece back in, when cutting the hole for the back plate it became apparent that the strip to the left of the back plate would be too thin and fragile to machine. So I've decided to remove it and have more of the frame on show. As you will see there is a lot of neatening to do on this! I've also drilled the panels and frame. I hope this gives an idea of what I'm going for.
Keeping you posted. True to form I left the project on the side for a few months, and then spent a weekend working on it. I've finished the external panels and made the shelf for the case, the shelf still needs a bit more work, atm it's a couple of millimeters too wide and is missing a down wards piece needed to complete the drive area. I did not take any photos during, but here are some of the case so far.
