It has been over a year since I first designed a plexi case to use as an HTPC. Since then I had in my mind to build one for my desktop as well. The first project can be found here I started planning and designing the new project on SU about a month ago. Finally I maneged to finish the design yesterday. This time I wanted a removable MoBo tray, a different approach for the rounded front corners, and fully controllable led lighting together with a custom fan controller. I upgraded some of my pc components and bought; Asus P5Q Deluxe Mobo HIS Iceq 4870 Graphics Card 2 X GSkill TT Series 1066 Mhz RAM (4 gigs) 4 Nanoxia FX 1250 fans, Toggle Switches, Blue and red led stripes, UV leds and led holders, Male and female pin headers 100X100 cm clear 5 mm plexi 100X100 cm black semi transparent 5 mm plexi 40X30 cm clear 3 mm pleksi Hexa cap bolts and threads And I already had; Q6600 CPU, 2X320 gigs seagate 3,5 HDDs, 2X vandal switches and a SilverStone strider 750W PSU What I want with this project is to label the front panel in a way that the inner light will peek through the lettering. This is some of the components I bought; And this is the design I want to build: But front panel with the labeling like this: I had to redraw everything in 2D using CorelDraw for laser cutting, and this is the result; For clear plexi; And for black plexi; Today I sent the drawings and plexi for laser cutting.. I will try to update as I work on the project. Most likely it will be a quick build as I dont have much time to spend on this.. SO I will do it on one of my available weekends. A friend nick named Amfibi will help me with the project as he has lots of experience with building plexi cases. He is very talented and knows things. He would find a solution to every problem I face The name GTC comes from my nick name GinoTheCop Ok, wish me luck, and thanks for reading..
Thank you.. I started sleeving the USb cables of headers taken out of scrap pc cases.. I will need to cut some extra pcbs of those as they also have mic and line out which i do not intend to use.. Hopefully I am getting my laser cut plexi tomorrow evening..
Today I got the laser cut pieces.. I am not very happy with the cutting.. Bur I have to move on.. besides I made a mistake with one of the pieces.. That has to be taken care of as well.. But the lower compartment of the case is almost finished anyhow.. Pics will be added later.. It is going not too bad till now..
UPDATE I Ok so here are the laser cut plexi pieces.. I said I am not happy with the laser job because some transparent pieces turned into a yellowish color. Some scratches on some pf the pieces and some misalignement.. But that is not the end of the worl as a friend did it for me free of charge.. So here are some of the pieces: And an immediate test to see if the air vent mesh and frames fit: And they fit perfectly. So they can be glued to where they belong: Job done Time to fix the back piece of the lower part: And side panels: Now its shaping a bit. Mobo tray sanded to make it slide better after fixing the rails: Time to fix the cornering pieces: At first we planned to have only transparent cornering pieces.. But then decide to use black pieces in between, and this is the result. Not too bad.. The inner front piece was cut too short in laser shop (about an inch). So that one had to be made by hand: Drilling holes for led strips and front fan: And after that piece is glued, the upper fins could be glued: Ok thats about it for now.. Later I will show you how we fixed the mobo tray, thread inserts fitting, hdd compartment, and the front panel work.. The guys in laser shop got the panel totally wrong.. I wanted ablack panel with transparent lettering.. Instead they sent me a transparent panel with cnc engraved lettering.. So we will see what I will do about that.. Thanks for reading..
UPDATE 2 Ok here is another quick update: Cutting the back piece for IO shield and slots: This is taken from an old case and painted in black: Test fit in the case: We will use these thread inserts for the mobo tray to fix it to the case, for the top lid and for the front panel as well.. We have 8 mm holes on our plexi.. And these are 8,75 mm diameter.. So we need to heat them and then insert to where they belong. They will be rock solid after cooling. Meanwhile lets place our HDD case.. It is not the most beautiful piece I know.. But its silences the disks and with the 80 mm akasa amber fan in front the hdds will cool down. Inserting thread inserts after heating. Sadly they change color and not too shiny anymore after heating them: But they do perfectly what they need to do.. Test fitting the top lid.. It fits perfectly and solid: We continiue with placing HDDs.. two of 3,5 seagates those are: PSU and DVD placed and fixed. We didnt need to use any threads for DVD as it sits very tight where it is: Mobo is fixed to its tray: Now we forgot to drill holes for the case feet. Not a problem, we used a soldering iron to make the holes after marking, and just before the plexi starts cooling inserted the threads and let it cool.. Now we have natural thread inserts.. Works like a charm.. Mobo tray slided in: Ok will continiue with the rest of the work in a few minutes..
Let's go on Now 4 of nanoxia FX1250's are fixed: Now the panel is not how we want it to be.. But we have to see how this one will look and work. So lets start with fan controllers of nanoxia's. The fit nicely.. The panel is 3 mm plexi.. 5 mm is too thick for these: We need to fix the led stripes to the case first. We made holes for each led on the stripe to go in to the inner front piece. So 2 blue stripes and 2 red ones: And ofcourse the cables are sleeved and stripes are fixed with hot slicone: Testing the leds, yay they work! : We used one molex to feed 4 fans and one molex to feed 4 led stripes and another one inside the panel box. We will control all of the leds with toggle switches.. But here is some pics with different lighting options: Blue: Red: Panel light: And all lights on Well thats all for now.. I best like when only the panel light is on.. And the transparent panel doesnt look too bad.. Just all that cable mess behind it.. I will have to make a black panel to see how it looks. I have to do a lot of polishing and cleaning, and some more sleeving.. But not so soon as I have loads of work waiting for me on my desk.. Will post more pics after I done those.. Hope u enjoyed reading..
That yellowing that's on your clear plexi should come off with some white spirit or something like that. Did you consider using smoked acrylic? That's a very nice looking case and really well built!
Love the crafting on that! I really want to see some water cooling in it! would look so nice with the acrylic case! you can do it!
@Botn3vik; Yes I have to do something about the mess.. I ordered another panel to some other laser cutting shop. Thişs time I will either paint the back side of the plexi to black then itch the lettering or will try to get a black folio cut to see which looks better. I kinda like to see that cabling and stuff behind the panel tho.. I might also plan a better cabling and redo all the sleeving and cabling for a more decent look. I can hide most of the cables behind. @Stu; I was really surprised to see that yellowish color in some of the pieces only. The plexi I bought was a sweet crystal clear piece and I got it directly from the factory. I always buy plexi from them and this never happened before. I seriously doubt either the laser beam was not adjusted properly or worse they used two different plexi to cut instead of mine. @imersa: WC.. I was never into wc till now. I agree it would look awesome in a plexi box. But then again everything gotta be planned from scratch for a wc rig. That I really want to do in future. I will certainly need a sponsor for that.. But that also can be arranged.. I have a charity project in my mind.. Build the rig with sponsors and sell it in Computex fair to use the money for buying computers for a village school for example..
Ok Another Update: Today I could finally have the front panel in the way i want it to be.. I also added a new toggle switch.. Silent/Cool mode.. On silent mode all fans are turned off except the CPU fan. In cool mode all fans are powered. That really is useful when working in the night or watching TV only. I will make the pictures talk for the rest... Back of the case: And the thread inserts I used: GTC up and running: Blue mood: Red light zone My new panel: And few close ups: And finally reflection of the "OUT" on my wall Hope you enjoyed reading..