Project: Never Gunna Happen Here are a few pics of a case I drew up in Sketchup while I was bored. I don't have the materials or skills or money or time to make this project into a reality at the moment so it's just a dream. It is being designed to be used as and HTPC. I haven't yet added any detail to the front or back plates I will do that next. All the components are to the correct scale so everything should fit in reality. The motherboard image I just picked off Asus' site. It's the A7V266-M which has pretty good features such as onboard LAN - just right for my purpose. The PCI card at the bottom would be the TV card. I don't know what card this might be but something which could record TV and encode it to DivX would be fine. The heatsink is based on the Spire MicroFlow II which is quite low profile but should still be quite effective. Other cooling will be done by the Zalman GF4 Heatpipe cooler as you can see, an 80 mm fan in the front (haven't included it yet) and prehaps another 80mm fan at the back of the PSU depending on how hot the thing gets. I would like to use something like an XP 1700 or 1800 in the machine. The hard drive sits (or hangs) beneath the DVD drive. I'm not sure how that will be secured other than to just glue the thing on. It is also quite a squeeze with the side of the case I would probably have to use right angled molexes and definatly a normal flat cable to get it to fit. Another possible problem is getting an IDE cable to the back of the DVD drive. I think the best solution would be to attach it beneath the hard drive and DVD drive and then somehow fold it until it fits. That kind of thing is hard to do without actually trying and seeing. The actual case will be made of dark blue tinted acrylic folded to create the corners at the top. The Front, Back and Bottom will be made from aluminium. I'm not sure how the frame or motherboard tray would work so I'm still a bit unsure of all that at the moment. Anyway what do you think? What do you think could be changed or improved? If anyone wants to borrow or alter the design that's fine. So or .
I just middle click and tried to rotate you picture What's the little pipe thing on the top green card?
The pipe and orange things surounding the grafics card is this. And what do you mean about rotating the picture?
what are you doing to manage the ambient heat? seems like there isn't much in the design yet to get some good airflow through the rig
Lol exactly what I though when I saw that. . I already mentioned about cooling. In total there will be 3-4 fans which is certainly more than my current 2 fans. There might be a fan behind (aswell as one inside) the PSU. Also there will an 80mm intake. This kind of thing can only really be dealt with in real life and solved by experimentation. If there was still a problem with heat I'd have to think about ducting and the like.
In sketchup the middle mouse button, or in my case the mouse wheel (also a button), rotates the model with the orbit tool. I was tired and just got done spending several hours using stechup, so i middle clicked on you picture and tried to rotate it for a different view. Shift + middle mouse drags with the hand tool
Ahh handy tip that - cheers. I've done a bit more of the front. Put a 92mm fan and fan hole right in the middle, an 80mm fan on that back of the PSU. Added the DVD tray and eject button. The only problem is that the fan looks ugly without a grill and grills aren't the easiest things to draw in Sketchup (I imagine). Here are the latest case pics. Notice how I drew the DVD logo and beveled it outwards? Neat huh?
Yes it's easier to make 3D models in it than it is to draw diagrams in Paint. IE it's very easy and also pretty powerful if you want to do what it's best at doing. It's more of a design program then an art program so there are no rendering options. But you can make little walkthroughs which show your model my walking around it moving between different camera angles. It's pretty cool if you want to say, do a tour of a building. It's also pretty easy to draw things accuratley to more than mm presison. If I were you I'd view the online tutorial videos while downloading it.
*reads rules* ok fair enough... But at least mine has pictures. And it is in effect a log of an unfinished project with updates etc.
Sketchup is awsome. I first saw it in Jake^the^cake's project log and I've been messing with it ever since Very easy to use
Ummm the pictures you see of the case...? What I meant was at least mine isn't totally a dream project and has some form of existance even if it's not in this world And Ouija, that block is very nice. And just like pigdart I tried middle clicking to rotate it! Doh!
I also did this, even AFTER it was mentioned The GPU block is also in the same folder btw take a look
I was wondering what you used to make those cool drawings of your case to be. One question though, wouldn't it be better to put your front 92mm fan on the bottom of the case? That way it could help cool your PCI slots. Just a thought.
For the first question try reading the thread. But your second one is a good one. The reason I decided to put the fan in the middle is simply because the graphics card is in the way. There isn't enough space between the front of the case and the back of the card - even without the Zalman heatpipe cooler. I guess I could make the case a bit deeper but this case is supposed to be as small as possible.
