So i've been trying to plan another scratchbuild since I finished up my MiniITX build that i posted last week. I had a lot of fun planning and putting it all together, but decided I need to do something bigger. I know I can do something more complicated and more interesting for my main rig. So I went to work in SketchUp to plan this thing out. This is a first draft so if anyone has any input, it is all greatly appreciated. Also I haven't thought of a name for this scratchbuild yet. Not very good at the whole naming thing. So any ideas on that would help also. The hardware isn't really decided yet, so you will just see some example items i've thrown in for basic measurements. My basic goals are as follows: -larger case for upgradability -power supply on bottom of case -better cooling setup for hard drives -incorporate arduino board -cleaner exterior (little to no screw heads showing, only place will be on back, and will be minimal) So without further ado, here are some pictures of what I've come up with. Front shot The five yellow circles will be various buttons; power, reset, dvd eject, lights. My thoughts are to have the case powdercoated for final color, and all the yellow parts will be acrylic that is lit up with LEDs. Also there will be a window cut into this side panel, just running through the ideas in my head first. The four yellow cylinders between the base and main part of the case are acrylic tube, they will also be lit up. If deemed necessary for strength, I can add two more to support the weight of the system. From the back Side panel open Mounted on the back of the case inside you will see small silver box. That is just a place holder for door latch mechanism. it will be controlled by arduino with a button mounted on front panel. so no thumb screw hanging out of back to remove side panel. I haven't designed this part yet, but will probably be controlled by a servo. The panel will have guides, the servo will just control a pin to lock it in place. As for cooling, you will notice case is divided into two compartments. The bottom with psu will be 120mm mounted to floor, and will work with fan mounted in psu. top compartment will have two intakes. Large one on top is 200mm and smaller is 92mm mounted to hard drives and tunneled through there bracket. Will be using titan fenrir with 120mm fan to cool processor, and 120mm to exhaust air out the rear of case. Lower compartment open The lower compartment will be closed off with smoked acrylic to bring less attention to it. Down here will be most of the wiring. All peripheral wiring will be sleaved and go up behind motherboard tray and connect to drives. Also arduino and it's associated circuitry will be down here. A custom PCB will be made to clean up all it's detail so as to not have a piece of breadboard laying down here. Also, I haven't decided whether or not to add any front panel ports (usb,audio,...). Not sure if I want the clutter. Detail of interior Now you can see the 200mm top mounted fan better and also the brackets for cd/dvd drives and hard drives. Silver box mounted to front panel is for the buttons on front panel. The structure is mostly made up of quarter inch by half inch aluminum rods and will all be welded together to reduce screws/rivets. Overhead shot There won't be a large open hole over this fan in finale design. If you noticed from the earlier pictures the top and bottom repeat the same design. There is a .25 inch piece of acrylic that is sandwiched between 2 pieces of 1/16" aluminum. They will be lit with LED's, and the grill for the 200mm fan will probably be cut in the acrylic layer, with the 200mm hole in the aluminum layers. Rear side panel removed You can see the space back here for wiring. Mother board tray has over 1inch clearance from side panel. There will be holes made in tray to accommodate wiring running through to hide from the front. All sata cables will be custom cut and soldered to make as short as possible. Wiring for front panel buttons will also come out of this side of the silver box so as to now show from other side of case. Well that's everything for now. Would love to hear some feedback, and if any other pictures are wanted just ask away and i'll upload. I'm also willing to send sketchup file to anyone that is interested. It's 14.3 MB so make sure you can receive that size file in your e-mail.
nice design, black and yellow, dont see many new projects with that color scheme, a nice change of pace
Been playing around with some colors and think I'm liking this setup a little better. I would sleeve all the wires in the mdpc light blue sleeving, change all the plugs over to a light blue also. I've sourced all the .25" acrylic in light blue, but having trouble finding the tubing in light blue. Can this stuff be dyed?
