Hi All, Thought I'd post a little log of the HTPC case I am currently working on. This is my first attempt at a project of this scale, and thus my first work log (although i have been lurking about on bit-tech for some time). Basically, I decided a little while ago that I really _needed_ a HTPC. I came up with the spec I wanted (thanks in no small part to bit-tech reviews) and started happily buying bits. When I came to the case, I couldn't find anything of the right kind of size that wasn't either hideous or hideously expensive....so made the decision to try and make it myself. This isn't a build thats going to blow anyones mind, but then it's not meant to. The whole idea is to create something small, unobtrusive and (hopefully!) classy looking. The Guts: J&W Minix mini-itx mobo AMD Athlon AM2 e4850 2gig Crucial SO-DIMM OCZ 30gig SSD Sony notebook dvd drive Zalman CNPS7000C Cooler PicoPSU 100w I've had these components for a couple of months now without having time to start on this project, so I actually buckled and hooked it all up, and have been running it on an old motherboard tray for a couple of weeks. Works like a charm, but looks a state. Initial state, sitting on an old mobo tray under my TV. The Plan: Well, as it's my first attempt at making a case from scratch, it follows that it's also my first time with sketchup. I spent more time than I really had trying to figure out how to use this to do a full on perfect design, but after a while I gave up and went with a "just get your ideas down" approach. As you can see, I have gone with a really simple design for this, trying to leave as little to go wrong as possible. Couple of views of the case in sketchup View of it exploded - should probably thank the contributers to the sketchup components thread here - as you can see I used a couple of their components This is about as simple and compact a design as I could think of. I wanted it to be as modular as possible so I can take it apart/modify bits as I need, which is how I arrived at the above design. My main concern around it is the airflow - I wasn't (and am still not) convinced that having the exhaust fan where it is will be very useful. I expect I'll probably have to play around with adding some baffling to try and improve flow... The Hard Part Well, having finally got some free time to work on this, I descended on my poor long suffering parents to avail myself of home cooking and my dads garage, which contains about every tool one could ever need. I also pressed him into helping me out. One tool I didn't have which I decided I could probably do with after reading a few logs on here was a bending brake. Had a bit of a look around and found one on ebay for £25 which seemed ideal for my limited needs. new toy - 18" bending brake Updates: Update 1 - Motherboard tray Update 2 - Backplate Update 3 - Baseplate Update 4 - Drive Cage
Update 1 - Motherboard Tray I decided to start on the motherboard tray, as I figured it would probably be the easiest part. I salvaged all the material for this section from an old case I had lying about, which saved money, but ended up adding effort. Step one was to take the full atx motherboard tray I had been using in my temporary HTPC setup and cut it down to meed my mini itx needs. This took a lot longer than expected - I cut down the dimensions, then added a 10mm lip all the way around the tray to allow it to slide into the baseplate (thats something for later). When I finished with that, I unfortunately found that the square holes cut into the tray for the original standoffs were no longer in the right place, so I had to drill and tap some new holes for some more standoffs. After several hours of cutting. filing and bending, I ended up with something that at least closely resembled what I was after. Mobo tray - includes 10mm lip which can't really be seen from this angle I hit a bit of a snag here - nothing major, but an annoyance. When I had finished my filing, I flipped the tray over and discovered that I had damaged the surface quite a bit from pressing down on the metal shavings left on my work surface from cutting. I know that this will be concealed, but I still wanted it to look fairly clean so I had a go at tidying it up with a dremel polishing attachment. post clean up - not a raging success As you can probably see, not a huge success - any suggestions on the best way to get rid of surface scratches would be appreciated, some of the scratches are fairly deep.
Update 2 - Backplate Next in line is the backplate. As with the motherboard tray, the material for this came from an old case - this time the base of an atx case. First job for this was to drill out the rivets holding it to its donor case, then cut out the section I wanted to work with. The tool of the day here was definitely a jigsaw with a metal cutting blade. I started out with a cut off disk on a dremel, which worked but was very tiresome. Tried the jigsaw on a piece of scrap metal (I thought it would bend/tear the metal which is why I didn't initially use it), and it did a great job. Really sped up the cutting out process. start point, a nice hacked out piece of aluminium. Started out measuring and cutting the slot for the motherboard backplate to pop into. Again, used the jigsaw for this cut bu drilling holes in the corners of the area I wanted to cut out. post cut and file Next up was doing something about the area the fan was going to connect to. As you can see in the above image, theres an area on the piece of alu i am using which already has some holes etc cut into it, as thats where the speaker was mounted in the donor case. Made the decision to just take this a bit further and add some extra holes, and place the fan in approximately the same place. That done, the backplate was clamped to the 10mm lip I'd bent on the mobo tray ready for riveting. additional holes drilled for fan, clamped ready for riveting After drilling some holes straight through the backplate and the lip on the motherboard tray, I riveted the two pieces together. I tried mounting the motherboard on at this point to make sure it all lined up...and it did. Total relief - but then I hd been really worried about this so did a lot of measuring. couple of pictures of the mobo tray and backplate with motherboard mounted.
the fan vent looks a little constrictive, i would open that right up, as it would reduce noise and create better air flow.
Thanks for that burnout - I'll definitely take a look at that when I get to the "cleanup" stage. Currently trying to get most of the big stuff done while I have the time and access to the required tools Update 3 - Baseplate With the motherboard tray and backplate pretty much done, I moved on to making the base plate for the case. More salvage for this section, the piece of alu I am using started life as a Lian Li side panel - I was worried it would be a bit thin, but it seems sturdy enough having finished with it. First off I removed the side tabs from the panel, then marked out the areas I wanted to cut/bend for my final layout. ex side plate being used as base plate, tabs removed and extra cuts marked out With that all marked out, I also marked where I wanted my DVD drive and power buttons to be (as the baseplate also includes the support for the front panel), then did my cutting. base plate all cut out and ready to bend I then whacked the plate on my bending brake and put in the first bend. At this point I realised that I had made my first major(ish) mistake of the project...I had been marking and cutting on the back of the plate, then flipped it over to do my bend. I measured several times to make sure everything was right...but in a moment of complete idiocy I forgot that I was looking at the back (inside) of the panel. Having put my bend in, this became painfully obvious. drive slot and power button hole on the wrong sides After swearing a bit, I decided to carry on with my bending and save this problem for later. Next job was to bend out the tabs on the side of the panel which are intended to be used to affix the side plates. Had a real nightmare here due to the size of the tab I was trying to bend up and the rather inappropriate clamps I am using to hold the bending bar on the metal. Ended up having to do a lot of work with a hammer to try and sort the bends out. Not entirely happy with the result, but at least its about the right shape! side tabs bent in The last thing I managed to get done in this session was to add some runners for the motherboard tray to slide into. For this, I simply got some aluminium channel and riveted it onto the baseplate in the appropriate places. aluminium channel added as motherboard tray runners with the motherboard slid into place My next tasks to tackle are to sort out my mistake on the front panel support and add a drive cage. I also need to add some angle to the sides of the baseplate for the side panels to hook onto.
The 'inside/outside/top/bottom' problem gets me every time. You are not alone, but you may be a little dyslexic.
Update 4 - Drive Cage Update 4 - Drive Cage With the bulk of the chassis complete, I moved on to creating a drive cage to hold my ssd and slim DVD drive. The DVD drive in particular represented something of an issue as its a rather strange structure, and uses tiny tiny screws (I guess that's what you get for using notebook drives). The only real constraint on the cage was that I wanted it to be easy to adjust the drives, and to be able to add another ssd in there as and when they become bigger and cheaper. As previously mentioned, most of this work is taking place during visits to my parents to use my dads tools. As a result of this, he has been getting involved as a helper (and I am sure I don't need to tell any of you what a godsend an extra pair of hands is sometimes when cutting and drilling things). Mostly he was happy just to help with what I was doing, but on this occasion he felt he had a better idea for a drive cage than me. I disagreed, resulting in us parting ways to each do our own design and see which worked out better My approach was to create a simple frame which I could screw trays into. As I was getting somewhat tired of working with bits of scrap metal, I decided to try and use some of the aluminium I bought for the outer casing. Problem one was encountered fairly immediately, the aluminium I have is way too thin to be any kind of supporting structure, (its only 0.8mm, which I am also worried will be too thin for the casing) so I decided to double it over and bond it together to give double thickness. Bending my strip of aluminium to get started Hammering it flat to give me a double thickness piece Now that I had a thicker piece of aluminium, I did a couple of simple bends to give my basic structure. Basic shape of drive cage I then did the same thing again with a smaller strip of aluminium to give me a tray to go in the cage. Getting it the right size to fit inside was surprisingly tricky, required some very careful measurements for the bend points Cage with a tray in place So far so good. All I needed to do now was drill some holes in the cage and the tray, then tap the holes on the tray so I could screw it into place rather than rivet, to allow me to get the trays in and out easily. This is where the idea all fell apart - turns out the metal is just too soft, and the thread just got ruined as soon as i tried to screw something into it. While I was scratching my head over how to get round this (considered bonding some bolts onto the inside of the tray to screw into, among other things), my dad came sauntering over with the cage he knocked up out of some bits cut from my donor case. Alternative drive cage, complete with bolts and grooves for adjusting the position of the dvd drive I don't have any pics of it being made as I wasn't doing it, but you can see that the drives sit quite nicely in it...and I was forced to admit defeat. Having decided to go with this alternative cage, the next task was to attach it into the baseplate. Simple enough - put some holes in the base and screw into the tapped holes on the bottom of the cage. For this to work, had to screw in from the underside, but I don't think thats a terribly big deal. Drive cage secured to baseplate Having got that all finished, I did a bit of tidying/prep work for the next step. First off I rectified the mistake I made earlier on in the project, by recutting the slot for the DVD drive and the hole for the power button. Cuts in the right place this time... Finished off by riveting some angle to the sides of the baseplate for the side panels to hook onto. Side tabs for panels to hook onto So, thats the chassis pretty much complete (barring some cleanup of course). Next thing I will be looking to work on will be the side and front panels....and I am hoping for some help here. The metal I purchased is 0.8mm aluminium. I think this will prove to be too thin, and had intended to double it over to counter this problem. However, after working with the metal to try and create the drive cage I am concerned that it is also too soft. Now, this is my first time working with metal so I am not sure, but I am assuming the stuff I have is not the right type of alloy? The bits of aluminium salvaged from my donor case are much harder, despite being not much thicker. I guess theres different grades of aluminium, anyone got any light they could shine on this, or any particular type of aluminium alloy I would be better off using? My other concern is cutting the DVD slot in the front panel - obviously I need to keep the cut out section to act as the drive cover, but I have no idea how I would do a clean enough cut to enable this. I have seen alot of people get this section professionally cut, but I'd like to avoid that really, as the whole project has been an excersize in budget case making. Anyone done this before and got any tips on the best way to do this (other than the obvious, which is just to dremel it out with extreme care ). By the way, apologies if this log is getting a bit wordy - got a bit carried away.
Your aluminium is just toooo thin. I reccommend you to use at least 1.5mm alu and better 2 or 3mm alu.
