Hi all, this is one simple mod for saving space in my office. I got bit bored with my router and fileserver taking too much place, so I decided to put them in one big tower case. Idea was to use 6x5.25" space for second motherboard (matx or baby at) and to make psu holder for 2 psu's. First I tought to put them in Chieftec big tower case, but Chieftec was on 24/7 so I had to find replacement... This one was in my basement waiting to be found , bit tower AT case not much of a case - but it will do nicely... or I just thought so Case wasn't deep enough to house MB and PSU inline , this almost got me cancelling the mod. But after talking to some people I finally got idea to push the psu's 4 cm out of the case... As you can see - now there is room for MB to be fitted... This is all that is done so far, now I have to make plate that holds motherboard, and to decide how to mount it inside. regards....
Looking good. I like the use of the rusty old screws. Reminds me of my 5 gallon (thats about 19 liters for the metric community) of old bolts, nuts, random stuff I've gathered over the years. I have a similar case sitting empty in my closet, so I'll be watching this one!
could be interesting! personally i would use a slightly wider case and put the cases in head to toe config so the cpu on one board is at the top, and the cpu on the other is at the bottom, this saves space, and means its not as tall but if you dont have height limits what your doing is gooood i like what youve done with the psu's, makes it look really different!
thnx... here's small update At first I wanted to make slide-in box for second MB (box like 6x5.25" cd-roms), so I could easily remove machine if necessery. This can be easily done for Chieftec big tower, but this tower has small 'holders' for 5.25" device that must be cut for this box to fit as this could take too much time - I just went for second-best solution. I found old MB plate from baby at case that holds this SOYO MB just fine. This somehow cancelled slide-in box idea for now, but this is just test project so I could see what kind of problems I can run into when building system like this. Right now I'm looking for screws long enough to hold MB in place...
So one mobo up top in front of the two PSUs, and the other down in the "real" mobo position? Where are the IO plate/PCI card slots for the top mobo going to go? On the front where the optical drive bays were, or on the top of the case? Or no external IO plate at all? Looks interesting!
There will be no IO plate top MB will have only 2 LAN cables connected after instalation. There was one 'sketch' of this system with second mobo placed where PSUs are now, and PSUs placed in tunnel in between two MBs. However this would take too much time to fabricate and would require hard modding to the PSUs. As this is supposed to be 24/7 machine - that option is not acceptable because of possible failures of PSUs and hard job replacing them. small update for today: I managed to test will MB fit inside case... looks tight but guess there will be no problem
Hi all I managed to make holders for MB plate. It's not as good as I hoped to be but it'll do. Seems like my calculations were too tight and there isn't too much room between PSUs and cards in upper MB...
If you look at the first pic, the case is big enough to mod the front of the case some more and make it so that the cd roms we at the bottom of the case, there is defanatly the space there
There will be no opticals, space isn't the problem, but I really don't need optical drives in these machines.... here's installation... and case packed with both machines I have some cabling to do, but generally this is 'almost done'
Personally I would have put the psu’s at the bottom front of the case and run extensions to the rear for the power in cables, just ditch the hdd and floppy caddy if there wasn’t room, and run the drives in the optical bays with extensions. I’m gaining bits and pieces to do a duel pc myself, just trying to find a starting point. I don’t fancy a from scratch case build. I initially had the idea of head to toe mounting, but it kind of diminishes the eye candy factor having two mb mounting plates facing out, plus I figured heat would be an issue with everything in close proximity and I’m sure crap airflow.
how about building up an are on the top of the case for you to mount some optical drives like putting your cd rom drive on the top of your case and then making an enclosure almost and you could curve the back and cut a small hole big enough for your ide cable and power cable? Just an idea have no idea how well that it work good luck
