Cases Working On A Design Proposal Fractal Design - Proposal v1.0 posted

Honestly I signed up to these forums just to commend your on the design. I think your revision to the r3 is brilliant, especially your attention to improving water cooling friendliness of the r3. I also wanted to ket you know I'm currently working on modding an r3 to support water cooling, with 2x240 rads and one 120 rad to support my dual loop setup for CPU and sli gtx580s. When it's done I'll post some photos up, maybe you'll find some inspiration in em. And fractal design if you guys are still following this thread, seriously consider randomheros design, it address many if not all the issues I've heard from owners and potential buyers.

Best of luck to you random

 

I own a Arc Mini i would like to see bottom HDD Caddys Removable, and window options

 

I like the way this thread is going. I'm a n00b , so I'll ask the n00b questions. Your patience would be most appreciated.

Topic 1:
Would it be better to specialise the evolution of the different cases?

Thinking:
R3 -> R4 - Specialise towards air cooling. Compact. Efficient. Obstruction to airflow should be minimised. This will be aimed at the mass market?

XL -> XL2 - Specialise more towards water cooling. Bit larger and bulkier to accomodate the rads. Bit of mass market, mostly aimed at enthusiasts who know what they're doing.

Topic 2:
Rotated 3.5" sounds good. Will that still feature the drive bay mountings? (and therefore remain tool-less-ish?)

For the XL2, would the 5.25" silencers be in-built? Like the silicon mounting?
Can you get a 5.25 -> 3.5 converter/mounting silencing thing at little extra cost? Make it a standard for all but two of the slots.
From the 'shop design, I see in the XL2 a potential for 3 cages of 3x5.25" bays. Bearing in mind that the original currently holds 4x5.25" and 10x3.5", surely the new XL2 would have to match or exceed that?

For the R4, make it 2 rotatable cages of 4HDDs and leave it as is?

Topic 3:
Cable routing...
Bigger holes or more holes?
Are the silicone covers worth it?
Removing them might make a saving? (Or is that very minor?)

Topic 4:
We have a fan at the bottom of the R3. Maybe raise the legs a whee bit more to get better air? Removable dust filter for that fan too?
Removable dust filter for the PSU is a bit awkward (it's where you would grab the case if you were picking it up). Can anything be done about this?