SlimITX Gaming Enclosure (Case Design from Scratch)

haha i havent done anything except point out things you guys had already considered. :) and for some reason i thought you were using aluminum, not steel. 1.6mm steel is definitely enough.

also, those bars going across wont do much to support the top if theyre just flat like that. if you used a channel or angle then it would make it a lot stronger. if the case is steel then you probably dont even need it though.
 
ekuest said:
haha i havent done anything except point out things you guys had already considered. :) and for some reason i thought you were using aluminum, not steel. 1.6mm steel is definitely enough.

also, those bars going across wont do much to support the top if theyre just flat like that. if you used a channel or angle then it would make it a lot stronger. if the case is steel then you probably dont even need it though.
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I originally intended to use aluminum, but cmadki4 offered to laser cut my parts if I use steel :)

You're right about the bars, they either need standoffs tying them into the base or they need to be a T or U extrusion or something. It's just that any kind of extrusion is going to cut into the free height inside the case and I need to check the clearances with all the other components first
 
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Great assembly drawing!

I can tell you with confidence that 1.6mm material, after bent and welded, will be more than enough to hold the weight of any component you would likely place on top of it without any supports.

But if you absolutely want the supports, rather than have piece that bolts into the case chassis, draw in support ribs to the cover. Small vertical pieces, 1.6mm wide and 6 to 10mm tall. Same location as the existing supports, but welded to the underside of the cover. That way they'll come off with the cover. One would be fine.

SPHC is a Japanese standard. Steel Plate Hot Commercial. It's just a carbon hot rolled steel.

As far as refining the design, think about how you want to fasten the cover to the chassis.

Looking great! :cool:
 
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Based on this drawing with regards to laser cut parts, I'd say you're looking one piece for the front/bottom panel (1), the rear panel (2), the top cover (3) with supports (4), and the front panel (5).

Questions:
1. How will you fasten the cover to the chassis?
2. How will you fasten the front panel to the chassis?
3. How will you fasten the mesh to their perspective parts?

:cool:
 
yeah agree that you wont need supports with steel. and its always easy to add one or two ribs later if you find that it does end up sagging. im curious too about how you'll secure everything together. super glue or hot glue or even double sided tape works great for securing mesh, but holding the different panels together is going to be hard to do without sacrificing too much space.
 
ekuest said:
im curious too about how you'll secure everything together. super glue or hot glue or even double sided tape works great for securing mesh,
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Since you'll want the mesh to sit flush and secure, I'd say epoxy is your best bet, ex: JB Weld. I do have a 2.3mm thick mesh w/ 3mm diameter holes that I could weld in there. But if you're wanting to add a finer mesh it will need to be epoxied or adhered in.

ekuest said:
but holding the different panels together is going to be hard to do without sacrificing too much space.
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I believe he'll have most of the panels made from one piece or welded together.

As far as mounting the cover I'd recommend adding a lip around the front panel for the cover to sit on and keyhole type pockets for the cover to slide into and lock into place with thumbs screws on the rear panel like a traditional case.
 
cmadki4 said:
Since you'll want the mesh to sit flush and secure, I'd say epoxy is your best bet, ex: JB Weld. I do have a 2.3mm thick mesh w/ 3mm diameter holes that I could weld in there. But if you're wanting to add a finer mesh it will need to be epoxied or adhered in.



I believe he'll have most of the panels made from one piece or welded together.

As far as mounting the cover I'd recommend adding a lip around the front panel for the cover to sit on and keyhole type pockets for the cover to slide into and lock into place with thumbs screws on the rear panel like a traditional case.
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You seem to read my mind.... I was planning on thumb screws with some little flaps for attaching the cover.

The front panel is going to be a little different because we are required to CNC one part of our project. So we will be CNC'ing the front panel from a nice chunk of aluminum. It will be black anodized to add some flavor to the case

I had planned on attaching the mesh with hot glue or something similar for the front panel and top panels which are removable, and we may be making some kind of removable carrier for the mesh under the video card since that's not so easily removable to clean.

These are pretty minor things... the important thing I need to do over the next few days is make sure the critical dimensions are correct, and make sure it will be easy to install all the components.
 
yottabit said:
The front panel is going to be a little different because we are required to CNC one part of our project. So we will be CNC'ing the front panel from a nice chunk of aluminum. It will be black anodized to add some flavor to the case
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Nice. What kind of machines do you have at your school?

I'm sure this is something you've already considered, but it would be good to mill a pocket on the backside of the front panel slightly larger than your mesh. That way your front panel will mount flush with the mesh attached. That's going to look good with the chamfered edges. :cool:
 
Got the IGES files and doing dimensionals and then flat conversions. I'll be sure to photograph the case through the process as best I can. Going to be a very cool (literally and figuratively) little case!
base_01.jpg
 
looks great. when you're done send it out to Lian Li, Antec and/or Corsair so the rest of us can have them :D
 
Thanks again for all the interest and input everyone! I've been really busy with other projects between school and work lately, but I imagined to get the dimensions of the models finalized enough to get them to cmadki4 for his work to start, and he's been a great help every step of the way.

In the time between now and when he's completed actual case we'll be tweaking the final details of the design, such as what power button and front ports and how we will mount them, a bracket to capture the tab at the end of the video card, and CNC machining the front fascia.
 
Final drawings awaiting your approval before flattening. Everything seems to unfold nicely, even after importing via IGES. Should go smoothly.

The base:
base_01-1.jpg


The rear panel:
backpanel_01.jpg


The top cover:
top_01.jpg


Drawings are intentionally uploaded at low resolution for intellectual property rights of yottabit.
 
Yottabit, here's an update. Your parts were lasered, bent and welded up over the weekend. Looking good. Still a little welding to do to fine tune it and and ensure that everything fits properly. Now, have you decided about powder coating?

Cutting on the old offline laser:
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The front panel:
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DSCN2635.jpg


Top cover:
DSCN2641.jpg

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Having my welder do a little adjusting to the back panel to ensure the GPU fits properly. This was a relatively hard piece to make.
DSCN2638.jpg


All designs, pictures and final product are the intellectual property of the OP, yottabit.
 
That's beautiful work! It's so exciting to see the project coming together! We'd like to do the black powdercoat on all the parts.
 
Yes, it sure is! Once all the welding is complete I'll put it on the line for black powder coating. Should have this to you by the end of the week.
 
Just had your parts hung up on the line. Just happened to be switching over to black when I pick up the case from the welder. Should be hot and ready right after lunch!

DSCN2658.jpg
 
Looking forward to seeing that baby powder coated. It's finally coming together :)
 
Powder coating is done! :D Here's just a teaser until yottabit gets his hands on it:
DSCN2667.jpg
 
Looks beautiful, as expected! :D

So everyone gets an idea what will be happening now, once I receive the case I'll need to drill and tap some holes and confirm all the components fit as intended. Then there are some finishing touches I need to put on the design, such as a retaining mechanism for the end of the graphics card slot, the setup for the power switch/front ports we want, and machining the removable front fascia, along with installing the mesh.

Additionally, we'll be doing a whole slew of thermal testing to validate the design, and from there on it's just writing engineering reports...
 
Looks great although the powdercoat looks a little light, maybe it's just the reflection from the flash?
 
This is so damn amazing! Tell me, how many watts is that badass laser? It takes quite a bit to cut steel.... :D

Seriously though, this is one mean looking case.
 
Blahman said:
Looks great although the powdercoat looks a little light, maybe it's just the reflection from the flash?
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Flash and it's not a pitch black. But it was either that, textured white or fixture red. :) If all else fails the power coat can be lightly sanded and spray painted to color match, as it will still make for a very durable finish.
 
cmadki4 said:
Flash and it's not a pitch black. But it was either that, textured white or fixture red. :) If all else fails the power coat can be lightly sanded and spray painted to color match, as it will still make for a very durable finish.
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I figured I would just color match the front fascia to the rest of the case. May be a bit hard to get exactly the right color if we anodize the front fascia, but I think we'll figure something out :) For the price cmadki4 made my case I'd take any finish except polka dot
 
Got the case in today and it is beautiful :) It also is "black" by my standard for sure, I think it was the camera that was doing funky things earlier.

I'll need to clean up some of the holes and drill/tap the rest of them, as well as make a couple little mounting tabs before I get the system up in running in the case. I mocked things up very preliminarily and everything seems to fit. Look for a big update in the next few days.

Many thanks to cmadki4 for making this project possible!
 
Alrighty then. Got the important holes cleared out and tapped and got everything mounted up in the actual case for the first time. There are some minor issues (apparently my fan mounting screw locations were slightly off) and I still need to figure out a way to drill and tap the holes for the video card mounting bracket, but all the critical dimensions line up and everything bolts together rather nicely :)
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Trouble holes
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Temporary risers for base

The case needed some kind of feet (to provide intake air for the GPU and clear the standoffs etc) and I was toying with the idea of risers instead that run the length of the case, so I double sticky taped some thin bars of aluminum to the base. I really like how it works! It makes it easy to slide the desktop across your case rather than drag it like a case with feet would. The case has enough weight to it that it won't move around on it's own, either. It's very hefty (Solidworks calculated 8.3 lbs empty) and definitely will support an LCD monitor without deflecting much at all.

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Improvised fan shroud
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[
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GPU intake on bottom


Dusted off the VCR for a size comparison:
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Under monitor
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It's still a work in progress of course. We need to machine the removable front plate, figure out how to mount the front switch and whatever front ports we want, set up the filter mesh, and then do loads of thermal testing. After that it's just report writing and gaming :)

Also the cat took an interest:
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If anyone wants to donate some black metal mesh that would be a huge help! Otherwise I'll be buying some soon. Thanks again to cmadki4 for making the enclosure :) The mesh and the front fascia should really tie the look together.

As always let me know your thoughts and questions!!!
 
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you can find some awesome black metal mesh by buying a trash can or storage crate at your local home furnishing store and cutting out some flat faces. it'll be faster and probably cheaper than ordering online. i know some modders do that and really like it.
 
ekuest said:
you can find some awesome black metal mesh by buying a trash can or storage crate at your local home furnishing store and cutting out some flat faces. it'll be faster and probably cheaper than ordering online. i know some modders do that and really like it.
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+ this. I've done this before and it works quite nicely. I picked up a mesh desktop organizer from Goodwill that had a bunch of medium-large flat pieces.

But it's looking great! Some of the holes were not cut, because the laser was having trouble with regulating its cutting power: i.e. had full-out and super-low, but was having trouble cutting stable in between for small diameters. So the holes that were big enough were cut on high and the smaller holes were marked in the low power setting. Problem is, the low power markings got covered up by powder coating. Ooops!
 
ekuest said:
you can find some awesome black metal mesh by buying a trash can or storage crate at your local home furnishing store and cutting out some flat faces. it'll be faster and probably cheaper than ordering online. i know some modders do that and really like it.
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Another even cheaper method is to get some black aluminum screen door material from your local hardware store. It looks fantastic, has almost zero air resistance, and you can cut it with a pair of scissors.
 
Thanks for the suggestions guys! I saw screen door material today but it's too thin for what I want to do. I need something with some structure to it as the mesh is also going to prevent debris from falling into the CPU area. I had some great Aluminum mesh that would have been perfect, but I seem to have misplaced it... I'll keep my eye out for a donor piece of home furnishing..
 
Hmm... I'm contemplating rewiring the PSU to clean things up a bit. What do you all think?

I'd be removing the fdd connector and a 4 pin molex connector, along with the P4 connector and in its place adding an extra 6 pin PCIe connector
 
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