Concept 11 liter ITX airflow simplicity

BikingViking11

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Feb 10, 2019
93
167
Well if you live near Aarhus, we could look into that if i go into prototyping. I do not, however believe bending with steam is the way for small volume production. It will take too long to do manually. I am currently looking at have a milling-tool made to make v-shaped kerfing-slits to allow for bending of off the shelf plywood. This will create tighter radius and enable a wider selection of outer shells.
I am a very long way from Aarhus. My apologies, I wasn't offering my services to build cases, just saying that I'd like to make one similar. I enjoy challenges like that.
 

Marvelm

Cable-Tie Ninja
Oct 20, 2017
232
106
I don't like how you shortened the case to fit only the really short ITX gpus, I would really like to see it be able to accomodate Zotac mini gpus and alike (~220mm), maybe even 235-240 seeing as many new RTX cards fall into this category.
 

Henrik_N

Chassis Packer
Original poster
Mar 2, 2019
15
77
I don't like how you shortened the case to fit only the really short ITX gpus, I would really like to see it be able to accomodate Zotac mini gpus and alike (~220mm), maybe even 235-240 seeing as many new RTX cards fall into this category.
I was very set on those lengths excatly (220-ish), because i find the 2060 interesting for a render-type of guy as myself, hoping the ray-tracing will be available for some of the 3d-modeling-tools soon. However many of these 220-ish cards is very tall, which caused my chassis to get wider and wider as i tested the proper internals (especially when adding cables...). I still go back and forth with what i believe is correct.
This is gorgeous.. Are you planning on prototyping and running a buy?
Thank you. I'm thinking about it - looking for options. Prototyping is not impossible, but production may be a bit too costly to do in Denmark, so i would have to get a highly efficient design going. But that is my style - I am just not that familiar with the tolerances of bending metal, so i will have to wait and see. I would like to avoid welding and milling from blocks, and just have parts done by lasercutting and bending. And then the enclosure done with milling if in wood of cause. The front fabric i currently have drawn with a plastic-mesh frame (To avoid it being sucked into the fans) - but that would be slow an inefficient on a 3d printer, and injection molds would require quite the amount to be made. I may look for a metal option. or wood...
 

Henrik_N

Chassis Packer
Original poster
Mar 2, 2019
15
77
Well - Here, a long way down the road, i have assembled my first version of the design interior. I was quite far with the internal layout design in a metal version, but ended up with a acrylic version due to access to a lasercutter at work. This is only meant to be the internal case for all the parts. I still plan on doing an outer layer in wood as on the original renders. Maybe tainted black for a cleaner setup in total. However the acrylic for now is quite fun. Also it showcases the quite neatly arranged wires. I will try to make some better images one day. These was just quick shots during assembly. Erh, to be totally honest, these shots are a few months old, but i still plan to take better pictures.
Some key details:
The small square holes in the sides, top and bottom are for routing cables. I made small acrylic clips which snap into the holes to keep the cables neat.
I was planning to use the NH-L12s for the CPU but it ended up colliding with the PSU. I was so worried for the ram, but apparently the L12s extends further than the motherboard.
The case length was increased late in the design to accommodate the PowerColor RX5700XT, which i allowed since it just gives a sqaure sideprofile.
Some specs:
PSU: Corsair SF600
MB: GIGABYTE X570 I Aorus Pro Wifi
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 (If i ever actually do need the power at home i would go for Ryzen 9 3950X - i know the cooler is on the small side, but i would take the performance hit just for the extra cores.)
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3200 - 32GB
SSD: Crucial P1 3D NAND NVMe - 1TB
GPU: PowerColor RX5700XT 8GB
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D9L
Cabinet Cooler: Noctua NF-A14 PWM chromax




 

Kmpkt

Innovation through Miniaturization
KMPKT
Feb 1, 2016
3,382
5,936
I've been playing with a similar idea for ages. Would be curious to know what thermals would be like with the entire case inverted to the GPU is upwards facing.
 

CC Ricers

Shrink Ray Wielder
Bronze Supporter
Nov 1, 2015
2,234
2,557
I've seen clear acrylic cases being a thing since the mid-2000's, and used to think they were kind of tacky looking. Turns out though, that was all in the build itself with too-bright LEDs and messy cables. Your case looks really nice and those cable clips are pretty nifty to have in a clear case.
 
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Weredawg

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Apr 5, 2017
119
162
So glad this project is still running. I'd be beyond thrilled if you ended up getting a product that resembled the original renders with a wood and cloth aesthetic
 

newtothegame

Average Stuffer
Sep 1, 2018
68
84
I've just learned about this project and have been reading through the design process and choices. I gotta say that I really liked your original render, I believe you had something special going on there (especially with the one with the front centered audio jack out and usb port). But I understand what has led you to change your mind. Nonetheless, in my non-industrial designer opinion, I think your idea works better as a vertical rectangular case and is being 'hindered' by the standard graphics card length. Your acrylic assembly seems to show how the volume is increased considerably just because of one element (could that be solved by only supporting ITX graphics card lengths and using slimmer front panel fans?).

You probably have already considered and discarded this idea but in a way it'd be cool to rotate the motherboard 90º anticlockwise and leave the graphics card in a vertical position. It's a terrible trade off between usability (IO at the bottom) and aesthetics so I'd say this is more of a desire to see other vertical airflow cases like the Corsair One or something with the looks of the next Xbox series X, than a wise design choice.

Keep it up and best of lucks.
 
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eromelcm

Case Bender
Aug 13, 2019
2
0
Wow. That metal enclosure with rounded corners , that unique speaker cloth front, the way the enclosure extends past the back slightly to help hide screws/cables…aesthetically this case is just beautiful. I only have mixed feelings on the front corner IO. The rest of the design is so beautifully minimalistic that it stands out a little. I would not mind having zero front IO for something that looks this nice.

The layout is wonderfully simple and your prototype looks great. That’s some nice cable management. Personally, I would still hope for a version of this case that is closer to the initial more compact renderings. Mini GPUs are still all I need.

Nevertheless, great work! SFF needs more cases that don’t rely on riser cables or exotic power supplies. Keep it up :)
 
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OJtheTiny

Minimal Tinkerer
New User
Apr 9, 2020
3
1
damn, this looks nice, especially the wooden "ikea" look. Little concerned about the GPU thermals though, but with high enough RPM on the bottom front fan it should just passively push it out the back. Great work