Log 5L Time Slayer

[aromachi]

Time to build a new case for my gaming setup. Doing this purely for fun. My previous attempt at a case was using a full-size power supply and I got it to 8.9L. Been looking for a decent flex psu for about a year, and now that I finally have one my brain has gone into full design-mode. After a couple weeks I had 3 designs on the table. All 3 were under 6L, but THIS one was under 5L. Well, not a true 5L because I'm extending the stock AMD cooler outside of the case, which is always something that I've wanted to try. I've seen other builds that do it and I think it looks amazing. This thing will have 7 fans total if you count the cpu fan and 2 on the 1660TI lol. Gotta try it!! Finalized the design on paper and went out and bought the materials and a few new tools. Time to build!

Final Case Dimensions:
115mm x 192mm x 246mm (+.239L for external fan) (lengths edited to reflect size of corner braces and screw heads)

Total volume= 5.67L

Hardware going into case:
4x 92mm Arctic case fans
Asrock AB350 itx w/ Ryzen 5 1600
16GB G.Skill DDR4 3200
Zotac 1660TI
1TB Silicon Power M.2 2280
Athena Power Flex 350w

To-do list:
build mount for Mobo & Gfx boards
grind down ram heatsinks ~ 3mm
cut side panel mounts
Build mesh case for psu
cut side panels & fan mesh
drill holes for psu mounting screws
Paint everything
buy thinner air filters ?
design a power switch
cut/shrinkwrap unwanted psu cords

pullin components out of old case

frame pieces cut out by hand, sanded, cleaned

assemble!

Test fitting the fans. Held in by friction alone. Measurements seem good. I might trim that framing up top a bit to let more air in around the fan blades.

Flex fits good.

I cut some squares out of a steel sheet to reinforce the 3-way joints. The case already seems pretty solid, but this is going to be a dense build. I don't want anything coming apart.

Pretty cool looking. Should make the joints a lot stronger too.

All attached. All of my JB welds will be fully cured by morning. Next up, design and cut the motherboard mount.

 

[aromachi]

Mobo tray finally cut. Those lines are pretty rough. I'll take a file to them and see if I can clean them up a bit. Jigsaw had a rough time with that steel.

Reason for the cutouts is to make more room for the riser and help with airflow.

test fitting the mobo again. i'll have to mount the tray to the front side of the frame I think. I need to cut out some braces.

Welds are holding fine, so I test fit the tray. Looks good. Luckily those horrid cuts will be covered by the mobo itself. I need to trim those bolts flush.

There we go. That steel is solid. Surprisingly sturdy mount despite the lack of attachments on the other side. I'll let those welds cure overnight before testing the weight of the motherboard on them. I have just enough clearance for a small mount near the top on the other side. I'll have to devise something.

 

[aromachi]

Motherboard is in with about half a mm of clearance above the psu. Awesome.

Plenty of room for the riser cable up top. Time to mount the GPU. There are 4 open holes in the GPU board, but I should only need 3 of them.

GPU is mounted and all parts are shoved in. Holy moly everything fits! 5L !!! That fan in the lower corner is pushing on the GPUs IO bracket and pushing everything left ever so slightly. I'll shave the fan casing down a little to remedy that. And there's a nut that needs shaved (lol) about 1mm that is pushing on the nvme drive behind the mobo. I'll grind it down a bit while I'm grinding down the ram heatsinks.

Looking forward to modifying that PSU and removing unwanted cables.

I'll be pulling the 40mm fan out of the PSU and modifying it's case to allow for these two bottom fans to serve as coolers. I'm still deciding on whether an exhaust or intake setup would be better at the bottom. I'm leaning toward exhaust, which would also greatly aid the gpu.

Intake or exhaust for top fans.. Probably intake. Not sure yet. Need to experiment.

Gone on business for 3 days, so project is on hold for now. Next up: trim a few things down to get the gpu fitting perfect, then test fit the riser cable. Then start cutting small mounting tabs out of sheet metal to secure around the framing so I have something to screw the side panels to. Side panels will be fitted flush with the outside framing.

 

[aromachi]

I don't think anybody cares, but I'm still having a blast so I'm gonna keep this log going!

Shaved the RAM heatsinks down.

CPU heatsink will be flush with the sidewall with the fan mounted on the outside. Those RAM sticks won't interfere now.

Cutting out some side pieces by hand..

Derp. Cut that piece backwards.

Had a cut a whole new piece. WTB CNC machine.

Every side is cut out, and I like how this metal mesh is looking.

I tried putting a layer of filter foam between the fans and mesh but it interfered with the fans. I'll either have to buy some super thin filters or put the foam on the backside of these fans.

Tiny custom bracket to keep the top fans from sagging.

I ordered some neodymium magnets to keep the sidewalls in place. I considered screws but I think internally mounted magnets should make for a cleaner look. Sadly magnets don't work on aluminum so I'll have to attach some tiny steel tabs to the inside of the side walls.

Next on my to-do list: Need to cut out holes and affix mesh to several locations on the sides. Both the GPU intake fans, and side exhaust fans will need mesh coverings. Might add a small section near the PSU too. Eventually need to cut out the GPU IO and CPU fan sections too.

 

[ignsvn]

Looking good mate!

I didn't know Zotac 1660 Ti comes in ITX size. I'm currently using Zotac 1660 super in my CCD MI-6.

 

[musashin]

I'm loving this! Similar style to my current WIP case but shrunk quite a bit. My frame is out of angle aluminum also, but riveted vs JB Weld. My cuts aren't as cleanly mitered though. I have space in my design for a 155mm CPU cooler, 300mm GPU, and multiple 2.5/3.5 hard drives. Keeping under 15L, so a very different overall size to yours but I like the spiritual succession here!

 

[aromachi]

Finally had a few days to work on the project. Had many many pitfalls this round. The aluminum sheeting was a royal pain in the butt to cut with hand tools. All of my tools warped the aluminum really bad, so straight lines and flat surfaces just weren't possible.

Still, with 24 magnets in place, all of the aluminum sheets attached to the framing pretty well.

But I decided I was done messing with aluminum so I started cutting out mesh for all the sides.

The mesh was a lot easier to cut/shape and re-flatten if it got warped.

New outer casing for the Flex.

Should make it easier for those big side fans to cool this thing.

Design flaw! I intended to route the riser cable behind the GPU, but these mounting screws are very much in the way. Dangit Dangit Dangit. I guess riser cable will have to be squeezed behind the mobo. Or I need to buy a riser cable with separated ribbons.

Bending the riser cable so it doesn't interfere with the top fans.

Bottom side of GPU with riser attached.

I start putting everything together and another design flaw crops up. The IO cutout is a little off. It's juuuust close enough so that I can still plug USB devices in. Oh, and I realize that I can't plug the GPU in while it's mounted. Disassemble again...

That 24pin cable is sooo long. I have no idea how I'm going to route that into the case. And I really don't want to shorten it. Cable management is going to be a BEAR. I also have a ton of fan cords/splitter hanging out the back that will need routed into the case as well. Zip-ties assemble!

PC runs and temps look really really good while benchmarking. Well I guess they should be considering this is pretty much an open-air design now. I tried some higher RPMs on those side fans and the PSU fan almost immediately slowed down , which I'm guessing is proof that those side fans are doing exactly what I want them to do.

Things left to do:
Drill hole into frame for PSU mounting screw.
Pull the 40mm fan out of the PSU and retest the system for stability issues.
Might as well remove all the unneeded cables from the PSU while it's open.
Design a custom power switch.
Paint the frame
Cable management
Order a new power cable, because this right-angle cord doesn't work in this config (adapter turns downward toward table)
Order some thin air filter material for CPU and GPU intake fans.

 

[aromachi]

Extra cables removed. All loose ends are shrinkwrapped. That's looking better.

40mm fan removed from PSU. Custom power switch in its place.

Couple coats of self-etching primer

Hey, this thing is almost done!

 

[aromachi]

Reassemble! Picked up some longer M3 screws to allow for some spacers (washers) behind the mobo. I put the mobo tray on the back of the bracket this time to give me more room to work with. I put 2 washers on the top screws and 3 washers on the bottom screws. That should level out io panel on the back hopefully, AND allow a few mm more space for the riser cable.

I tried snugging this into the case for an hour..

Really happy with how the IO panel lined up this time. It's still a bit too low, but everything is usable, and considering all this was planned on paper, measured with an old plastic ruler, and all pieces cut out by hand, I think this is okay! PSU is just ever so slightly crooked, but I can fix that easy, or live with it.

Welp, the only thing left to do is touch up the paint in a few places.. and shorten that 24-pin cable. Ugh! It only needs to go about 5 inches, and it's at least 3 times too long. On a better note, though.. new wifi6 module, dust filters, new power cable, and a usb n64 controller are all being shipped to the house right now. WOOO! Once it's all done I'll stick this thing next to my cheapo $20 rosewill microATX case for some comparison shots.

 

[NChiladas]

I loved going through this thread. Super cool build. You've got at least one person hooked on this thread ?

 

[aromachi]

It's finally done! Felt good to get that last panel on there.

For the final volume measurement, I'm adding 2.5mm (heads of screws) to each side (all faces minus top and bottom). The length is now 246mm with the external corner braces, and I'm adding .239L (V=pi*50^2*30.5) for the external fan.
Total volume= 5.67L

Here's a quick rundown of my final steps for those who care:

First wire of the 24pin soldered and shrinkwrapped. 24 more to go (there are 25 wires on this thing!)

Ran low on shrinkwrap and lowes was all out, so had to use some electrical tape to finish.

Finally

At this point I tested a 5-way hub for the fans, but all of them ran at 100%, and DC mode wasn't working. I needed a legit splitter, so I ordered one and waited the 5 days for it to get here.

Splitter is in, DC mode set to 55%.. and fans are strangely silent. I check hwmonitor and they are running at ~950 rpm. Very strange to not hear them after hearing them run at full speed during the last couple tests. I've since cranked them up to 1250rpm, and can still barely hear them. And they're moving a decent amount of air!

WIFI 6 upgrade. I really hope this works better than the wifi that came with this mobo. The range has always been REALLY terrible.

New antenna mounts would not fit inside my existing wifi module, so I decided to mount them to the top of the rear mesh panel. And since I'm an honest man, I'll admit I screwed up and clamped the cover down onto these wires and sliced them up real good. Derp. Soldering iron coming back out.

Looks pretty mean with those big antennas coming off the back.

Up next to my $20 Rosewill MicroATX case.

PC has been running for several hours now, and everything (but the stupid wifi) is looking really great. WiFi range is still really terrible for some reason.. I think it's a problem with the motherboard, as this is the 3rd wifi module i've tested in this sytem and it's the same issue every time. WiFi router has to be within 15 ft of the pc for it to be picked up. So strange. I'm going to figure this out one day.

Benchmarks are looking good. Encountered a new issue as I was running Heaven 4.0.. coil whine from the graphics card! My case fans are so quiet now that I can hear that buzz from the vga. Dangit! Maybe I'll ramp up the case fan rpms a bit to drown it out.

I'm pleased to say that the fanless flex PSU hasn't given me any issues after several rounds of benchmarking. Air coming from the side fans is warm, so I think they are performing perfectly as exhaust fans for said flex.

Later down the road.. legit laser-cut panels would be awesome opossum. I have never used CAD in my life, though, so I really need to get some training on that. Only things left to do now is touch up the paint in a couple places, then do some benchmarking to establish a baseline for testing out some air filters in front of the graphics and cpu intake fans. I'm calling this done!

 

[Valantar]

Just wanted to chime in and say that I really love this build. Well built and executed - I've never seen JB Weld used like that before, really smart. The hot rod external fan is a tad too much for me (I like builds where it sticks out from the case, but having it entirely mounted outside of the case takes it a bit too far), but overall I still love the build. Very impressive!

 

[aromachi]

A minor update for anybody still watching.

I replaced the wires to my wifi antennas, and things are finally working as they should. I took off the big new antennas and restored the originals from Asrock. I tried touching up a few spots with paint, but it didn't turn out too well, so I sanded the sides down a bit and left it looking "weathered". I'm currently in the process of replicating the entire design on paper and correcting little mistakes here and there. I plan to send some copies off to a few case manufacturers and get some quotes on digitizing my prints and possibly having a case professionally fabbed.

Here's some updated pics. I added a small Zotac graphic on the back to break up the wall of mesh. Looks pretty fancy.

Everybody have a good weekend!

 

[NegativeONE]

Thats awesome, did you use glue to fix all that alluminum together?

 

[aromachi]

Thats awesome, did you use glue to fix all that alluminum together?

JBweld. When it came time to toss it in the trash and I needed to tear it apart I was quite surprised how solid it was.

 

[msystems]

You are insanely good at hand fabricated metalwork. It looks perfectly rigid and square. And the paint is also perfect