Concept Billet Aluminium - 6.4L ITX Case

[Vlad502]

Interesting... I had looked into it, but for some reason now that I'm looking into it again it does seem like a better idea. Volume works out about the same, with some tweaking I'm sure I could bring it down to the same but with an additional 40mm or so clearance for the graphics card. Dimensions of the configuration below are 350 x 270 x 62mm - 5.86L

Suggestion: If extend case around 40mm in height, maybe is possible to fit ATX board under FlexATX and GPU. Size 350x270x100 (9.45L) and also CPU cooler support will increase

 

[Daniel.f2277]

I would make sure the CPU has a good way to exhaust in a vertical layout, but it seems like this would work well in a horizontal layout

 

[Daniel.f2277]

I've done a bit more work on the design, playing around with separating out the case into sections to help with cooling. Volume is increasing with all the changes, always going to be a trade off between practicality and volume though. Max GPU length is up to about 262mm now as well.

Interested to see what people think about the internal walls. Adds quite a bit of complexity to machining as I would need to purchase an angle head to allow me to machine the cable pass through holes. So if there will be little point in having them, I'll definitely be removing them.

I think the CPU would need a good way to exhaust in a vertical layout, not to leak heat into the intake of the GPU, but it looks good for horizontal. I really like what you did for the mains power cable, and where it ended up haha. Maybe instead of having to do an angled cut for those cable passthroughs, you could make a cut from the top, and just lay your cables over the wall, or through a wall gap. Maybe the wall could be a separate part, attached using fasteners to fix them together. That would turn this into 3 parts instead of 2. You could also make it a flat piece then, in the place where it meets the front face, just with the GPU cutout parts. It could include the cutouts for the GPU IO plate too that way.

Im getting too enthusiastic about this case at this point, I'm excited to see what happens in the end regardless. It already looks very interesting.

 

[One Works]

Suggestion: If extend case around 40mm in height, maybe is possible to fit ATX board under FlexATX and GPU. Size 350x270x100 (9.45L) and also CPU cooler support will increase

It would be nice to increase support for various hardware. Unfortunately at those sorts of dimensions it'd be getting impractical to machine from a single billet which is my main goal with this one. I do have ideas for larger future projects though.

I would make sure the CPU has a good way to exhaust in a vertical layout, but it seems like this would work well in a horizontal layout

For that I was planning on having feet which fit into the slots and allow the case further support as well as raising it up. I've not drawn up that concept to see how it looks yet though. Looks okay in my mind though ?

I think the CPU would need a good way to exhaust in a vertical layout, not to leak heat into the intake of the GPU, but it looks good for horizontal. I really like what you did for the mains power cable, and where it ended up haha. Maybe instead of having to do an angled cut for those cable passthroughs, you could make a cut from the top, and just lay your cables over the wall, or through a wall gap. Maybe the wall could be a separate part, attached using fasteners to fix them together. That would turn this into 3 parts instead of 2. You could also make it a flat piece then, in the place where it meets the front face, just with the GPU cutout parts. It could include the cutouts for the GPU IO plate too that way.

Im getting too enthusiastic about this case at this point, I'm excited to see what happens in the end regardless. It already looks very interesting.

While working on the design I was thinking it would be easier to make separate pieces that fix in there. But then it seems a waste to remove material, only to add it back in by having another part that has to be machined. But theeeeen... it is about $4500 USD for the angle head I'd need to machine the pass through doing it as one piece ?

Have been a bit stuck on this one the last couple of days. Not 100% happy with where I've ended up and also needed to work out how I was going to do some bits. I started working on a design for and APU style case which RenG suggested earlier in this thread. Just to house a Mini ITX Motherboard really. It's actually helped me work out some details for this design, top panel retention and power switch are the main two, which is good. Design for that is pretty much complete, might make a separate thread for that tomorrow to see what people think.

 

[RenG]

Have been a bit stuck on this one the last couple of days. Not 100% happy with where I've ended up and also needed to work out how I was going to do some bits. I started working on a design for and APU style case which RenG suggested earlier in this thread. Just to house a Mini ITX Motherboard really. It's actually helped me work out some details for this design, top panel retention and power switch are the main two, which is good. Design for that is pretty much complete, might make a separate thread for that tomorrow to see what people think.

Looking forward to that. Right now, there are very few APU cases available that rivals the quality of apple mac minis. Honestly, I can't even think of one.

I know it won't be as slim as the mac mini but at least it will potentially be a big jump in terms of quality compared to whats currently available.

 

[Daniel.f2277]

Looking forward to that. Right now, there are very few APU cases available that rivals the quality of apple mac minis. Honestly, I can't even think of one.

I know it won't be as slim as the mac mini but at least it will potentially be a big jump in terms of quality compared to whats currently available.

Not to get off topic or anything, have you looked at the Luna design DNK-H?

 

[RenG]

Not to get off topic or anything, have you looked at the Luna design DNK-H?

Yes, that looks nice. But it only supports thin m-itx.

 

[One Works]

Hadn't seen that case before. Looks nice, well designed. But as RenG said, only supports thin m-itx which is very limited.

I was disappointed when I started designing to find how thick it would have to be to support a full size I/O shield and by extension full size Mini ITX. Turns out the HDPlex 200w psu on top of the motherboard is what dictates the minimum height anyway.

If the ASRock A320M-ITX AM4 as readily available I probably would have just gone with a thin ITX setup, ignored the fancy cooling like on the Luna Design case and tried to have something that rivals the Mac Mini in terms of thinness.

 

[Goatee]

Are you willing to use an external brick?

If so you could go really thin (limited by cpu cooler height only)