Advice Building multi-motherboard casing

denywinarto

Chassis Packer
Original poster
Jul 5, 2018
19
0
Hi, i hope this is the right sub
I plan on creating multi-motherboard casing for Micro ATX + Ryzen APU based machines (no GPU).
I have made a rough sketch using tinkercad :



red = motherboard
blue = frame holder of some sort for motherboard and PSU
black = PSU
light brown = power button
green = ventilation holes
white = cable holes
orange & silver = copper heatpipes and its buckle

Primary reasons are :
1. Dusty environment (smoking room), with this case, cleanup / maintenance should be easier, simply open the front / back part of the casing and use blower.

2. Less dust with passive cooler and dust filter stickied on the ventilation holes (green)

3. Custom passive cooling, passively cooled cases are too expensive, and passive cpu cooler aren't exactly cheap either,
the cheapest am4 passive cooler is arctic am4, but it only has TDP of 35 watt IIRC. Not enough for 65w APU ryzen.
I managed to find some copper heatpipes and bracket for am4 from aliexpress, but it's not cheap (about 80$ per cpu in total with shipment)

4. Or alternatively for#3 if passive cooling turns out to be too difficult i probably will settle with the gigantic nofan CR-80EH, albeit more expensive since it's from US and it's 75$ each before shipment.

I learned some CAD modelling back in college, so i know a bit of CAD-CAM.
But i'm new at building computer case so i really could use some advices from experienced people here. :

1. Regarding passive cooling (assuming i'm using 65w CPU),
should i separate the surface for each CPU using some kind of separator so that the heat can be evenly distributed?
Or would a single surface work for multiple source of heat pipes like in my picture?

e.g : 2 CPU's for left and right side, and 4 CPU's for top side
I'd imagine since it's large case there should be more room for heat distribution.
Using a separator would complicate the manufacturing process though..
Also Is there any in depth guide for heat pipes based passive cooling?

2. Regarding the material choice, aluminum or copper?
how difficult would it be to find CNC machine that could do copper cutting?
Aluminum is more common for pc case but i read copper is a better heat conductor

3. Which CAD program is best for this task?

Any hints or tips are also appreciated.. thanks
 
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