Long time no post! I have been lurking lately, as I became bored with what was my current case (seen here). So the past few weeks, I have gone through the task of finding a smaller case to take up less space on my desk. My Raijentek Metis case was aboud 13.3L in size, so not huge, but not as tiny as I could get (as the pictures in my other thread showed the amount of empty space there). I searched the usual places, but did not find anything I was in love with. A couple of cases on Aliexpress/TaoBao were nice, but not exactly what I was looking for, either a bit too big, or didn't accommodate the hardware I already had (mostly the SFX psu was the holdup on a lot of these). The Custom MOD Case SXM caught my eye, but ultimately was not exactly what I was going for (and also hard to justify the price, but that is more of a marital issue, as I know the case is definitely high quality ?). I did, however, find a case that, for whatever reason, I LOVED the aesthetics of in the Lone Industries L5, in black and white, but that case was too small. It also reminded me of the Fractal Design Meshify C, which I also loved in black/white, but that case is WAY too big. So what is there to do?
Well, I built/am building one. I did some preliminary mock-ups of how I wanted to place the hardware and make it small enough to be worth my while. I used a similar layout as the Custom MOD Case SXM, but I also wanted plenty of air flow, so I added 2 120mm fans to the front, and it is rectangular like the L5. All I have currently is a frame that is 90% complete, but will be finishing it up with a couple of touches, then spray painting it black. Then I will be designing some panels to go on this puppy, and they will most likely be acrylic (cheaper to get laser cut than aluminum, and I won't have to paint them!). For the frame I used aluminum angle bar, and some aluminum flat bar. Motherboard tray is sheet metal. All the screws came from old PCs I had hoarded over the years, and the frame is riveted together with a nice $5 rivet gun from Harbor Freight, so the cost so far for the case has been like $15. Anyway, here are the pics of progress so far. Let me know what you think!
I did upgrade to a Noctua Chromax NH-L9a for this, and I must say, as my first Noctua product, this fan is silent af. I expected it to be quiet, but not completely so. I also have a nice power button coming from J-Hack very soon (tomorrow is the expected date) so the long black cord hanging down from the case will be gone ?. Button will be mounted on the back under the GPU. I am conflicted on whether I should leave the back open like it is or try to get the I/O shield on. I may just do some sort of custom type I/O shield that is mostly vented to allow air flow through the case front to back better. I am also going back and forth about shoe-horning some front mounted USB/Audio ports. And other than the panel design, I need to design a SSD/HDD mounting bracket to 3D print for the bottom of my case (FYI for anyone else thinking about doing a similar build, 2 SSD/HDDs can fit underneath the power cable connectors on the Corsair SFX PSU, which gives you pretty much the same depth as an ITX mobo. If I did not have the fans in front, I could have easily made this smaller, but I wanted the air flow despite the modest hardware).
Any comments/suggestions are welcome.
Well, I built/am building one. I did some preliminary mock-ups of how I wanted to place the hardware and make it small enough to be worth my while. I used a similar layout as the Custom MOD Case SXM, but I also wanted plenty of air flow, so I added 2 120mm fans to the front, and it is rectangular like the L5. All I have currently is a frame that is 90% complete, but will be finishing it up with a couple of touches, then spray painting it black. Then I will be designing some panels to go on this puppy, and they will most likely be acrylic (cheaper to get laser cut than aluminum, and I won't have to paint them!). For the frame I used aluminum angle bar, and some aluminum flat bar. Motherboard tray is sheet metal. All the screws came from old PCs I had hoarded over the years, and the frame is riveted together with a nice $5 rivet gun from Harbor Freight, so the cost so far for the case has been like $15. Anyway, here are the pics of progress so far. Let me know what you think!
I did upgrade to a Noctua Chromax NH-L9a for this, and I must say, as my first Noctua product, this fan is silent af. I expected it to be quiet, but not completely so. I also have a nice power button coming from J-Hack very soon (tomorrow is the expected date) so the long black cord hanging down from the case will be gone ?. Button will be mounted on the back under the GPU. I am conflicted on whether I should leave the back open like it is or try to get the I/O shield on. I may just do some sort of custom type I/O shield that is mostly vented to allow air flow through the case front to back better. I am also going back and forth about shoe-horning some front mounted USB/Audio ports. And other than the panel design, I need to design a SSD/HDD mounting bracket to 3D print for the bottom of my case (FYI for anyone else thinking about doing a similar build, 2 SSD/HDDs can fit underneath the power cable connectors on the Corsair SFX PSU, which gives you pretty much the same depth as an ITX mobo. If I did not have the fans in front, I could have easily made this smaller, but I wanted the air flow despite the modest hardware).
Any comments/suggestions are welcome.