I have seen some good ThinITX motherboard deals on eBay lately, these boards are great as they are compact and have integrated power-supplies in the form of Dell 19V DC jacks on the IO panel, and a single SATA power header on the mobo, as such, these board can make many versatile low-power configurations. The function of mine is a TV streaming device and a light emulation box, the 16GB of ram and i7 8700 are both plenty enough for these tasks.
The issue is I didn't really like any of the available cases for ThinITX Motherboards, and even then the ones that are available are quite expensive.
This lead me to design my own ThinITX case that's well fitted to my needs, here are the final design renders:
I wanted the design to be retro-inspired but to also feel modern, to do this I studied many of the consumer products from decades gone, the one thing that really stood out to me was the use of wood (usually walnut) as a decorative finish to many of the display faces, I really love this so I made sure to include it on the design, this was achieved by layering 3mm birch ply with thin walnut-veneer. I also wanted the two 3D printed side frames to include as much functionality as possible, so the left side includes the HDD and PWR LEDS and the right side integrates the power button, as well as both supporting the motherboard and all frame panels (as-well as the dual orientation case feet) as can be seen in the rendering below:
After some time working out the kinks in the design I made my final prototype
here it is, I am happy with the final result and it looks good sat under my TV, I was thinking of making a few and seeing if people like them, but this is on the back burner for now.
The issue is I didn't really like any of the available cases for ThinITX Motherboards, and even then the ones that are available are quite expensive.
This lead me to design my own ThinITX case that's well fitted to my needs, here are the final design renders:
I wanted the design to be retro-inspired but to also feel modern, to do this I studied many of the consumer products from decades gone, the one thing that really stood out to me was the use of wood (usually walnut) as a decorative finish to many of the display faces, I really love this so I made sure to include it on the design, this was achieved by layering 3mm birch ply with thin walnut-veneer. I also wanted the two 3D printed side frames to include as much functionality as possible, so the left side includes the HDD and PWR LEDS and the right side integrates the power button, as well as both supporting the motherboard and all frame panels (as-well as the dual orientation case feet) as can be seen in the rendering below:
After some time working out the kinks in the design I made my final prototype
here it is, I am happy with the final result and it looks good sat under my TV, I was thinking of making a few and seeing if people like them, but this is on the back burner for now.
