Wow! Very nice and good high-airflow design. You should enable fan mounting on the side panels through the grooves somehow.
Hi everyone. This is a project I started in late September 2016. With that being said, I am proud to present the Breathe.
The Story
I have a long history of designing and building things ever since I was 7 years old. Through the years, the projects I pursued grew in complexity and so the stakes got ever higher. My parents would give me a budget to work within, and I had to make my ideas work right the first time, every time.
In the summer of 2012, I built my first computer. This computer has been my workhorse and has followed me all the way into today, my freshman year of college. I love my computer, it has proven to be my most prized tool and a great source of entertainment and learning. I can't stand being away from it. But recently, our relationship has gotten rather rocky.
At every vacation or extended break from school, I take two things with me back home to Houston. A portion of my wardrobe and my computer. Being built in a Corsair 300R, my computer is not light nor small by any means and thus, it has shown itself to always be a pain to transport.
In addition to that, a gaming organization at my university holds biweekly LAN parties. I lust to go, but the size and weight of my computer holds me back.
So I craved something smaller.
It began with a cool 3D printed lamp I saw and Makirole's Aetos. Both made use of Voronoi patterns in their designs. I knew that by using Voronoi patterns in my case, it would be strong, lightweight, and allow for virtually unrestricted airflow — which I know is something many SFF cases struggle with.
Very quickly, I saw how stupid this looked, with how large it was and how much empty space there was on the interior. So I tried to compact it down to minimum total volume, borrowing the back-to-back layout of the DAN-A4.
For the oncoming months, I worked on the case relentlessly, tinkering with drive placement and power switch location in order to maximize the usable volume of the GPU compartment.
Moving the SSDs from the topside to the underside of the GPU made so much sense, since no graphics card would ever extend in that direction.
Sourcing a better power switch was quite tedious, but I was able to find one with a diameter of 8mm, which conveniently fits in between the feet/tabs of the PCI-E bracket, allowing me to move the graphics card further left and increase the maximum graphics card height.
This continued on, including further size & proportion optimizations and some minor reorganization, for the next few months.
You can see the condensed genesis of the final case design here.
You can see I experimented with extended feet for the case and inverting the motherboard, so all cables would come out the bottom. I got rid of that idea and settled on small feet for the bottom, allowing for exhaust airflow for the PSU and omnidirectional power cable routing.
As December began and winter vacation started to creep up, working on the case became rather stale. I was practically done, but something about it felt off to me. I started to become unsatisfied with the open air Voronoi pattern of the case, but I had no good ideas on hand. I just wanted it to look cleaner; something to match the slimness and verticality of the case.
At this time, I left the design alone for two months.
Winter break ended and the spring semester began. My sister and my friends noticed how much time I was putting into playing Overwatch (heh), and so I was motivated to offset that. I got into the productive mood again and resumed work on the case two weeks ago. I started with translating the design from Sketchup into Inventor.
Those two months away from the case allowed my tastes to mature, and so I had a great idea for the new design of the venting of the case.
Taking cues from Braun's classic design language, I gave the exterior of the case an orthogonal hole grid pattern, giving the case, in my opinion, a much more modern and understated aesthetic while still keeping the standard of ample ventilation.I knew that this appearance would be carried into the final version. I was in love with the way it looked.
**AUGUST 2017 UPDATE: No longer in love with the hole grid pattern. This is how the case will look now. I love it even more. Thanks guys.
So yeah, that's pretty much it up until now. Now onto the specs.
Specifications, Dimensions, and Features
The Breathe supports a variety of configurations in its second compartment due to an array of mounting holes I incorporated into the design.
From left to right:
Standard Config: one large graphics card + four 2.5" drives
Alternative Config One: one short graphics card + four 2.5" drives + one 3.5" drive
Alternative Config Two: one short graphics card + eight 2.5" drives
The 2.5" drive bracket is removable in case it's not needed.
Specifications/Dimensions
Length: 183.1mm
Width: 115.1mm
Height: 330.9mm
Volume: 6.97L
Material: 1.5mm steel
Finish: Powder coat
PSU compatibility: SFX
Motherboard compatibility: Mini-ITX
CPU cooler compatibility: 50mm max height
Graphics card compatibility: 309.1mm max length (from outside face of PCI-E bracket to end), 45.6mm max width, 152.2mm max height (from bottom of PCI-E fingers to top)
PCI-E riser compatibility: 3M twin-axial PCI-E riser and Li-Heat D-Type riser -- both of them will work in the case.
Another notable feature is the inclusion of an anti-theft lock slot on the bottom of the case. (thanks, Aibohphobia)
I'm always looking for ways to improve this thing, so let me know what you think.
probably all fit except the 1080 Ti as thats a 2.5 slot card.just ordered one
has anyone tried the asus strix 10 series card in this?
@gunpalcyril has. There's also an image on the product page of a Strix card in the case.just ordered one
has anyone tried the asus strix 10 series card in this?
This is correct.
Plz @KSliger are tan or unpainted versions available? If no then I'll order a black one but I really am curious
When you order just message me and I can change your order to the tan or unpainted =]
Nice! Now I have to decide what I'm going with
Would it be possible to get unpainted and brushed?
Here are the thermal tests in the new case.
Tests performed with:
CPU - Intel Core i7-7700K
CPU Cooler - Cryorig C7 Cu
GPU - EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti SC2
Idle test - PC was running a few windows of Chrome, Steam, and Discord.
CPU load test - I just stuck the 3d model of the case into Keyshot, set the lighting to full simulation, and let it bake. Provides a realistic load test that will max out all cores of the CPU.
GPU load test - Synthetic load with Furmark. I let it run for 10 minutes.
Real full-system load test - Played a few games of Overwatch. Gives a realistic scenario for system-wide usage of the PC.
I know the album may appear small/blurry. Just click on it so it takes you directly to Imgur so you can view it in full size.
Tests performed with:
CPU - Intel Core i7-7700K
CPU Cooler - Cryorig C7 Cu
GPU - EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti SC2
Idle test - PC was running a few windows of Chrome, Steam, and Discord.
CPU load test - I just stuck the 3d model of the case into Keyshot, set the lighting to full simulation, and let it bake. Provides a realistic load test that will max out all cores of the CPU.
GPU load test - Synthetic load with Furmark. I let it run for 10 minutes.
Real full-system load test - Played a few games of Overwatch. Gives a realistic scenario for system-wide usage of the PC.
I know the album may appear small/blurry. Just click on it so it takes you directly to Imgur so you can view it in full size.
They are all shipping out right now, you will get tracking late today.
This was something that was sort of planned to be supported, but we eventually had to drop support for it on V2 due to a mistake on my part.
My only concern is if we allow it to be mounted to the top of the case, the thickness of the handle can block access to some of the ports on the GPU and motherboard I/O.
So no, not currently compatible. But maybe in the future.
Yes, it can definitely be mounted on the side using the slots if you put two nuts and washers on the inside of the case.
