Yes, exactly. I work from home using a Macbook Pro (as a software developer,) so I use my PC mostly for gaming and as an HTPC, so I use wireless peripherals mostly.
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EVE 01: Vertical all-acrylic SFF case
- Thread starter ehqhvm
- Start date
Yes, exactly. I work from home using a Macbook Pro (as a software developer,) so I use my PC mostly for gaming and as an HTPC, so I use wireless peripherals mostly.
Thanks! Those are interesting ideas and I will play around with that in SketchUp and see if I can make it work. My main concern with that would be that I'd need to raise the PSU a lot, or move it down a few cm, so either the power cable or the PSU connectors don't bump into the RAM severely.
Yeah, I agree that would look better and be simpler overall, but I'd only be able to support blower-style GPUs (right? or maybe I'm wrong?). I may actually end up going this route because it's really tempting, but I was also kind of tempted by making the design allow any dual-slot, normal-height, normal-width GPU.
I had a water cooling accident with my current GPU... soooo I need to buy a new one. I was considering the 980 TI Gigabyte G1, or an EVGA ACX+, just because I saw those had a slight discount online. I was looking for a reference 980 TI and it's even hard to find any and they seem to cost more.
If the fan on the bottom of the case is pushing, I'm thinking you can just put the filter on the bottom, so I don't imagine you'd see it really being under the fan and sort of behind the GPU.
Speaking of which, I love the front panel being the window to the GPU, that idea is great! Moving the power button means it completely clean, so the only thing to see is the GPU
. Having said that, the button in the corner looks nice too, so maybe you can just move it in a bit and keep it there... or use a 16mm instead of 22mm? I also found these cheap 12mm ones but I can't speak for the quality. I did order some to try, but who knows when/if they'll show up.
I would very much recommend getting good dust filters for a plexiglass or acrylic case, since it attracts dust and sticks to the surface. You could get square or rounded square cutouts at a much better price than perforations lasered, meaning your dust filters would be free and then some.
The Parvum modding cubes are very practical and easy to use, but for connections between the transparent acrylic panels, gluing would look a lot nicer if you did it correctly. Even better would be the option of bending to make the transparent sides from a single piece, that would look really awesome.
It would support all cards, but a blower would certainly perform the best.
It would support all cards, but a blower would certainly perform the best.
Ok, small update!
I've added feet to the case. I realized instead of mounting feet or adding more elements to the case, all I needed to do was just make the front and back panel longer so they serve as feet as well.
I also reduced the height of the back panel at the top, to help route cables to the back. I think I'll also add some cable holders or some other cable management tool in there (any suggestions?).
I also moved the power button to a more reasonable position, as it used to be too close to the edge. And I played a bit with the black accents to hide the power connector and fan at the bottom. I was also considering perforating holes in the front panel only where the black lines are, so they are not so noticeable, easier to filter and don't ruin the view to the GPU. I still think that would maybe yield poor performance for radial-coolers on GPUS... but oh well, I just have to try it out I guess. I can always add more holes.
I also called an acrylic factory and discussed my needs with them. I live in Argentina so I didn't expect things to be so easy, but it turned out I can just send them files with my exact needs and they'll just cut it for me and even offered to assemble the whole thing. So pretty neat! I think I'll order the materials for the first prototype this week!
In the meantime I will continue obsessing about the PSU position and whether or not I'm striking a reasonable balance between functionality, performance and aesthetics. The volume of the case has gone up to something around 14L with the feet and top protrusions, but I don't really mind because I think I'm paying in volume for some artistic whims :-) Still, I hope I don't keep increasing the volume any more.
I've added feet to the case. I realized instead of mounting feet or adding more elements to the case, all I needed to do was just make the front and back panel longer so they serve as feet as well.
I also reduced the height of the back panel at the top, to help route cables to the back. I think I'll also add some cable holders or some other cable management tool in there (any suggestions?).
I also moved the power button to a more reasonable position, as it used to be too close to the edge. And I played a bit with the black accents to hide the power connector and fan at the bottom. I was also considering perforating holes in the front panel only where the black lines are, so they are not so noticeable, easier to filter and don't ruin the view to the GPU. I still think that would maybe yield poor performance for radial-coolers on GPUS... but oh well, I just have to try it out I guess. I can always add more holes.
I also called an acrylic factory and discussed my needs with them. I live in Argentina so I didn't expect things to be so easy, but it turned out I can just send them files with my exact needs and they'll just cut it for me and even offered to assemble the whole thing. So pretty neat! I think I'll order the materials for the first prototype this week!
In the meantime I will continue obsessing about the PSU position and whether or not I'm striking a reasonable balance between functionality, performance and aesthetics. The volume of the case has gone up to something around 14L with the feet and top protrusions, but I don't really mind because I think I'm paying in volume for some artistic whims :-) Still, I hope I don't keep increasing the volume any more.
For cable management, you could cut the upper edge of the back panel into a 'comb' (e.g. 1/2 of this shape), to allow you to align cables straight out of the back. If you then routed the cables off to the side using Velcro ties (e.g., this would organise them neatly and provide strain relief.
I like the black accents, they look very nice. The feet might look better if you extended the side panels downward as well and cut part of them away like this:
|....... ________ ........|
|___/............... \____|
|....... ________ ........|
|___/............... \____|
This configuration should also add strength to the feet if the edges are bonded together.
I like the suggestion that @EdZ made, but you could also simply extend the back panel even taller, and have a rectangular opening cut in the panel to route the cables through - the largest one would be the power cord. Too bad the acrylic wouldn't be strong enough, because this would also make a neat carry-handle.
Love the idea! thanks! I'm not sure how to adapt the panel like that on SketchUp, and I have 0 3D editing skills in general, but at least I draw a simple line on each side to visualize more or less how it would look like. This won't be a problem anyway because I have to render the panels in Illustrator for the acrylic factory, so I can add this modification properly in there.
Oh, also, since my plan is now to only perforate the front panel along the black accents (and add magnetic dust filters behind them,) I figured I should try to give more airflow to the GPU, so I moved the fan to be just below it. This also had the nice added benefit of leaving just enough space for an SSD on the bottom as well, which I originally thought I wouldn't need, but I think I'll need it after all.
The only problem with this is that I had to move the power button because now it would interfere with the fan.
I now spend around 28% of my day moving the power button and not knowing where it makes sense to place it. I can feel it laughing at me now.
BTW: do you guys know which button I should get and how it needs to be wired? I googled it a bit but didn't find much about how to connect it to the mb/psu.
You can find a lot of "Bulgin Style Vandal Resistent Momentary Push Button" switches around. They commonly come in 16mm and 22mm (diameter) sizes, though there are others (I recently found a sketchy 12mm one that might one day be delivered, who knows).
If it is a backlit (ring or dot) switch, there will be 4 points on the back, two for the motherboard power-trigger connection, and two for the LED power connection. The connections are usually marked on the back of the switch with +/- for the LED power, but it depends on which switch you actually get. The power button doesn't require a specific +/-, as it just makes a momentary connection to signal the power-on state. The LED will require the +/- to be correctly wired up. On the motherboard size, which header has which pin will be dependent on the motherboard. Here's a nice little guide for wiring
Some of the switches will come with a wiring harness, but you'll have to do some checking. I bought a Mod/Smart branded one (I think it was from Amazon, or FrozenCPU-before-the-weirdness) and it came with a harness, but apparently they don't ALL come with a harness.
That idea is tempting. You think it would really break off if used as a handle? this kind of leads me to a related question: what thickness do you think the panels should be? I thought about this for a while and concluded that 6mm would be best, as the motherboard standoffs measure 6mm, so any less than that would have screws sticking out the other side, and any more seems like it would be too much. Do you agree with that or am I thinking about it incorrectly?
I used 4.5mm but the sides were no more than 180mm. The standoffs I have only have ~a 3-4mm section that is threaded, so that worked out just fine. 6mm should be plenty for the case... I'm not sure what would make for a good strength for a carry handle... closer to 9mm? Even then I'm not sure... it can get pretty heavy with a big GPU, PSU and Heatsink, and having an off-from-the-center-of-mass handle would put weird stresses on it. Now, if you did the back panel out of aluminum.......
The important lesson to take away for vandal switches is that you want a momentary one, not a maintained one.
The 6mm length of standoffs is denoting the part that sticks out from the panel, so a 6mm standoff can have an outer thread of 4mm or 6mm or 2mm, depending on the sheet thickness you want to go for, but the mainboard will alwas be 6mm from the panel. At least that's how it work with screwed ones. Of course you can cut away a bit of the thread to make it flush with the back of the panel.
I'm not sure about the required panel thickness for a handle, but I'd rather glue on a second piece for reinforcing the handle than using extremely thick acrylic for a whole side.
To make the small notches, take a look at the push/pull tool.
The 6mm length of standoffs is denoting the part that sticks out from the panel, so a 6mm standoff can have an outer thread of 4mm or 6mm or 2mm, depending on the sheet thickness you want to go for, but the mainboard will alwas be 6mm from the panel. At least that's how it work with screwed ones. Of course you can cut away a bit of the thread to make it flush with the back of the panel.
I'm not sure about the required panel thickness for a handle, but I'd rather glue on a second piece for reinforcing the handle than using extremely thick acrylic for a whole side.
To make the small notches, take a look at the push/pull tool.
Be careful with vandal switches. For some reason some PC modding suppliers sell what's labeled as "16mm" and "22mm" switches, but the 16mm refers to the panel cutout size (the size hole in the sheet for the switch to fit into) while the 22mm refers to the bezel diameter (and the panel cutout size for those is actually 19mm).
OK, here's a first version of the Illustrator file with the exact measurements for the acrylic factory to build my prototype:
I realize I went a bit crazy on the perforations count for the side panels... so I might just do 2 lines of bigger squares rather than 3 lines of tiny ones.
I also gave up on placing the power button on the front panel, so instead I moved it just below the PSU on the back panel. I like this new position because the PSU covers the back of the power button and its cables, and it's still easy enough to reach.
I also finished ordering the components that I'll be using for this build, as well as misc stuff like the the carbon fiber wrap and parvum modding cubes :-)
I realize I went a bit crazy on the perforations count for the side panels... so I might just do 2 lines of bigger squares rather than 3 lines of tiny ones.
I also gave up on placing the power button on the front panel, so instead I moved it just below the PSU on the back panel. I like this new position because the PSU covers the back of the power button and its cables, and it's still easy enough to reach.
I also finished ordering the components that I'll be using for this build, as well as misc stuff like the the carbon fiber wrap and parvum modding cubes :-)
Nice, though the holes are pretty close to the edges of the panels, won't the other panels cover them up?
