Hello!

Hello everyone,

I stumbled accross this forum a few days ago whilst researching into SFF computers and have been fascinated ever since. There are some great threads and I am very impressed with all the custom SFF case designs.

I live in the UK and my background is in Product Design/Engineering, I have been involved with HTPC's for a few years with a particular interest in small silent computers.

What I have come to find is that there is a limited selection in the UK of mini ITX cases that can operate quietly or silently with desktop class processors. Most off the shelf cases are either based around Thin Mini-ITX boards with recommended TDP's of less than 35W, are much larger than they need to be in order to cater for a large variety of components, or just don't have the cooling efficiency resulting in a noisy system even with high quality cpu coolers.

Similar to many others on this forum I have decided to design my own cases that will hopefully help fill this gap, I am a couple of prototypes down the line and the results so far have been promising.

I am looking forward to getting involved in this great community, see you all around.

 

[Phuncz]

Welcome ! With your background in product design and engineering, does this include CAD ? You'll find a nice collection of 3D models of SFF-useful components in our Resources section. From design ideas to manufacturing questions, you'll be able to touch base with many talented and knowledgeable people !

 

[jtd871]

K,

Welcome to the community! I'm confident in saying that many here, including myself, will be interested in seeing what you have been cooking up...

 

[K888D]

Thank you for the welcome!

I work a lot with SolidWorks and Creo (Pro E), I will be sure to check out all the resources and even try to post some models that I've done if I can.

At the moment I am working in the safety industry developing breathing protection equipment, I am hoping to apply some of what I've learned about airflow from this industry into methods of efficiently flushing heat from PC cases.

I will try to start a thread on the cases I'm working on, both of which are based on heat bent Acrylic, the reason for this material was mainly due to the relatively low cost of small batch runs compared to metal based components, but after reading on this forum about companies such as Protocase, I may look at changing the design to metal enclosures.

 

[iFreilicht]

Well you certainly got a better base to build upon than most of us, we usually just start somewhere and learn by doing and experimenting, but your background is a lot more technical.

Great to have you on the forum!

 

[jeshikat]

The cost of getting a sheet metal design made will really depend on the complexity of the design. A design with many parts and lots of holes can get pricey.