Log InWin Elgar

[Sicaris]

As one thing tends to cascade into another I've finally been spurred into action transferring my current "gaming" pc into a smaller case to be exclusively an HTPC. A while ago I bought an InWin BQ from Ebay because it was cheap with the intention of combining my Node 202, external DVD and external HDD into one tiny box. I also want to take this as an opportunity to use a 12v power supply for the first time before trying something more ambitious for my next gaming pc.

So the plan is to remove the front panel of the InWin BQ, replace it with a curved wooden bezel, reorient the front I/O to be concealed and install a slot loading DVD, HDD and 12v AC-DC PSU alongside my current ITX mobo/CPU. Here's a SketchUp model (emphasis on sketch):


The key features are the ODD slot, a cutout for the vents on the right hand side and a slot at the left where the front I/O will be.

Hardware:

Case: modified InWin BQ

Motherboard: MSI H110i Pro

CPU: i3-6100 with stock cooler (for now)

RAM: Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 8 GB

SSD: Intel 600p 256 GB NVME

PSU: J-Hack x200 with MeanWell RPS-200-12-c (kit for Pure MK2)

Optical Drive: TEAC slot load DVD/CD-RW

Storage drive: TBD probably a 1 TB SSD but could be anything really

Why Elgar?

Well the Chopin is so popular (for good reason) but I need an optical drive and don't have a CNC machine to cut a slot in the Chopin front bezel so I'm taking a different approach. Also I'm British so it seemed appropriate to pick a national composer. If you aren't familiar I encourage you to listen to his cello concerto performed by Yo-Yo Ma.

The build:

So here's the case in question:


Fairly unassuming but functional, I suspect it has spent most of its life in an office somewhere.


A little scuffed in places but everything is there, not bad for $25.

A lot of this build hinges around the front bezel, so more wood work than PC building but oh well. My initial plan was to laser cut a living hinge allowing access to the front I/O by opening the front bezel. Unfortunately a little research suggested that for 3 mm plywood a 12 mm radius bend just wasn't feasible. Plan B was to bend a piece of wood around a form using steam to create the curve I need, to do this I would need some flexible wood, for example oak veneer and a form around which to bend it. I could then layer sheets of veneer until I had the bezel thickness I wanted. This seemed like a good idea until I realised that If I was going to make a form to bend around why not just make the form the structural component of the bezel and attach the veneer to that. So that's the current plan.

I've made a fair bit of progress but I'm going to break it up into a few sections in the interest of getting something posted. Up next stripping down the case, rewiring the power switch, reorienting the front I/O and mounting the PSU.

 

[Sicaris]

On to the build, starting with disassembly. The front panel unclips easily and the front I/O and power button come apart with a few screws. I plan to reuse these parts later.


Because the new bezel is almost the same size as the original there isn't a lot of room for a power switch. For that reason I opted for a 12 mm vandal switch with built in LED. This seemed like a great idea until I came to attach the existing wires and realised I needed tiny spade connectors. A quick trip to Ebay later and some 2 mm crimp terminals are ready to go!


It still remains to be seen how easy this will be to actually mount and connect up!

To get a good signal for the USB remote and keyboard I use I want to keep the front I/O but I don't want them to stick out the top as on the original. I decided to rotate them through 90 degrees to face the left side of the case, this also informed the design decision to have a cutout in the top of the bezel mimicking the Chopin. Because I'm going to install a DVD drive and the I/O board is quite wide, immediately to the left of the ODD slot was the only place to mount them. Thankfully there's plenty of accessible metal here to mount some new standoffs and firmly attach the board.


It will make it a tight fit to attach the top and bottom of the bezel later though, especially the bottom which is also cramped by the ODD slot. The plan is to use magnets to attach the bezel to the steel case so it can easily be removed to access the I/O. Exactly where the magnets will be placed and how the pieces of bezel will be attached to one another is still TBD. In the photo above I experimented with adding long standoffs to the I/O board as a potential magnet attachment spot. Ultimately I've decided that isn't necessary and will just be using screws.

The AC-DC PSU I'm using is the MeanWell RPS-200-12-c which comes with a handy metal enclosure to protect it and prevent you giving yourself a shock. Unfortunately for me it makes the power supply much wider so I would either need to modify the case a lot or remove the enclosure. I opted for the latter but decided to enclose it in thin plastic instead to prevent the back from shorting and just in case I put a finger too close while fiddling in the case.


I then proceeded to drill a plethora of holes to allow some better ventilation. I've since picked up some plastic mesh which looks a bit more tidy but I'm concerned it will make the whole assembly too thick to fit next to the motherboard. It's an upgrade I'll consider later.

It took a while to decide exactly where on the side panel to mount the PSU. Being much shorter than the original it could probably go anywhere but the standoffs clash with the lip of the case meaning 2 small segments have to be removed. Only having a hacksaw to modify the frame dictated making the cuts through the thinnest parts of the frame, where slots are, this has the added benefit of keeping the only vent clear.


With that completed all the modifications to the structure of the case are finished. The next, larger task is making the bezel which I'll cover in the next post.

 

[Valantar]

Looking good! The wooden front will definitely be interesting to see. Given the deshrouding of the PSU I would double check that there is plenty of gap between any live AC circuitry and the case (or you might just have left the plastic unperforated in those spots), but it's still nicely done. Hope you're getting a better cooler though, as using the noisy Intel stock cooler for a build like this (with such potential for near total silence) sounds like a real shame. It's too bad the case doesn't have a few spare mm to fit a Black Ridge, though there's always the option of hot-rodding it. Shouldn't look too bad with a black cooler

 

[Sicaris]

Thanks! I was also concerned about the PSU shorting, the sides touching the case have no holes, but I wasn't sure about the top. Thankfully the raised mesh portion comfortably clears the large capacitor.


I'm definitely eying a new cooler, in fact ever since these components we originally put together. My better half doesn't notice fan noise so I've been lazy about it especially alongside my current 1050. Looks like my options are L9i, L9i chromax, cryorig c7 or the blackridge if I do a bit of jiggling. Is there anything to recommend one over the others?

 

[Valantar]

Thanks! I was also concerned about the PSU shorting, the sides touching the case have no holes, but I wasn't sure about the top. Thankfully the raised mesh portion comfortably clears the large capacitor.


I'm definitely eying a new cooler, in fact ever since these components we originally put together. My better half doesn't notice fan noise so I've been lazy about it especially alongside my current 1050. Looks like my options are L9i, L9i chromax, cryorig c7 or the blackridge if I do a bit of jiggling. Is there anything to recommend one over the others?

The C7 has a loud fan, so it's kind of mandatory to get a Noctua fan for it, which makes it good but expensive. I'm very happy with the L9i in my modded Dell Optiplex build. There's also a Cooler Master LP cooler they released... last year IIRC? It's very similar to the L9i/a, but with rgb and probably a bit cheaper. No idea if it's as good though. The BR should be head and shoulders above these others in performance, but sadly also in stature. If you can get it to work, it'll by far be the best of these though.

 

[Sicaris]

The most involved part if this build is undoubtedly the new wrap around bezel. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to mimic the smooth curve of the Chopin but in wood. In the first post I mentioned wanting to use a laser cut, living hinge to allow access to the front I/O, which is now rotated through 90 degrees. My measurements and sketches led me to a 12 mm bend radius which my online searches suggested was just too tight for that kind of hinge. As I don't require constant access to the front I/O I've opted for a middle ground where the solid bezel will be attached using magnets. To make the bezel I'm using 3 mm plywood and a piece of 12 mm 1/4 round beading for the corner. I'm also limited in workshop space and tools so despite several occasions where a radial arm saw, router or pillar drill would have been appropriate I've used a variety of hand tools and a cordless drill. Getting all this right required a lot of precise measurements, my dad always said measure twice cut once. Well in this case it was measure twice, cut, realise it wasn't quite accurate enough, measure twice more and cut again. This means almost every piece has been made twice, sometimes more, but it's been educational.

As a reminder here is my sketch:


The bezel will be made of two larger 3 mm panels, one with a slot for the DVD and one with a larger cutout for the side vents. Two shaped pieces will fill the gap at the top and bottom, the top with a hole cut for the 12 mm vandal switch. At the corner is the piece of 12 mm 1/4 round beading which needs to be recessed both to fit the top and bottom bezel pieces and the power switch.

I started with the corner as it is central to the build and I could start attaching pieces together once it was done. To cut out the necessary portions from the top and bottom I had intended to use a hole saw but discovered they don't commonly come in 12 mm. Instead I discovered Forstner bits which seem even better suited to what I want to achieve. The corner piece needs to be recessed to accommodate the top 3mm bezel piece and the securing nut of the switch leaving a 3 mm thick edge and then recessed deeper to accommodate the rest of the 12 mm switch. Using 3 wood offcuts and a piece of beading with an internal 1/4 round cut, I was able to firmly clamp the corner piece, then using an 18 mm bit followed by a 12 mm bit, drill out the required recesses.


You can see how this has allowed the switch and the top section of the bezel to fit together snugly in the mock up below.


Next I cut the side panels, you can see the careful layout of the cuts to make (Mk II). On the left is the front panel with the disk slot and on the right the cutout for the side vents, the cross intersections are the centre point for the Forstner bit which I would then join up by cutting with a sharp knife. These were all taken from measurements of the case and figured out on paper, unfortunately that means I don't have a complete set of plans if I wanted to repeat the process. I did keep all the pieces of paper just in case though!


A note on cutting thin plywood, if you haven't worked with it before, it is one of the easiest materials to get started with in my opinion. It cuts really easily using a straight edge (in my case the back of a saw) and a sharp blade like a Stanley knife.


The important thing to remember is to use many light cuts on both sides of the wood. Once you've cut into the middle layer of ply on both sides you can easily snap the sheet for a nice clean cut.

In my eagerness to get on to the next stage I of course forgot to take an external picture of the bezel assembled! I do at least have one showing the inside.


You can see how much of the corner piece had to be removed to accommodate the top and bottom sections, the switch and the DVD drive, as well as the smaller pieces of wood I used to increase the surface area for gluing. Initially I was going to use 1x2mm magnets to attach to the case but I wasn't convinced they would be strong enough. I may have gone too far the other way with 2x5mm magnets but 4 are definitely sufficient to hold it on to the case nicely.

To make the eject button for the DVD drive I considered a few approaches. One option was removing the drive's front plate to save an extra millimeter or two but I decided against that as I didn't want to have to make a nice smooth felt lined guide to get the disks in. Instead I chose to build over the front, recessing a second wooden switch which would push on the one on the drive and cutting a slightly wider slot in the wood to avoid scratches. The biggest downside to this is if I ever need to replace the drive I'll need a close match or some extra juggling to get it to work with a different button placement. Making the actual button was fairly straightforward but required a few attempts to get right. By clamping a length of dowel in the chuck of my drill, I could easily sand down and shape the end to a nice dome.


A couple of coats of varnish and done!


Drilling and countersinking the back of the bezel was similarly simple.

The biggest unknown was whether the veneer would be flexible enough to bend around such a tight curve. I also needed to be able to clamp the veneer to the plywood frame without damaging it. I made a right angle out of two large wood scraps with enough of a gap at the corner to accommodate the joints in the bezel.


As I was flexing it I heard a few cracks and decided to cover the surface in masking tape in an attempt to stabilise it. As you can see, not very successful.


On to the next idea! Before trying steaming, I wanted to try soaking which is much simpler.


Success! This veneer offcut was soaked overnight but it becomes flexible very quickly. I ordered quite a few sheets of veneer just in case I needed multiple attempts or decided to laminate them so I had a good selection to choose my final piece from. Here it is cut to size using a scalpel:


All the veneer is oak, shipped all the way to California from Kiev. I really love the knot and the band of colour along the top edge. After soaking I bent it around the bezel and left it to dry overnight. Once formed and dry I used wood glue over both surfaces to stick it down, very pleased with the results.


And here mocked up around the case:


A bit of trimming, cutting out the slots with a scalpel and sanding, followed by a couple of coats of varnish and we're almost done. I followed the same process for the top and bottom sections and used the blocks you can see in the picture further up to help glue it all together. Lessons learned were I to do this again (apart from more accurate measurements), use better quality plywood, it isn't very noticeable but there's a slight warping to the panels which I think comes from being cheap hobby grade wood. Find a better way of painting the metal, despite good preparation, cleaning and several coats of varnish it has started to chip in places just form regular handling. In a perfect world I would strip the whole thing and get someone to powder coat it. Aside from those two things I'm really pleased with how it's come together.

Here is the final case construction, ready to be filled with hardware. I'll cover assembly in the final post.

 

[confusis]

oooh, that's pretty! like a wood In-Win Chopin (which is based on the same core chassis). Love the work

 

[Sicaris]

Thank you! Wooden Chopin was definitely the aim. I'm lucky to have found such nice veneer.