Completed Lone Industries L5 - 4.6L Mini ITX

[drgoku]

On a separate note, I discovered a 450w peek Chinese picopsu option which has dual 5mm 12v dc inputs. Not even sure how this would work. 2x power bricks? Probably dual 12v rails which still wudnt help.

Better to stay away from unknown brands when the psu power and the requirement are so close.

 

[Lone]

Everything I couldn't understand explained clearly... feels like it should be a sticky somewhere.

Glad it was helpful. I'll make a help page on my website dedicated to this.

Thanks. I understand now. I think based on evidence, hdplex seems to be a good option for 3600 and above cpus, with a solid 12v rail. I am also able to find a lot of 19.5v 180w laptop bricks locally with the 7.5mm barrel connector. Unless the G-Unique dc atx could come out cheaper I wud go with hdplex.

The HDPLEX is a popular option based on what I've seen posted here. The price of the G-Unique DC-ATX is similar to the HDPLEX.

HDPLEX 200W DC-ATX 16-24V

Pros:
- 19.5V AC adapter availability
- Availability/free shipping
- Supports up to 200W continuous
- Variety of wiring connectors
- Warranty support (has a history of sending out replacements when issues arise)

Cons:
- Clearance/size (large, extends far past edge motherboard)
- Bulky wiring
- Hotter operation (requires heatsinks to help cool)

G-UNIQUE ARCH DAEMON DC-ATX 12V

Pros:
- Size/clearance
- Compact/custom wiring
- Cool operation
- Supports up to 300W with appropriate DC jack (greater with active cooling)
- Supports G-Unique internal 300W AC power supply

Cons:
- Somewhat limited 12V AC adapter choices
- Availability/shipping from China (I hope to improve this by stocking some)
- Unknown warranty support (one man company)

I may have missed an item or two.

 

[Lone]

May batch of L5 parts are in hand, and quality is great. I'll send out a notice as soon as I'm ready to accept orders.

 

[smitty2k1]

Glad it was helpful. I'll make a help page on my website dedicated to this.



The HDPLEX is a popular option based on what I've seen posted here. The price of the G-Unique DC-ATX is similar to the HDPLEX.

HDPLEX 200W DC-ATX 16-24V

Pros:
- 19.5V AC adapter availability
- Availability/free shipping
- Supports up to 200W continuous
- Variety of wiring connectors
- Warranty support (has a history of sending out replacements when issues arise)

Cons:
- Clearance/size (large, extends far past edge motherboard)
- Bulky wiring
- Hotter operation (requires heatsinks to help cool)

G-UNIQUE ARCH DAEMON DC-ATX 12V

Pros:
- Size/clearance
- Compact/custom wiring
- Cool operation
- Supports up to 300W with appropriate DC jack (greater with active cooling)
- Supports G-Unique internal 300W AC power supply

Cons:
- Somewhat limited 12V AC adapter choices
- Availability/shipping from China (I hope to improve this by stocking some)
- Unknown warranty support (one man company)

I may have missed an item or two.

Are you planning on stocking an internal AC/DC solution from G-Unique in addition to the DC/ATX plug in unit?

 

[Lone]

Are you planning on stocking an internal AC/DC solution from G-Unique in addition to the DC/ATX plug in unit?

No plans at the moment, but it's certainly a possibility.

 

[drgoku]

Another internal ac dc option is to put the meanwell rps 200w inside like jhack? 103mm x 62mm x 40mm. Perhaps on the front?

 

[Lone]

Another internal ac dc option is to put the meanwell rps 200w inside like jhack? 103mm x 62mm x 40mm. Perhaps on the front?

If you can live with 140W.

EDIT: There's a mounting plate under resources for this. It might also be possible to mount a tiny fan to one end of the RPS-200 in order to get the full 200W.

 

[Lone]

Now accepting orders for May batch. Orders placed this week should ship early next week.

 

[smitty2k1]

Another internal ac dc option is to put the meanwell rps 200w inside like jhack? 103mm x 62mm x 40mm. Perhaps on the front?

I still don't think we have seen this configuration "in the wild" though I would love it if someone did.

 

[Lone]

Here's a photo of one of the G-Unique Arch Daemon DC-ATX that I received. The idea with the short SATA cable is that it supports the top single 2.5 inch mounting location by default, and additional devices using an extension cable (not included). If I continue stocking these, I could also carry various DC input and SATA cables.

 

[SEGFAULT]

I put an L5 Build together around Christmas time.

Edward: The worlds smallest dual GPU machine.

The original forum thread was here on forum.level1techs.com. I have copied the relevant the pictures and text across into this thread.

Goals:

• Fast Compiler Workstation, for the very large rust code bases I work with.
• Enough ram to run multiple virtual machines.
• 10Gb Ethernet connection to my NAS
• Small enough to chuck in a rucksack and take with me.

Parts List:

• Ryzen 9 3900X
• Corsair Vengance 64GB 3600MHz Kit
• Gigabyte X570 I Aorus Pro Wifi ITX Motherboard
• HDPlex 200W PSU with 240W Dell Laptop Charger
• Noctua NH-L12S
• AMD Radeon WX4100
• Samsung 960Evo 1TB (Recycled)
• Asus 10G Ethernet Adapter card (Recycled)
• M.2 to PCI-e adapter
• Lone Industries L5

I am using an M.2 to PCI-e 4x adapter to allow the use of a second PCI card in the L5 case. Unfortunately due to the very limited space behind the motherboard the backplate had to be removed. this backplate however is purely cosmetic.

Continued in next post (I hit the image limit)

 

[SEGFAULT]

After moving to Uni and leaving my NAS behind I opted to install a second GPU into the lower PCI-e slot.
this required me to solder extra wires directly from the adapter to the HD-Plex GPU socket, as the extra GPU needed more power than an M.2 slot could provide.


As far as I am aware, no one else has pulled of dual GPU's in an ITX case this small before, hence my bold claim: this is the smallest dual discrete GPU computer in the world

 

[Analogue Blacksheep]

@SEGFAULT - Good to see your build finally here. I lurk on the Levelonetechs forum occasionally or to ask a random question that might not work over here. Have to admit, your build in a way influenced my one. I also tried experimenting with expanding out the M.2 ports, but just with an OCuLink connector and a U.2 cable. While I've decided against it now, it is cool when someone is able to pull something like an extra PCIE card/device in a build like this. Also nice to see someone else with 64GB of RAM.

 

[SEGFAULT]

Also nice to see someone else with 64GB of RAM.

Gotta have 64GB of ram when you're running multiple VM's ;P

 

[fleetfeather]

A quick update for you all on my build that's been up and running for a few months now...

Slim Fans for the L5:

The fans I use in the front are 15mm thick models from SilenX, which you can buy from PerformancePCs. They come in two RPM variants, but I have the slower ones. They accomodate the HDPlex 200w (and G-Unique) direct-plug options without issue. They haven't developed any strange clicking or anything, and indeed these lower-RPM models are inaudible.

Slim Fans and PSUs:

By default, you can fit the G-Unique internal AC-DC brick in the front with these 15mm fans as well, but you'll run into clearance issues if your ATX PSU connector is in front of the brick location (i.e., if you have the internal brick in the upper fan location, along with a 15mm fan). You could get around this issue if you found an ATX PSU plug that didn't have a plastic retention clip bulging out from it.

No issues placing the 15mm fan + AC-DC brick in the lower fan location, as long as your LP GPU isn't longer than 170mm (doublecheck the length of your GPU - the Asus 1650 LP won't fit with a 15mm fan and internal G-unique brick in front of it).

Hope that helps some readers out,

 

[drgoku]

The arrival of the rumoured 4700g is gonna change a few things. Now it's possible to do a powerful 16 thread no gpu build and that too with only upto a 150w power supply. Apu cases are going to get more popular at the expense of cases such as L5 which cater to lp gpu + strong cpu audience. I hope you take this into consideration for future designs.

 

[smitty2k1]

A quick update for you all on my build that's been up and running for a few months now...

Slim Fans for the L5:

The fans I use in the front are 15mm thick models from SilenX, which you can buy from PerformancePCs. They come in two RPM variants, but I have the slower ones. They accomodate the HDPlex 200w (and G-Unique) direct-plug options without issue. They haven't developed any strange clicking or anything, and indeed these lower-RPM models are inaudible.

Slim Fans and PSUs:

By default, you can fit the G-Unique internal AC-DC brick in the front with these 15mm fans as well, but you'll run into clearance issues if your ATX PSU connector is in front of the brick location (i.e., if you have the internal brick in the upper fan location, along with a 15mm fan). You could get around this issue if you found an ATX PSU plug that didn't have a plastic retention clip bulging out from it.

No issues placing the 15mm fan + AC-DC brick in the lower fan location, as long as your LP GPU isn't longer than 170mm (doublecheck the length of your GPU - the Asus 1650 LP won't fit with a 15mm fan and internal G-unique brick in front of it).

Hope that helps some readers out,

Thanks for all that info - I hadn't heard of the 15m SilenX fan, and I thought I'd done exhaustive searches for 80x15mm fans! I'm not happy with either the Coolermaster or Noiseblocker 80x15 fan so I may pick up a set of these, although the ASUS 1650 LP seems to do pretty well on it's own without swapping the fans to larger ones.

Can you share some photos of the G-Unique PSU setup inside? I think I remember seeing one of these before in this thread (maybe it was yours?) but it's a really cool AC/DC-DC/ATX form factor and I'd love to see more. Are you in the US? How much did it cost to get it over here?

 

[Analogue Blacksheep]

The arrival of the rumoured 4700g is gonna change a few things. Now it's possible to do a powerful 16 thread no gpu build and that too with only upto a 150w power supply. Apu cases are going to get more popular at the expense of cases such as L5 which cater to lp gpu + strong cpu audience. I hope you take this into consideration for future designs.

Not necessarily. If there was an APU that was as good as my 1650LP I would still have need for the expansion slots. I wouldn't mind using slot-in SSD to use for graphics work.

 

[Lone]

The arrival of the rumoured 4700g is gonna change a few things. Now it's possible to do a powerful 16 thread no gpu build and that too with only upto a 150w power supply. Apu cases are going to get more popular at the expense of cases such as L5 which cater to lp gpu + strong cpu audience. I hope you take this into consideration for future designs.

It's definitely something that I've thought about, and will continue to keep an eye on.

Not necessarily. If there was an APU that was as good as my 1650LP I would still have need for the expansion slots. I wouldn't mind using slot-in SSD to use for graphics work.

I agree with this.

The L series will probably have expansion slots as long as Mini-ITX motherboards have a PCIe slot. My thoughts on an APU version of the L5 are that you could either go smaller, stay the same, or go larger:

Smaller

• Less cooling capacity (less CPU clearance, no space for case fans)
• It would be smaller

Same size

• Space for 2.5 inch drives
• Space for M.2 to PCIe adapters
• Can still utilize expansion slot for other add-on cards
• Maybe someday there will be an internal power supply that will fit in that space

Larger

• Add support for internal PSU like FlexATX (noisy, wires, no thanks), or HDPLEX AC-DC
• Maybe add that third expansion slot

 

[fleetfeather]

Thanks for all that info - I hadn't heard of the 15m SilenX fan, and I thought I'd done exhaustive searches for 80x15mm fans! I'm not happy with either the Coolermaster or Noiseblocker 80x15 fan so I may pick up a set of these, although the ASUS 1650 LP seems to do pretty well on it's own without swapping the fans to larger ones.

Can you share some photos of the G-Unique PSU setup inside? I think I remember seeing one of these before in this thread (maybe it was yours?) but it's a really cool AC/DC-DC/ATX form factor and I'd love to see more. Are you in the US? How much did it cost to get it over here?

All good! Yeah tbh I didn't have high hopes for them as they seemed like pretty generic fans, and yeah I'd heard very mixed reviews about the NBs... But until Noctua wants to bring out a slim 80mm option, it's gonna have to be a bit of trial and error for all of us Attached are some photos of the various iterations my L5 has gone through, with a little description for each photo.


You can see below, how a G-Unique Internal can fit with a 15mm thick fan, in both positions. to plug in your ATX 24-pin connector, you'll need it to not bulge out past the mobo though. Maybe consider shaving off the rention clip on your 24-Pin ATX connector?

In the bottom fan position, the G-Unique and 15mm fan combo takes up the space needed for the end of the Asus 1650LP - if you want this type of combo to work, you'll need to find a LP GPU that isn't longer than 170mm; sacrifice the 15mm fan (see below); or move the PSU into the top fan slot (see above)

With the bottom 15mm width fan removed, the G-Unique can accomodate an Asus 1650LP and a 7mm thick SSD

Or you can run a 1650LP, 2x 15mm thick fans, and an external brick, with some breathing room to spare!

Cheers!