Completed Lone Industries L5 - 4.6L Mini ITX

damex

Caliper Novice
Aug 27, 2018
30
1
hi,
is there enough space to host 4 (four) 2.5 hdd on front panel? (in place of fans)
let's say I could use something like this:
 

Lone

King of Cable Management
Original poster
Lone Industries
Feb 25, 2015
731
1,248
loneindustries.com
Is the placement of the seam the culprit, or is the slight bend due to something else?

Are you referring to the warped CPU vent?

hi,
is there enough space to host 4 (four) 2.5 hdd on front panel? (in place of fans)

Yes, there is enough space. Maybe not with an HDPLEX DC-ATX 160. I also have a black 4x mounting plate from the L4 I would be happy to include. Having four 2.5" drives does make wire management a little more difficult, but I have seen it done very nicely.
 

Lone

King of Cable Management
Original poster
Lone Industries
Feb 25, 2015
731
1,248
loneindustries.com
Didn't find the GPU clearance information, could anyone help? Thank you!

70 mm max height (it's found on the first page, and on loneindustries.com). If you have any other questions don't hesitate to ask.
 
Last edited:

rikawa

Case Bender
New User
Apr 6, 2019
2
0
70 mm max height (it's found on the first page, and on loneindustries.com). If you have any other questions don't hesitate to ask.
What's the maximum length?
Thank you!

Nevermind, I've figured out. I'm new to SFF Cases and didn't know about the Low Profiles GPUs.

Thank you!
 
Last edited:

Lone

King of Cable Management
Original poster
Lone Industries
Feb 25, 2015
731
1,248
loneindustries.com
What's the maximum length?
Thank you!

Nevermind, I've figured out. I'm new to SFF Cases and didn't know about the Low Profiles GPUs.

Thank you!

I'm sorry, I see now that you wrote GPU and not CPU. 70 mm is the CPU clearance. Glad you figured it out!
 

Lone

King of Cable Management
Original poster
Lone Industries
Feb 25, 2015
731
1,248
loneindustries.com
Yes, I am. Just curious. Thank you!

The warped CPU vent is due to the number of holes that make up the perforated pattern (over 200 holes on CPU vent alone). Each hole is a single hit with a punch. So imagine hitting a metal panel over 200 times in a relatively small area. There are things a manufacturer can do to try to minimise this (strategic punching, cluster punches, etc).

Not sure if that answers your question?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nasp

Windfall

Shrink Ray Wielder
SFFn Staff
Nov 14, 2017
2,117
1,582
The warped CPU vent is due to the number of holes that make up the perforated pattern (over 200 holes on CPU vent alone). Each hole is a single hit with a punch. So imagine hitting a metal panel over 200 times in a relatively small area. There are things a manufacturer can do to try to minimise this (strategic punching, cluster punches, etc).

Not sure if that answers your question?

Is the reason you don't do laser/waterjet instead due to QC?

Or is punching really cheaper?
 

CC Ricers

Shrink Ray Wielder
Bronze Supporter
Nov 1, 2015
2,233
2,556
Punching would be cheaper and also save lots of machine time I would expect. It's still one of the best approaches for uniform small hole patterns.

I have tried online quoting prices for laser cut sheets (in both acrylic and metal) and it gets expensive quick when you are cutting many holes because the pattern contains many closed shapes. To start cutting a shape with a laser, it takes a bit of time for the laser to heat up the material before it goes completely through it, kind of like making a pilot hole for each shape. Then you add up the time with all the perimeter distances of the shapes that are cut.
 

Windfall

Shrink Ray Wielder
SFFn Staff
Nov 14, 2017
2,117
1,582
Punching would be cheaper and also save lots of machine time I would expect. It's still one of the best approaches for uniform small hole patterns.

I have tried online quoting prices for laser cut sheets (in both acrylic and metal) and it gets expensive quick when you are cutting many holes because the pattern contains many closed shapes. To start cutting a shape with a laser, it takes a bit of time for the laser to heat up the material before it goes completely through it, kind of like making a pilot hole for each shape. Then you add up the time with all the perimeter distances of the shapes that are cut.

Makes sense. Waterjet would be faster, but wouldn't be cheaper.
 

Nasp

Cable-Tie Ninja
Apr 17, 2017
152
121
The warped CPU vent is due to the number of holes that make up the perforated pattern (over 200 holes on CPU vent alone). Each hole is a single hit with a punch. So imagine hitting a metal panel over 200 times in a relatively small area. There are things a manufacturer can do to try to minimise this (strategic punching, cluster punches, etc).

Not sure if that answers your question?

It does. I appreciate the detailed answer!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Windfall

KSliger

King of Cable Management
Sliger Designs
May 8, 2015
855
3,186
Ya, it's not very noticeable. It's out about 3 mm near the center. Some are better/worse than others. Here's a photo with a straight edge over the CPU vent. I'm not sure what I should do at this point, since I'm not sure I can even have the CPU vent made without warping. I may have to go back to optimizing for no CPU vent, or explore different vent designs.




We had this problem on the Cerberus cases too. Fix for us was to increase the clearance on the bottom punch die in the turret, and spray kerosene on the sheet before punching it to reduce slugs and burrs. Some fabricators though might not want to hear input on how to run their shop though, gotta word it kindly - good luck.
 

Lone

King of Cable Management
Original poster
Lone Industries
Feb 25, 2015
731
1,248
loneindustries.com
We had this problem on the Cerberus cases too. Fix for us was to increase the clearance on the bottom punch die in the turret, and spray kerosene on the sheet before punching it to reduce slugs and burrs. Some fabricators though might not want to hear input on how to run their shop though, gotta word it kindly - good luck.

Thank you for sharing that with me! I really appreciate it. I will talk with my manufacturer and see what they say. :)
 

QuantumBraced

Master of Cramming
Mar 9, 2017
507
358
Question, why is the bottom vent so small? A lot of cards have dual fans, wouldn't it make sense to extend the vent across the entire bottom?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Windfall

Lone

King of Cable Management
Original poster
Lone Industries
Feb 25, 2015
731
1,248
loneindustries.com
Question, why is the bottom vent so small? A lot of cards have dual fans, wouldn't it make sense to extend the vent across the entire bottom?

There may be other reasons I'm forgetting, but here are some:

Reduce chance of warping. Note issues I ended up having with CPU vent.

Using 1-2 front case fans the GPU vent becomes entry or exit point for air (ie. size doesn't need to match size or number of GPU fans). The tiny GPU vans aren't very strong, so the goal is to keep the air temp inside the case cool.

With the L5, I wanted the least amount of vents as possible, and not the most.

I know there are some who like the idea of replacing the stock GPU fans with 80 mm fans. I'm not totally convinced this is a great option. Half the fan doesn't even cover the heatsink. More testing needs to be done. There's so much room down there, I would like to see a fanless heatsink developed just for this purpose.
 
  • Like
Reactions: QuantumBraced