A crazy year is going to an end and I am sorry not having continued with the final steps (wrapping the case with vinyl foil). But in the last days I finally found time to wrap and rebuild the pc of mine. I decided on a foil that fakes silver brushed aluminium. The foil piece was 153x30cm in size and the brushed structure was horizontally orientated (other than I had planned). But it turned out nice anyway. Here are some pictures.
I was warpping the main case body first. Doesnt look too bad with the horizontal brush orientation. Cutting out the individual holes was a pain though. If anyone wants to design their own case too, dont use round venting holes. I used a precision knife but it still took me half a day to finish all the cut outs. It looks like it was laser cut. So the effort and the pain in my fingers in wrists was worth it
Sadly, one can see the spots, where the panels are stuck together. The foil was quite thin and if I shine a light from behind through the case, you would be able to make out the internals. Its not 100% covering. I still have enough foil to do a double wrap but I am not sure if it would help. So I just leave it as it is. Its not mass manufactured but a one-off diy-project and it is ok if it shows imperfections
At least until my perfectionist ocd tells me other wise, which is rather sooner than later 
Well, talking about my perfectionist ocd, the constant bending of regular pcie riser cables gave me some serious nightmares. So I dropped (for a cable at least) quite some cash on a fancy cable that includes those bends. Its pcie 4.0 and I dont even use pcie 4.0 for now but it may pay out in the long run. I ordered three different sizes, 18cm, 19cm and 20cm. Using the 19cm one results in no display out (maybe faulty or loose connection) but the 20cm works fine. No major performance loss and my ocd is happy too.
Now, this is one of two "final build" images. As mentioned, you can see those mounting spots through the foil but in geneal, the additional front usb is adding so much convenience for plugging in gaming controllers, usb thumb drives etc. just quickly. That was really worth it, more than adding front audio. I usuall dont switch my audio setup.
Coming to the last picture. As you can see, I left the side panels transparent. The combination of the mostly black internals and the transparent panels with the silver brushed look is fantastic. I still need to hard solder the power button cables to the button itself. For now it works fine.
Final thoughts:
Its amazing what you can stash into a 3,9L case. Yes, I use an external power supply but I value the pros over the cons of that setup (mainly noise - those 40mm 1U psu fans make me wanna jump out the window). As you may see, I still opted for the dual minibox psu setup, if I really want to go that way (currently sill using minibox 160xt kit, i5-8400, 2x8GB DDR4 RAM and 1650 Super). With dual 192w psu, I have the option to buid a hell of a pc. I may never go for that option because it would be not in line with my "decent performance to low power consumption policy" (relativly speaking of course) but if I really need that much of horse power in that tiny case, I can do it.
Oh, I already consider making an improved version eigther again out of acrylic or aluminium, using bare minimum of tools. That requires much more planning beforehand. That will take me at least 6 months of additional planning/redesigning because my future job is going to be quite time intensive.
My initial plan were just designing my own case that I use for myself and thats it. Well, counting my very first prototype, its the third case and now I really want to know, how far I can take that puppy, considering even manufacturing one out of some metal myself by hand. Crazy hobby that sff stuff (but whom am I telling this right?)
Cheers and happy new year!
I was warpping the main case body first. Doesnt look too bad with the horizontal brush orientation. Cutting out the individual holes was a pain though. If anyone wants to design their own case too, dont use round venting holes. I used a precision knife but it still took me half a day to finish all the cut outs. It looks like it was laser cut. So the effort and the pain in my fingers in wrists was worth it
Sadly, one can see the spots, where the panels are stuck together. The foil was quite thin and if I shine a light from behind through the case, you would be able to make out the internals. Its not 100% covering. I still have enough foil to do a double wrap but I am not sure if it would help. So I just leave it as it is. Its not mass manufactured but a one-off diy-project and it is ok if it shows imperfections
At least until my perfectionist ocd tells me other wise, which is rather sooner than later
Well, talking about my perfectionist ocd, the constant bending of regular pcie riser cables gave me some serious nightmares. So I dropped (for a cable at least) quite some cash on a fancy cable that includes those bends. Its pcie 4.0 and I dont even use pcie 4.0 for now but it may pay out in the long run. I ordered three different sizes, 18cm, 19cm and 20cm. Using the 19cm one results in no display out (maybe faulty or loose connection) but the 20cm works fine. No major performance loss and my ocd is happy too.
Now, this is one of two "final build" images. As mentioned, you can see those mounting spots through the foil but in geneal, the additional front usb is adding so much convenience for plugging in gaming controllers, usb thumb drives etc. just quickly. That was really worth it, more than adding front audio. I usuall dont switch my audio setup.
Coming to the last picture. As you can see, I left the side panels transparent. The combination of the mostly black internals and the transparent panels with the silver brushed look is fantastic. I still need to hard solder the power button cables to the button itself. For now it works fine.
Final thoughts:
Its amazing what you can stash into a 3,9L case. Yes, I use an external power supply but I value the pros over the cons of that setup (mainly noise - those 40mm 1U psu fans make me wanna jump out the window). As you may see, I still opted for the dual minibox psu setup, if I really want to go that way (currently sill using minibox 160xt kit, i5-8400, 2x8GB DDR4 RAM and 1650 Super). With dual 192w psu, I have the option to buid a hell of a pc. I may never go for that option because it would be not in line with my "decent performance to low power consumption policy" (relativly speaking of course) but if I really need that much of horse power in that tiny case, I can do it.
Oh, I already consider making an improved version eigther again out of acrylic or aluminium, using bare minimum of tools. That requires much more planning beforehand. That will take me at least 6 months of additional planning/redesigning because my future job is going to be quite time intensive.
My initial plan were just designing my own case that I use for myself and thats it. Well, counting my very first prototype, its the third case and now I really want to know, how far I can take that puppy, considering even manufacturing one out of some metal myself by hand. Crazy hobby that sff stuff (but whom am I telling this right?)
Cheers and happy new year!
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Hopefully I finde more time soon to actually use that thing.
