Hello World! (tis my first post)
I've been a long time lurker on this forum, and in no small part have learned a lot from @Aibohphobia on the STX160 thread.
While I’ve enjoyed building an ITX system in an NCASE M1 (first edition), the motherboards that suit my needs are offered only in the full ATX (12” x 9.6”) form factor. ASUS latest ROG boards often are in EATX (12” x 10.7”) form factor.
Tired of not finding what I want in a case, I thought I’d develop my own. So I give to you, the Spartan.
The frame will be made out of 18 gauge (0.050”) brushed stainless steel (no powder coat). All internal bend radii are also 0.050” (making the math easy). I’ll consult Protocase on achievable bend radii and adjust it in the final CAD model if needed.
The dimensions of the frame are 15” x 12” x 5.5” (381mm x 304.8mm x 139.7mm). The side panel is currently planned to be 0.118” (3mm) acrylic. I’m considering using thicker stainless steel for the top and bottom panels to allow for countersunk screws. For the moment, keeping with 18 gauge stainless steel yields outside dimensions of 15.1” x 12” x 5.618” (383.5mm x 304.8mm x 142.7mm) which comes to 16.7 liters. This excludes feet, card flange, fan grills, and screw heads.
This case can be equipped with:
1 - EATX motherboard up to 12” x 10.7”
7 - PCIe cards including 2 GTX 1080’s in SLI (reference design with blower)
3 - 120mm intake fans
2 - 80mm exhaust fans
1 - 140mm exhaust fan under a Noctua NH-C14S (115mm in height) blowing out the side
or... 2 - 92mm fans on a Noctua NH-D9L blowing out the back.
2 - 2.5” HDDs (15mm in height)
1 - SFX-L power supply (SX700-LPT recommended)
The design is primarily a U-shaped enclosure with flanges on all sides. I’ve replicated the closed corner design to all eight corners; so that it’s symmetrical from the front, and provides even support on the bottom when standing vertically.
Symmetry is important to me here. Rather than bending flanges from the top and bottom panels to support the acrylic side panel, I’ve added L-shaped brackets that bolt to the top and bottom. The reveal is then identical between left and right sides. This also allows me to choose a different material for the top and bottom if desired.
I’m trying to keep the price down by not requiring extraneous panels. The motherboard panel is solid and forms the left exterior side. The blind through hole standoffs will be visible on that side (simple hexagon), but I’m ok with that.
I’m keeping the price down by also reducing the number of cutouts per fan to a single round circle; at least for the prototype. I modeled several hexagon grilles, varying from roughly 50 to 100 cutouts per fan, but after watching video of how long it takes the laser cutter to start a new hole, it became impractical.
I found the following website to be helpful in my decision to go without an integrated grill, with perhaps wire grills bolted on (more on this later).
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Effects-of-Grill-Patterns-on-Fan-Performance-Noise-107/
Screw holes:
7 - PCIe slot retention holes (2.5mm diameter) tapped with M3 x 0.5mm thread
9 - BSO4-632-12 Blind Threaded Standoffs for Stainless Steel 6-32 thread .375”
40 - SP-M3-1 Self-Clinching Nut For Stainless Steel M3 x 0.5mm thread (12 on top, 12 on bottom, 12 on acrylic side, 4 for feet)
The top and bottom panels will attach with M3 x 4mm Button Head Socket Cap Screws https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CKU0UP2/?tag=theminutiae-20
Sheet metal bending should be similar to the SFX160 project. Only 3 press brake finger changes should be needed, and 3 back gauge changes.
Bend 1 is still the PCIe retention flange, albeit 5.55” long for 7 slots. No PEMs here, I'll have them tap the holes. This also helps them passivate the stainless steel after all bends are made before installing any PEMs.
Bends 2 and 3 are identical on Spartan. The two L-brackets are the same bends as the center of bends 2 and 3, so no additional setup needed.
Bends 4, 5, 6, and 7 are all the same width and can use the same fingers.
The flanges are tapered at the ends so that bends 4, 5, 6, and 7 may be bent past 90 degrees by up to 5.7 degrees when dealing with spring back. All corners are rounded to prevent injury.
There is 0.553” (14mm) of clearance between the top of a video card (assuming it doesn’t violate the PCIe spec) and the inside of the acrylic window. This requires the use of low profile 90 degree power cables, such as these http://kareonkables.com/products/90-degree-female-8-pin-to-8-pin-pci-e-video-card-adapter-version-1 which are only 0.4375” (11.11mm) in height.
High-Bandwidth SLI bridges that are embellished with LEDs seem to be oversized. There doesn’t appear to be enough room under the flange to install them; however, ASUS has made a narrow and thin HB SLI bridge that appears to fit; even if it needs to go under the flange https://www.asus.com/Motherboard-Accessory/SLI-HB-BRIDGE2-WAY-M/
There is room for two 2.5” HDDs on the bottom of the case. While I’m not sure I’ll be using them personally (as I’ll be going for a Samsung 960 Pro 1TB M.2 stick on the motherboard) I’ll add rubber grommet mounts on the bottom of the case for them. Power for them is right there (able to run a short single wire from the PSU to each HDD). SATA cables with 9.6” ATX boards are straight forward; however, use of 10.7” EATX boards may preclude access to the SATA ports unless a slim 120mm fan is used, or the ports are straight up rather than right-angled.
To try and dress-up the front of the case, I came across the following 360mm radiator fan grill and thought it looked great on the Spartan.
https://mnpctech.com/pc-computer-al...ill-360-open-ring-fan-and-radiator-grill.html
Here's an orthogonal view of the inside. Note: the older NH-C14 is pictured; not the NH-C14S that is offset towards the power supply to help with a GPU in the first slot.
The motherboard layout here is from the Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Designare. I wanted to play around with Hackintosh. Slot 1 will have a wireless card. Slots 2 and 5 will have reference blower Geforce GTX 1080 cards (once NVIDIA releases a Mac driver for Pascal). Slot 7 will have a PCIe x4 Gigabyte GC-ALPINE RIDGE card; adding two additional Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C ports for a total of four, three of which have DisplayPort pass thru for 4K retina displays. On this motherboard, when both the PCIe x4 M.2 and PCIe x4 Slot 7 are used, all of the right-angled SATA ports are disabled; however, 2 vertical SATA ports remain for the two HDD mounts.
I'm still working on where to place the power button and front USB 3.0 ports. They might go on the top panel, though the fan or GPU may interfere, or maybe they can be angled out, or even just attached to the acrylic and come out the side.
All comments welcome!
I've been a long time lurker on this forum, and in no small part have learned a lot from @Aibohphobia on the STX160 thread.
While I’ve enjoyed building an ITX system in an NCASE M1 (first edition), the motherboards that suit my needs are offered only in the full ATX (12” x 9.6”) form factor. ASUS latest ROG boards often are in EATX (12” x 10.7”) form factor.
Tired of not finding what I want in a case, I thought I’d develop my own. So I give to you, the Spartan.
The frame will be made out of 18 gauge (0.050”) brushed stainless steel (no powder coat). All internal bend radii are also 0.050” (making the math easy). I’ll consult Protocase on achievable bend radii and adjust it in the final CAD model if needed.
The dimensions of the frame are 15” x 12” x 5.5” (381mm x 304.8mm x 139.7mm). The side panel is currently planned to be 0.118” (3mm) acrylic. I’m considering using thicker stainless steel for the top and bottom panels to allow for countersunk screws. For the moment, keeping with 18 gauge stainless steel yields outside dimensions of 15.1” x 12” x 5.618” (383.5mm x 304.8mm x 142.7mm) which comes to 16.7 liters. This excludes feet, card flange, fan grills, and screw heads.
This case can be equipped with:
1 - EATX motherboard up to 12” x 10.7”
7 - PCIe cards including 2 GTX 1080’s in SLI (reference design with blower)
3 - 120mm intake fans
2 - 80mm exhaust fans
1 - 140mm exhaust fan under a Noctua NH-C14S (115mm in height) blowing out the side
or... 2 - 92mm fans on a Noctua NH-D9L blowing out the back.
2 - 2.5” HDDs (15mm in height)
1 - SFX-L power supply (SX700-LPT recommended)
The design is primarily a U-shaped enclosure with flanges on all sides. I’ve replicated the closed corner design to all eight corners; so that it’s symmetrical from the front, and provides even support on the bottom when standing vertically.
Symmetry is important to me here. Rather than bending flanges from the top and bottom panels to support the acrylic side panel, I’ve added L-shaped brackets that bolt to the top and bottom. The reveal is then identical between left and right sides. This also allows me to choose a different material for the top and bottom if desired.
I’m trying to keep the price down by not requiring extraneous panels. The motherboard panel is solid and forms the left exterior side. The blind through hole standoffs will be visible on that side (simple hexagon), but I’m ok with that.
I’m keeping the price down by also reducing the number of cutouts per fan to a single round circle; at least for the prototype. I modeled several hexagon grilles, varying from roughly 50 to 100 cutouts per fan, but after watching video of how long it takes the laser cutter to start a new hole, it became impractical.
I found the following website to be helpful in my decision to go without an integrated grill, with perhaps wire grills bolted on (more on this later).
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Effects-of-Grill-Patterns-on-Fan-Performance-Noise-107/
Screw holes:
7 - PCIe slot retention holes (2.5mm diameter) tapped with M3 x 0.5mm thread
9 - BSO4-632-12 Blind Threaded Standoffs for Stainless Steel 6-32 thread .375”
40 - SP-M3-1 Self-Clinching Nut For Stainless Steel M3 x 0.5mm thread (12 on top, 12 on bottom, 12 on acrylic side, 4 for feet)
The top and bottom panels will attach with M3 x 4mm Button Head Socket Cap Screws https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CKU0UP2/?tag=theminutiae-20
Sheet metal bending should be similar to the SFX160 project. Only 3 press brake finger changes should be needed, and 3 back gauge changes.
Bend 1 is still the PCIe retention flange, albeit 5.55” long for 7 slots. No PEMs here, I'll have them tap the holes. This also helps them passivate the stainless steel after all bends are made before installing any PEMs.
Bends 2 and 3 are identical on Spartan. The two L-brackets are the same bends as the center of bends 2 and 3, so no additional setup needed.
Bends 4, 5, 6, and 7 are all the same width and can use the same fingers.
The flanges are tapered at the ends so that bends 4, 5, 6, and 7 may be bent past 90 degrees by up to 5.7 degrees when dealing with spring back. All corners are rounded to prevent injury.
There is 0.553” (14mm) of clearance between the top of a video card (assuming it doesn’t violate the PCIe spec) and the inside of the acrylic window. This requires the use of low profile 90 degree power cables, such as these http://kareonkables.com/products/90-degree-female-8-pin-to-8-pin-pci-e-video-card-adapter-version-1 which are only 0.4375” (11.11mm) in height.
High-Bandwidth SLI bridges that are embellished with LEDs seem to be oversized. There doesn’t appear to be enough room under the flange to install them; however, ASUS has made a narrow and thin HB SLI bridge that appears to fit; even if it needs to go under the flange https://www.asus.com/Motherboard-Accessory/SLI-HB-BRIDGE2-WAY-M/
There is room for two 2.5” HDDs on the bottom of the case. While I’m not sure I’ll be using them personally (as I’ll be going for a Samsung 960 Pro 1TB M.2 stick on the motherboard) I’ll add rubber grommet mounts on the bottom of the case for them. Power for them is right there (able to run a short single wire from the PSU to each HDD). SATA cables with 9.6” ATX boards are straight forward; however, use of 10.7” EATX boards may preclude access to the SATA ports unless a slim 120mm fan is used, or the ports are straight up rather than right-angled.
To try and dress-up the front of the case, I came across the following 360mm radiator fan grill and thought it looked great on the Spartan.
https://mnpctech.com/pc-computer-al...ill-360-open-ring-fan-and-radiator-grill.html
Here's an orthogonal view of the inside. Note: the older NH-C14 is pictured; not the NH-C14S that is offset towards the power supply to help with a GPU in the first slot.
The motherboard layout here is from the Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Designare. I wanted to play around with Hackintosh. Slot 1 will have a wireless card. Slots 2 and 5 will have reference blower Geforce GTX 1080 cards (once NVIDIA releases a Mac driver for Pascal). Slot 7 will have a PCIe x4 Gigabyte GC-ALPINE RIDGE card; adding two additional Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C ports for a total of four, three of which have DisplayPort pass thru for 4K retina displays. On this motherboard, when both the PCIe x4 M.2 and PCIe x4 Slot 7 are used, all of the right-angled SATA ports are disabled; however, 2 vertical SATA ports remain for the two HDD mounts.
I'm still working on where to place the power button and front USB 3.0 ports. They might go on the top panel, though the fan or GPU may interfere, or maybe they can be angled out, or even just attached to the acrylic and come out the side.
All comments welcome!
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