Prototype The world most flexible SFF case? LOUQE Ghost S1

PaChalski

Airflow Optimizer
Original poster
LOUQE
Mar 15, 2017
376
800
For me personally, I would put a rad in the bottom hat, and a pump and res on in the top hat. And maybe an SSD.

I can see people wanting to use 2 AIOs, one for CPU one for GPU.

But yea looking at the design, a bottom hat is probably not so easy to do without compromises.

Would't that make the proportions of the case look funny? adding nearly 120mm in collars would almost double the height of the case.
 
Last edited:

PaChalski

Airflow Optimizer
Original poster
LOUQE
Mar 15, 2017
376
800
I literally scrolled through the OP, read your story, checked out a few pics, scrolled up for details and lost interest until I saw some comments talking about some sort of innovative top hat. I would humbly suggest you put as much effort into these social media forays as you have your innovative design - you need to hook people on the forums and steer them to your eventual Kickstarter page to seal the deal.

I'd add more pics to the OP and also give some sample builds. Even after looking at your site I don't know how many 3.5" HDDs I could fit in your system with which top hat or even if it is possible without a top hat.

Also would going to 4mm standoffs limit the ability to use an m.2 SSD mounted to the bottom of the motherboard?

Sorry if I came off like a dick, just want to help. Welcome to the forum and I look forward to seeing your case come to market!

Not at all, thanks for all the feedback! Truly appreciate it! I'll defiantly clean the OP up in a moment.

The brackets for each TopHat that are holding different components are being developed as we speak, they will be available for download as OBJ-files for those who like to make their own or even modify them before printing. When final design is set we will add more information about the TopHat-solutions.

There is currently a space of 10,5mm between the back of the MB and the back of the GPU leaving room for maneuverability in terms of reducing the stand-off height.
 

buLL

Average Stuffer
Mar 11, 2017
69
53
Dude, I'm still impressed how good the exterior oh this case looks, congratulations on that! Do you have a prediction of how much the case will cost? I'm guessing the "2.5 mm heat treated magnesium and silicone enforced aluminum" will make it kinda expensive? Cheers
 

PaChalski

Airflow Optimizer
Original poster
LOUQE
Mar 15, 2017
376
800
Dude, I'm still impressed how good the exterior oh this case looks, congratulations on that! Do you have a prediction of how much the case will cost? I'm guessing the "2.5 mm heat treated magnesium and silicone enforced aluminum" will make it kinda expensive? Cheers

We are finalizing the RPF-process as we speak, the 3M riser is a significant cost driver and we are still awaiting Quotes from them, any day now. We will be able to give a ball park figure shortly. We have tested 5 other alternative risers but few are comparable in terms of signal consistency and no other comes close in terms of quality and rigidity.

Thanks to good connections in the aluminium manufacturing business and one of the worlds largest alu Extrusion company we have been able to hold material costs at e reasonable level, the additional laser cutting and milling that is required to produce the single piece Spine drives costs more that the actual material. And there is a significant startup cost for all the tooling.
 
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CC Ricers

Shrink Ray Wielder
Bronze Supporter
Nov 1, 2015
2,233
2,556
This looks like a very cool DAN competitor. I think its fabrication process for extruded parts and top hat unibody lends to a look that distinguishes it enough from the A4.

@Ceros_X 4mm standoffs more limiting? That's a good question. Given that there's a big opening in the motherboard tray, I think it would be safe to have those shorter standoffs and the m.2 SSD would sit in a location where the hole is.

@iFreilicht +1 on the bottom rad. Maybe possible to do with an optional "extended" body, and the width is already right to accommodate 120mm fans.
 
I

Ionrent

Guest
Are you exhausting PSU heat directly into an unventilated floor panel?
 

PaChalski

Airflow Optimizer
Original poster
LOUQE
Mar 15, 2017
376
800
Are you exhausting PSU heat directly into an unventilated floor panel?

Glad that came up! We just sent new specs to our prototype manufacturer and hope to get a new Speine tomorrow where the PSU is flipped 180 degrees and "hanging from", instead of resting on the PSU-bracket; for two main reasons:

1) make room for a 2.5" drive underneath the GPU
2) Shoot hot PSU air upwards and higher up instead of sideways in the bottom of the case.

This will affect the magical cable management that was prioritized before but we think we have found a solution to handle that as well.

Loving the attention to details!
 
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wywywywy

Airflow Optimizer
Aug 12, 2016
272
219
Would't that make the proportions of the case look funny? adding nearly 120mm in collars would almost double the height of the case.

Yes but the desk footprint will still be very small, which I care about more than the overall volume. Obviously I'm just speaking what I want which is not necessarily what sells best.
 

Boil

SFF Guru
Nov 11, 2015
1,253
1,094
Big question…

When fully assembled, do the venting holes in the various panels actually line up…?

Like on the top, you have the inner core top panel & that is covered with the outer top panel; if those venting holes do not line up properly, ventilation will suffer greatly…?
 

Nomad

Chassis Packer
Mar 2, 2017
16
39
Are you going to have an option to buy a shell without the branding/name? I appreciate the design, but I'm not a fan of showing off brands. Beautiful looking case overall.
 

FTPCB

Case Bender
Mar 17, 2017
2
1
Damn - LOVE IT!

Any idea on availability? Will you be able to ship to Canada?

I have to second the Branding sentiment. Is there any way to move it away from the front?

Also can you possibly post some temps when you get the new case design? I would love to see how the temps are with the top hats and extra fans at the top as well.
 

PaChalski

Airflow Optimizer
Original poster
LOUQE
Mar 15, 2017
376
800
Big question…

When fully assembled, do the venting holes in the various panels actually line up…?

Like on the top, you have the inner core top panel & that is covered with the outer top panel; if those venting holes do not line up properly, ventilation will suffer greatly…?

Funny story... During the design process, the alignment of these two parts and their individual holes took some time. Every time the measurements were adjusted we had to rerun an excel based hole distribution algorithm in order to find a simple mathematical formula that described it and created a symmetric pattern, accounting for several dependencies:

- Distance from the edge and the overlapping shell
- Distance between holes
- Hole radius
- Placement of the Spine, where rows of holes are removed to accommodate a milled slot for the spine to rest in (0.75mm in death, the same slot is found in the bottom plate).

Another added condition was the keep the distance between these holes equal to the radius of the holes to form an aesthetically pleasant distribution and sufficient open area (~31%). The radius of the holes was ultimately what became important from an aesthetic standpoint and became the first boundary condition to be locked in: r = 1.25 mm. 1 and 1.5 mm were tested first but when we got the 1.25mm prototype in our hands we unanimously agreed that this looked the best. The same radius is used for the holes the sides. All these conditions put constraints on the relative dimensions between depth and width of the entire case – a challenging but conscious decision from the beginning.

CURRENT HOLE DISTRIBUTION FORMULA
- Distance from edge to first row of holes = 2r
- Radius of holes = r
- Space between holes = r
- Full width difference between Grill (the very top) and Shelf (layer below the Grill) to make room for slide in filters = 8r (4r on each side)
- Full depth difference between Grill and Shelf = 4r (2r on each side)
- r = 1,25mm

As mentioned, this has changed throughout the design process but this last simple and precis formula has been constant for some time now resulting in the prototypes to align perfectly. All you see of the Shelf when looking at it from the top through the grill are the removed holes, The first pic in the OP is hinting this effect.

This perfect alignment obviously matters more for the XS-version. I’ll make sure to showcase this before the KickStarter.
 
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PaChalski

Airflow Optimizer
Original poster
LOUQE
Mar 15, 2017
376
800
Are you going to have an option to buy a shell without the branding/name? I appreciate the design, but I'm not a fan of showing off brands. Beautiful looking case overall.

This was the very first feedback we got in the Nordic forum Sweclockers.com, it has been discussed for some time and we are glad to see it appear here as well - giving us ground to assume that a cleaned up front will work well globally. We are addressing this.
 
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PaChalski

Airflow Optimizer
Original poster
LOUQE
Mar 15, 2017
376
800
Also can you possibly post some temps when you get the new case design? I would love to see how the temps are with the top hats and extra fans at the top as well.

Yes, we will defiantly do so. We will do multiple configurations and publish the results.
 
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0xdec

Efficiency Noob
New User
Sep 5, 2016
5
1
Will it be open source? It is mentioned in one of the photos on your website, but later on you mention a patent pending. I sincerely hope that you decide to make the case open source as I believe that will foster creativity and a rich user & modding community.