Neutronium (Alpha) v3 Build Log

Machupo

Machupo

Gravity Tester
Joined
Nov 14, 2004
Messages
5,759
Updated as of 11/8/2012

Project Goals:
- Maximum power in Minimum Volume (hence the name Neutronium)
- All air cooling (for airplane carry-on capability)
- Balance of noise w/ thermals & light OC'ing ability

Here are the current design specs (for test fitting):
- Custom "sled" design
- Asrock Z77e-itx w/ 256gb smart series ssd and intel 6300
- i7-3770k w/ low-profile air cooler
- 2x 4GB Samsung ultra-low profile DDR3-1600
- GTX 670 w/ Twincooler (ultra small heatsink/fan from asian markets)
- st45sf-g sfx psu (with noiseblocker 80x15mm fan transplanted in)

A couple renderings from later in this thread:

Components (USB/power button position is from an older design):
asym_neutronium.jpg


External (with updated USB/power button positions):
asym_neutronium_cased.jpg
 
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I guess that's one way to make the Apex case work.

I've always wanted to run a PSU like that, but never got around to it. Nice!
 
In order to fit the PSU in the front of the case, I had to lose the box / fan (it's mounted on mobo standoffs). The Nexus Compact 630w is 125mm deep in the box and is 110mm PCB sized (115mm if you include overhanging components), that allows it to just fit in the front. There will be a slim 120mm scythe fan directly above it blowing down which will be mounted on the radiator of the Kuhler H2O (mounted in the 5.25" drive bay space). It will be in push/pull arrangement with another slim fan on top of the radiator (which will draw cool air from outside the case).

I just like how dense this gets all of the components and still provides good airflow. The HDD/SSD will be mounted on the side of the case (same orientation as the video card, just on the space in the opposite side) and a 140mm blowhole fan will be directly above the exposed motherboard (why? dunno... it's total overkill). Neutronium is, afterall, the (theoretical) degenerate matter which makes up neutron stars, so component density is a key factor of the system planning.

Another, much more theoretical, arrangement would involve a 2x140mm radiator which fits perfectly in the 5.25" drive bay from the extreme front of the case to extreme rear. In that arrangement, the front fan would blow down on the psu providing some cooling and the rear fan would blowhole out the top of the case. But... in order to make that worth the effort, I'd also have to get a one-off waterblock for the vid card with the ports on the bottom of the card since the MI-008 is just tall enough so that the top of the vid card doesn't arc to the case lid. So, it probably won't happen... :p
 
ok -- just wanted to give an update. I'm dumping the watercooling aspect of the system in order to maximize component density.

Current specs:
-Giada MI-Z68 mobo w/ 120GB Runcore T50 mSATA SSD and Intel 6200 Wifi NIC
-Intel i7-2600k w/ samuel 17
-Geil 2x8GB Corsa DDR3-1333
-MSI Radeon 6990
-Nexus 6000 630w compact psu or possibly an AX750/850
-Considering a couple laptop hdd's for bulk storage.

Goals/Experiments:
-Standard PSU w/ alternate video card placement, 8.5L; Standard PSU and video card placement, 10.0L.
-Acrylic construction... need to refine my technique / skills.
-PSU depth of up to 160mm (if modular), 170mm if not modular
-Trying out a PCI-e 16x ribbon cable... should be interesting

All of this has been superseded by a 4.0mm base 2.0mm wall anodized aluminum sled design... The main post has been updated with new components and a later post discusses some of the design aspects
 
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Why not ditch the internal PSU entirely and go for an external PSU?

I can't help but think that an internal PSU without its cover is going to be decidedly dangerous.
 
newbs said:
Does the Giada MI-Z68 allow overclocking?
Click to expand...

In theory, but I haven't had enough time to fully explore all of the settings.

Quartz-1 said:
Why not ditch the internal PSU entirely and go for an external PSU?

I can't help but think that an internal PSU without its cover is going to be decidedly dangerous.
Click to expand...

Don't know of any external PSUs which can push enough juice to run a 6990 -- and it just seems like cheating ;)

If I go with a full, boxed PSU, that would bump the internal volume up to about 8.5L, but would allow for more room for a CPU cooler (read: AXP-140). I'll look into that ;)
 
might want to consider a 1 tb laptop drive for build that is what i am useing and like them.

i look forward to seeing this updated

Jen
 
I follow with interest all the changes on this case.
would something like that, but it certainly will be better .
Good job ;)
 
torr3nt, that is the idea behind potential configuration #1 -- running in the standard "shoebox" lineup. In order to get that to work with a decently powered PSU, I'll have to raise the motherboard (and thus the video card) up on a 15-20mm platform so that the modular plugs are below the bottom of the video card.

On the other hand, potential configuration #2 would involve that PCIe 16X ribbon and running the video card and motherboard back to back. It is pretty pointless to run this configuration, though, with a stock-sized PSU... there would have been a much greater benefit from the deboxed psu.
 
If anyone else needs the measurement, the height of the base of the 6990 heatsink is 15mm above the surface of the motherboard.

So, with the heights of the modular plugs on the AX850/750 being ~45mm, I will do the next test fit (as soon as the psu shows up) with 35mm standoffs I have hanging around. That will at least give me an idea of the minimum height/width for the case.

PCIe ribbon should be here this week, so it will be interesting to see if that has any degradation on video card performance (extra 10" of travel)
 
whats going on with this? i saw you got a st45sf-g and wanted to check out your build but theres nothing here... :confused:
 
Lol, I've been out of the house for six weeks (black mold was crawling up the inside of some walls from a leaking pipe, so the upstairs was demoed).

Final sled (bottom piece + I/O plate) design will be sent to the machine shop next week. I'm also designing a plate that will hold the dual-stacked kuhler 620's over the mobo on 30mm standoffs, creating a mobo-cooling chimney effect. Once I get both of those all set then I can finally move on to the outer shell design.
 
is it still going to be 8.5L? gotta be less than 8.62 to beat me. :)
 
Somewhere between 6.8 and 7.92L depending on how you measure ;)
 
Here is the CNC diagram of Sled v1 (i.e. the bottom piece of the case). The sled is the most important part of a case; all of the side / roof in this case design are interchangeable depending upon the circumstances.

Notice the following:
- Threaded mITX motherboard standoff holes
- 16mm Bulgin switch for PWR_ON
- Three holes on each edge for attachment of shell (sides and roof)
- SFX power supply will be in vertical orientation with a low-profile down-angle AC power cord through the bottom of the case.
- MNPCTech case feet, 1 at each corner

Sled material is 3.0mm black anodized aluminum. (200mm wide by 235mm deep)

sledv1.jpg
 
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Oh, and ekuest, with that design, I'm @ 6.110L if I go with a rectangular shape... I'm thinking about making it slightly asym (hack a wedge off one edge) to duck under 6L :D
 
Machupo said:
Oh, and ekuest, with that design, I'm @ 6.110L if I go with a rectangular shape... I'm thinking about making it slightly asym (hack a wedge off one edge) to duck under 6L :D
Click to expand...

curses! you cheat! :D very nice, im actually a little bit up on my new case to almost 8.7L. i decided that i wanted to make a case that will fit whatever i want (except dual gpu cards) and be silent at idle and near silent at load. i too have a 620 for the cpu and for the gpu. i also have a design for a more limited case that would only hold a short pcb 670 and an air cooler for the cpu but i think it would be loud and of course there probably wont be another high-end gpu as short as the 670. that design is about 6.4L, but it wont get made.

i'd love to see more pics of your design. mostly because youre embarrassing me in the smallest (serious) sff gaming rig battle. if it's 200mmx235mm for the bottom then it would have to be 130mm tall to be 6.11L. are you only using one fan for your 620s? i dont see how it could be that thin otherwise. also make sure you have enough room to route your hoses. finally, it looks like you have the psu cord coming out the bottom? are you running it inside the case or out? i had my psu up front before but i decided to move it to the back because i had heat issues exhausting inside the case. i thought about exhausting out the bottom but i really didnt want the power cord running outside the case like that. finally may i ask what components youre using with it? sorry for all the questions, i just think youre a like-minded sff enthusiast with a similar mod going on concurrent with mine so i'm very interested in how youre tackling all the same problems i had to. ooh and also dont make the cut out, go with a regular box. much much simpler and will give you some cable/hose routing room you'll need.
 
just remembered another thing. i found that with 2mm thick aluminum on a case this tiny, you dont need the third hole on each edge for strength. i never even used mine and i eliminated them on the second rev. its such a short distance and the material is strong enough that it doesnt really provide any extra strength. what are you using to fasten them all together anyway?
 
So, 130mm is the height of the case itself, if you include the case feet that brings us up to ~6.82L (they're the MNPCTech ones and are about 15mm tall).

I'll be using 120mm 12mm slim scythe fans (two or three depending on room) since I found a PWM version :D (SY1212SL12H-P, the same fan found on the big shuriken 2)

PSU will be drawing air off the motherboard surface (with the internal fan) and exhausting out the bottom (same side the AC power cord plugs in). It will actually be on 6mm standoffs inside the case since even the low-profile down-angle power cord I have is too thick for the case feet.

Depending on how the GPU looks with the kuhler on it, I'll fit a slim 80/92/120mm fan on the side to be the fan intake. Radiators will blowhole through the roof.

An alternate to dual 620's is to only use one on the GPU, use my AXP140 on the pcu, and stack to a blowhole. So air would come off the motherboard, go up through the AXP140, through the 12mm fan, through the 620 radiator, through another 12mm fan, and out the roof of the case. That gives me a stack (including standoffs and whatnot) of 129mm tall.

All of these can be slightly altered, though if things just don't fit... should stay well below 6.5L no matter what I change, though (unless I want to add 3.5" HDD's or something). Once all of the parts arrive and I can do a test fit, I will be producing custom cables w/ low-profile power connectors (wires out of the side of the plastic instead of the top). That should help fit everything in here in a nice fashion.

I'll definitely provide pics once I get parts in; I'm absolute garbage at Sketchup or I'd post a model. The "shell" edges/lips will be threaded for M3 from the bottom, so once I finalize a design there, I can just screw it on from under the case (those holes in the sled are 4.0mm).

Specs for the system are:
AsRock Z77e-itx w/ 128GB MyDigitalSSD Smart series mSATA SSD & Intel centrino 6300n dual band wifi
Intel i7-3770K
GeiL 2x8GB Corsa DDR3-1333
eVGA GTX 670 Superclocked 4GB
Silverstone ST45SF-G 450w modular SFX PSU

I may bump the SSD up to the 256gb Smart series model, but am only using 70-80gb of the current one (we'll see how much that changes when Borderlands2 comes out :p)
 
Oh, also wanted to add, that 16mm hole on the right of the sled (next to the psu cutout) is for a 16mm low-profile bulgin switch. I want this box to be competely nodescript, no buttons or anything (it's going to be a black mirror chrome finish), so the power button is underneath, about 8mm away from the edge. Fits my finger perfectly ;)
 
Machupo said:
....bulgin....competely nodescript, no buttons or anything (it's going to be a black ... so the ... button is underneath ... 8mm away from the edge. Fits my finger perfectly ;)
Click to expand...

that's what she said :D
 
Here is the AC power cord that will come from underneath the vertical power supply (under the case, to be wrapped in with the other cords going behind the 30" monitor).

3563.jpg
 
Sled_v1 arrived from the CNC job today, here's a test build shot (obviously without wire management):
sled_v1.jpg



I'm thinking about lengthening it about 10mm to accomodate moving the PSU left-ward in front of the de-hsf'ed gtx 670. This would allow me to put up to 4x 2.5" drives into the case (at the expense of not being able to put a 680 in the case)... what are everyone's thoughts on the tradeoffs? If I did the lengthening without moving the PSU over, the case could accomodate 1x 2.5" drive and a gtx 680. If I went with a back panel power button instead of the under-mount, I could probably make that 2x thick (2TB) 2.5" drives or 3x standard height ones.

Oh, and w/o case feet, the lengthened version would be at 6.35L (7.35L with the case feet and spacers).
 
too small man, love it! as far as moving the psu, i had the same issue of whether or not to make a super tiny case with the 670. it really comes down to, do you want to keep this case and use it for future builds, or is this a one-off and a new build would get a new case? i doubt there will be another card as powerful as high-end as the gtx670 in the future with such a short pcb, so if you want this case to be upgradeable at all, then i would leave the psu where it is. also, who needs a bunch of drives in a sff gaming rig? thats what your server is for. :) i have a single 64gb ssd in mine and its more than enough.
 
Yeah, so playing with the design a bit, I'm going to extend it by 8mm in front so that gtx670's/680's fit unmodified. I'm also going to extend the back lip by 2mm to give a bit more clearance for any video card IO bracket deviation / mobo IO plate deviation.

If I wanted to go with a couple drives (to make other folks happy, lol), I'd have to lose the floor-mounted power button. The PSU will also move 3mm more toward the video card so that I can fit 2x 15mm 2.5" drives vertically (on a T-bracket riveted to the floor of the case) where the power button was going to go (another benefit of the 8mm lengthening). The power button can either go under the video card poking out the front of the case, or on the back (if I wanted to keep the front completely blank).

I personally am fine with just my msata hdd, but as necere said in the other thread, it's tough to make people do things just to use your case :p

Alternately, I could keep the power button in it's cool, current position / orientation, and just allow a single mounted 9mm hdd :D
 
Machupo said:
Yeah, so playing with the design a bit, I'm going to extend it by 8mm in front so that gtx670's/680's fit unmodified. I'm also going to extend the back lip by 2mm to give a bit more clearance for any video card IO bracket deviation / mobo IO plate deviation.

If I wanted to go with a couple drives (to make other folks happy, lol), I'd have to lose the floor-mounted power button. The PSU will also move 3mm more toward the video card so that I can fit 2x 15mm 2.5" drives vertically (on a T-bracket riveted to the floor of the case) where the power button was going to go (another benefit of the 8mm lengthening). The power button can either go under the video card poking out the front of the case, or on the back (if I wanted to keep the front completely blank).

I personally am fine with just my msata hdd, but as necere said in the other thread, it's tough to make people do things just to use your case :p

Alternately, I could keep the power button in it's cool, current position / orientation, and just allow a single mounted 9mm hdd :D
Click to expand...

so youre trying to market your case? i will be putting my drawings up for anyone to use if they like, but i dont think it would ever be popular enough to be worth pursuing something like that. props.

EDIT: just put up a couple pics of how my new case will look over at my old thread. i referred to your case as an example of a different psu orientation, hope you dont mind! also let me know what you think.
 
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Market may be too strong of a word... open source the plans and make it as simple as possible to build via a CNC and some basic hand tools might be better. Not looking to sell / profit.
 
when I read sled I imagined a design with a base, a tray, and a cover, with the tray and cover both attaching to the base, and with a rail so you could slide the tray and cover off the base in opposite directions whenever you wanted. you aren't doing this, but it would be sweet. transformer case. a bit like an oven rack that slides out. it would be bigger than minimum because of the hardware involved, but a sweet smooth strong mechanism and easy maintenance would be... sweet
 
bAMtan2 said:
when I read sled I imagined a design with a base, a tray, and a cover, with the tray and cover both attaching to the base, and with a rail so you could slide the tray and cover off the base in opposite directions whenever you wanted. you aren't doing this, but it would be sweet. transformer case. a bit like an oven rack that slides out. it would be bigger than minimum because of the hardware involved, but a sweet smooth strong mechanism and easy maintenance would be... sweet
Click to expand...

yeah -- the shell piece (front/sides/top) will be removable (i.e. none of the components attached to it) to allow for maximum customizability. The bottom and back are the "sled" since they kind of remind me of a dogsled.

that axp-100 looks awesome, they're saying 44mm tall w/o fan, so that's 30mm shorter than the axp-140
 
Updated CAD of the sled:

sled_v2-1.jpg


Changelog:
- A little bling
- Removed edge holes; top/sides will slide on
- Removed middle PSU holes; excess
- Added cpu/msata adjustment & undermotherboard venting hole
- Extended size to 210x245mm to allow for multiple 2.5" drive install; small cutout for pcie card brackets to flow
 
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Super psyched about this build Machupo, been following it since you first posted... I will patiently await more pics!

Wondering what your reasoning was behind going with the rotated PSU and the graphics card going the standard way up...

I figured with the riser cable you would put the card flat on it's side, and run the PSU flat on it's base as well... Is it more efficient volume-wise to go with the setup you used?

I'm interested because I was toying with the idea of designing a case, but mine was flat... The smallest dimension of the power supply was the tallest component.

Cheers!
 
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