$6 Wood Case

[96redformula]

I built several of these for myself and one for my brother, it works well and is cheap. I thought I would post in case anybody wanted another cheap option for an open air case. BTW, Lowes wood is horrible compared to Home Depot.

You can put little wood stops to keep things in place or additional pieces to hold PSU and the like.

Materials Needed
Two - 2x2x8
One - 1x2x6
Twelve - 3" screws

Cost - Less than $6.00

You can pretty much do any dimensions you like, I liked to do 33long, 12width(2" overhang for the video card mount), 12height.

 

[mnewxcv]

no pics of it loaded up? been curious about wooden cases, though fire risk seems higher?

 

[96redformula]

no pics of it loaded up? been curious about wooden cases, though fire risk seems higher?

I will get a picture of a previous built one shortly, this one will be loaded up tomorrow.

Here is the first one I did, it worked okay, but it wasn't wide enough for me to run double PSU and 6 cards up top, it was only 24" wide.

 

[edge929]

I wonder if 1x2's would be strong enough. They would be easier to drill/screw. Perhaps some metal corner braces in a few areas as needed. I love the idea of not having a support beam for the GPUs to rest on however I'd like to see long-term results with the bigger, heavier cards.

 

[Trilliant]

Thank you for posting this! I think I'll give it a try sometime. Love the look of the nicer rigs, but hated to think about $ for materials -- this looks like a good compromise between a milk crate and an aluminum rack.

 

[dexvx]

I like the overall simplicity, but I would consider adding some kind of support brace for the video cards.

I really do need a table saw

Edit: Just out of curiosity, how much would the same thing cost using metal framing?

 

[cubsfan-budman]

i built the one in this vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3iup26oUN4

miter saw cuts the aluminum just fine...cost me around 25 bucks. they say you need "3 sticks" of angle aluminum, but you really only need two...and you dont need 10 feet of pine, only 8. dont know why they said that. yay math!

 

[XViper]

The wood cases are always interesting to me. The only thing that worries me is the fire hazard though. The aluminum case has my vote.

 

[96redformula]

The wood cases are always interesting to me. The only thing that worries me is the fire hazard though. The aluminum case has my vote.

I mean its a no brainer if you are comparing which is better. The aluminum cases look much nicer, they are just more $ and a bit more complex to build though. Wood does have advantages of you being able to screw in wood mount anywhere on the fly.

 

[_r2h]

Auto ignition temp of wood is like ~600* f. If you have temps around there, you have bigger issues!

 

[Core32]

^^^^^ This..... If your cards are any where near catching the wood on fire.......run, and don't look back

 

[dexvx]

i built the one in this vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3iup26oUN4

miter saw cuts the aluminum just fine...cost me around 25 bucks. they say you need "3 sticks" of angle aluminum, but you really only need two...and you dont need 10 feet of pine, only 8. dont know why they said that. yay math!

Thanks, I'd be interested in building one of those.

Looking to expand when the markets are down.

 

[Kueller]

Auto ignition temp of wood is like ~600* f. If you have temps around there, you have bigger issues!

I wouldn't be worried about sustained heat getting that high, but an electrical short could do the trick.

 

[Pitbully]

I wouldn't be worried about sustained heat getting that high, but an electrical short could do the trick.

Which is why they make things like breakers, fuses and surge protectors.

 

[_r2h]

I wouldn't be worried about sustained heat getting that high, but an electrical short could do the trick.

Again, if you have a short that causes wood to heat up to 600f, you have way bigger problems. Like your house burning down from the wire in the wall igniting.