Any interest in PicoPSU based Mini-ITX case?

Looking awesome, LigTasm. Getting the pico PSU clean and out of the way seems to be where the most creativity is needed with this case.
 
I don't have as many wires as you do, but I don't see it being anywhere near the challenge of dealing with all the wires on a standard ATX PSU! :)

Looks like the P4 connector may be the worst on your picoPSU-160-XT?

I was thinking about putting a black zip tie around the whole picoPSU to keep the wires tight to the picoPSU, and prevent any fan contact. Getting some smaller, more flexible SATA cables is a must if you want to run them being the motherboard. Note how I used up the length by traveling the perimeter of the case.

Lots of room for flexible SATA wires:
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Top right pocket is an good place to hide fan wires:
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Hmm, is there any room or support for water cooling? What if you designed it to be modular so that you could purchase a second chassis and mount it right on top of the other one that you could use to house additional harddrives or a water cooling reservoir and pump? This could be a start to modular PicoServers :D
 
Cerulean said:
Hmm, is there any room or support for water cooling? What if you designed it to be modular so that you could purchase a second chassis and mount it right on top of the other one that you could use to house additional harddrives or a water cooling reservoir and pump? This could be a start to modular PicoServers :D
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I'll tell you right now mine will be water cooled once I can find a sub 20mm universal GPU block. Some exist but they are all generic ship from china things on ebay. The Koolance universal is really close at 21mm tall but I've measured and I have only 19mm of space with the GPU unscrewed and pushed all the way up. I found all of the parts I need to do it and strap a dual 80mm to the roof. It would be really easy CPU only, just mod an H-series or AIO cooler with new tubes to match the small radiator, pop two holes on the roof and you'd be good. Have to watch out because the big pumps take 12-24W which is a big chunk of your PicoPSU budget while the AIO coolers generally take under 3W.
 
Nice job on all the Builds so far. I've been keeping an eye out on the market on low profile graphics card. By the few reviews online the new Radeon R7 250 looks to have performance just below the HD 7750. Found a new GT 640 which has 1GB GDDR5 ram instead of the dated ddr3. It seems to be a tad faster than the 7750 at a similar price point right now for around $89.99 and its still single slot width with equal power draw.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DGHLDY6?tag=intercept-kb-20 There's also a super clocked version from EVGA but I cant tell by the few pics if that fan heat shield is just a tad wider than a single slot (might not fit in our cases)http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-...F8&qid=1382398588&sr=1-6&keywords=evga+gt+640

I'm all in for purchasing a new revised case and a side vented panel, I'll call it the "L2". Since the focus of the new case seems to be the dual slots for the GPU (Anticipating soon that there will be more powerful low profile cards in the near future) I noticed that some of your mock renderings moved the 80mm fans from the top to the bottom of the case after shifting the mobo up to make room for the extra GPU slot. Seems counter intuitive when it seems the point of having a dual slots is for a "Dual slot GPU". I'll let my Picaso Paint shop skills do the talking of what I envision :D
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Also some of you have the pesky pico PSU right by the fans up top and the wires get right in the way of the blades. If your handy with a soldering iron just un solder the wires and orient them in the oppisite direction. Now I have no wires facing the fans ;)

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oceanearth99 said:
By the few reviews online the new Radeon R7 250 looks to have performance just below the HD 7750. Found a new GT 640 which has 1GB GDDR5 ram instead of the dated ddr3. It seems to be a tad faster than the 7750 at a similar price point right now for around $89.99 and its still single slot width with equal power draw.
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Do you mean the GT 650? I think the GT 640 is a bit weaker than the 7750.

It seems likely that the 7750 will be the best option for a quite a while. The R7 250 looks a bit weaker as you said, and it supposedly consumes more power. I'm not really sure why that card even exists.

There is a two slot GT 650, so the alternate case layout could still be useful, but I wouldn't expect anything else new for a long time.
 
My mistake Drown Babies. Thanks for the correction about the Graphics. I'm anxiously waiting to see if anyone beside Zotac will come out with a LP gtx 650. And the R7 250 is a joke. After looking at the gt 640 1gb gddr5 version I'm trying to fig out what makes the HD 7750 a better card? There's comparisons of the the gt 640 to the HD 7750 but its the older gt 640 with ddr3 ram, not the GDDR5.... I might just bite the bullet and get the Gigabyte gt 640 with GDDR5 and compare it to my HD 7750.
 
Attach the hard drive bracket parallel to the I/O plate so it overhangs the board a little bit, put two fans on the front with the dual slot ability for expansion... profit????
 
@oceaneath99, Thanks for the artistic render! :) The second expansion slot opening was thrown in there for interest sake. I was wondering if it could be used for other purposes (e.g. USB ports), not really for a true dual slot GPU. Unfortunately, there's really not much room there when the fans are installed.

My thoughts for moving the fans to the bottom in the so-called L2 concept are:

PROS
- Eliminate conflict between fans and top picoPSU
- Reduce noise (already minimal with slow moving/undervolted fans)
- 80 mm fans could cool GPU
- More room for oversize single slot GPU heatsinks
- Fan screws/mounts not at top

CONS
- Not likely to work with 80x25 mm fans blowing out, when using a GPU (GPU wouldn't get cooled, and fans would fight each other), whereas current case works in this configuration
- Fans and screws/mounts not at top to provide contrasting colour, customization ;)

If you can't tell, I'm undecided on the L2 concept! :) How noisy is the 7750 LP GPU fan? I've been meaning to just order one up since so many of you seem to have them.
 
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loneindustries said:
How noisy is the 7750 LP GPU fan? I've been meaning to just order one up since so many of you seem to have them.
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It's not too bad at idle (25-30%), but even then it's still the most audible fan in my system. I have two 80mm Noctua PWM fans and one slim 120mm Scythe fan, I keep them all around 1800-000RPMs. The 7750 fan makes a bit more noise than them and it's a harsher, whinier sound. When it starts ramping up it gets really noticeable, around 40-45%, and by the time it gets past 60 or 70% it starts getting irritating.

It's ok for me because my case is fairly far away physically, and it's somewhat isolated. But I can understand why people would want to have a slightly better cooler.
 
Hey loneindustries!

Just wanted to say that I received my case today and I love it. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to put in it yet, but I just knew I had to have one. Thanks for making this available!
 
There's a picture lone put up a few pages back where he showed the case using two HD brackets. Not sure how it will work out in practice, you'd just have to figure out power and placement. Your 24 pin would probably get in the way if it was on the ram side.
 
jale said:
As much as I look at this thread, I some how missed that. Anyhow, i'll be purchasing one here shortly for a new mac server.
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When you do order, drop me a note and let me know if you'd like a second bracket. It would be slightly narrower than the bracket that's included (won't fit Corsair SSDs in all positions).
 
So if I can be nosy.... How many of these cases have been sold to date?

Kid

BTW I think carrying this project through to production is fantastic.
 
I've been giving props to you work on Reddit and linking to this thread. If you are looking to sell more there are other forums where you could post your work log to garner interest.
 
updawg said:
I've been giving props to you work on Reddit and linking to this thread. If you are looking to sell more there are other forums where you could post your work log to garner interest.
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Thank you updawg, and everyone else who's helped get the word out! There's definitely more I can do.
 
Lone, do you have any extra HD cages? At one point they were on the site but I didn't see them. I'd like a black one, gonna try to fit three 2.5" drives and see how it works.
 
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For anyone who's interested, I have a couple blemished matte black cases available. I had the side panels refinished, but the finisher ended up using the wrong "matte black". Overall, not very noticeable.

The side panels have a slightly more matte/textured look or feel, compared to the "Solar Black" used on the rest of the case:
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Are you going to be building a 2 slot version? i'd like to get a Zotac GTX650 inside...
 
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I'd prefer to support a fellow Canadian, but living in Australia means things get expensive quickly...so to justify the extra expense (over say the In-win H-frame mini) the double slot would be good =D but no worries if no one else wants it, as the fans at the top help with cooling and that's important!
 
Daemos said:
I'd prefer to support a fellow Canadian, but living in Australia means things get expensive quickly...so to justify the extra expense (over say the In-win H-frame mini) the double slot would be good =D but no worries if no one else wants it, as the fans at the top help with cooling and that's important!
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I can ship to Australia for about $5-6 more than to the US, but there's no tracking, and it would take 4-5 weeks to get there. :)

I'm sure you're not the only one who would prefer the L2 concept. I do have drawings for the L2 concept all ready to go should I decide to go that route.
 
loneindustries said:
I can ship to Australia for about $5-6 more than to the US, but there's no tracking, and it would take 4-5 weeks to get there. :)

I'm sure you're not the only one who would prefer the L2 concept. I do have drawings for the L2 concept all ready to go should I decide to go that route.
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lol...by boat...pico psus here are expensive here too! $80 for the 160 =/
 
Just a quick update - I've found someone who can laser cut arcylic side panels for a reasonable price. For those who've expressed interest in a vented side panel, 1. do you still want one, 2. would prefer acrylic or powder coat aluminum? I should also ask, is there anyone else besides me, who would like a non-vented acrylic side panel?

Also, between these two vents what is your preference? Both can be rotated 180 degrees to locate a 120 mm fan over your CPU.

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Can you get them in white, to match the original white case? If so I would like one. How do the acrylic panels compare to powder-coated aluminum panels?

I prefer the smaller cutout design, but really either design is ok.
 
Drown Babies said:
Can you get them in white, to match the original white case? If so I would like one. How do the acrylic panels compare to powder-coated aluminum panels?

I prefer the smaller cutout design, but really either design is ok.
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White acrylic, or white powder coat aluminum?

I haven't ordered any acrylic panels yet, so I'm not exactly sure how they'll compare. They won't have countersunk holes like the aluminum, unless I do it myself afterwards. They'll be about .2-.3 mm thinner, unless I go with 3 mm thick acrylic. The acrylic is also available in transparent, and opaque colours. Clear transparent is the cheapest.
 
Unfortunately, I don't think I will be able to provide matching powder coat aluminum vented side panels. I've decided to use different colours for my next batch of cases, even if they are still black and white.

For acrylic side panels, the company I found is called Pololu, located in Las Vegas, Nevada. It's such an economical option that I'd suggest people order individually. That way you can get exactly what you want:

http://www.pololu.com/docs/0J24

http://www.pololu.com/product/749

If you'd like to go the acrylic route, I would be happy to provide the side panel drawings I have already done, or make minor changes. You could pull it into Inkscape or something else, and further customize.
 
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