Anyone designed and built their own case?

T

Tonyrat

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Has anyone in here custom-designed their own case? I found a company that can do plastics prototyping relatively inexpensively with high-grade plastics (otherwise, prototypes typically use very cheap, non-durable plastics) I was thinking about designing my own case and having them form it... any advice?

I was thinking of just building it virtually in Lightwave first, then exporting to AutoCAD or something so they can build the parts from there. Any advice on this process would be hugely appreciated!
 
That is something I have been thinking about for a long time. The problem I have, which is the same problem I have when modding a whole case, is that the design is never done. As I go, I always think of something else. It is usually small. Like I need another hole for a switch or a different way to pass a wire.
With the kind of freedom you are talking about, like putting te bays where ever you want and they don't necessarily have to be together, I guess the only advice I have is just remember that heat rises and remember to stop at sme point.

Oh yeah, and post pics.
 
OK, thanks! ...and if I ever actually do it... I will definitely post pics :) Even if I just get the design down, I'll post renders of it first, get some input.
 
I'm starting planning (as of last night actually) on a custom case of my own.

Not letting out a lot of details yet, but it's gonna be a 18"x18"x22" (L x W x H) beast...a LOT of resources gonna be going into this, with some VERY nice cooling incorporated into it, and enough fans and ccfl's to warrant having a secondary PSU.

Once I actually get going on this thing I'll start to leak some more info into the case modding forum in my own thread, but we'll see....I might just wait until I get the basic frame/chasis fabbed. :cool:
 
n64man120 said:
I love when you "think big" corn, makes us want to find out what's goin on
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How's this for ya....secondary PSU being used.....71W and 6.3A worth of fans and ccfl's...it's gonna be bitchin'. :cool:
 
I've already got one all mapped out in my head (some of it on paper too.) I think it will come out awesome, i just don't have the $$$ for it yet. :(
 
pigpen said:
I've already got one all mapped out in my head (some of it on paper too.) I think it will come out awesome, i just don't have the $$$ for it yet. :(
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Good stuff....

Right now I don't even wanna THINK about how heavy this thing will be....22x18x18 inch case built of steel...one solid chasis, and detachable side panels....which will eventually carry a single stage phase change unit for the cpu and a Pelt/h2O loop for the GFX card. The water isn't light, the Phase change weighs a good 40lb.....and the case will easily.....case will be a good 100lb...but oh well, gonna be one of the nicest custom cases you guys have ever seen, I can gaurantee you that.
 
Why ask for advice? People are constantly asking for tips or advice and I never have any help for them.

Just build. There's no secret to it. It's the #1 worst case modding question you could ever ask.

How about instead start building and then say "Ok so I've got this prototype and I need to attach it to X, how would I go about doing this?"

Specific questions > general questions.
 
Qtip42 said:
How about instead start building and then say "Ok so I've got this prototype and I need to attach it to X, how would I go about doing this?"

Specific questions > general questions.
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Good call.....I'll be talking about what I'm gonna be plannin'....but not really asking for any "advice" until I get the main chasis/frame fabbed and welded together so that you guys can at least see what's going where.
 
A BYO case should be fairly simple. But even the best made plans sometimes go awry.

I'm curently, severely, modding a case to build my own UBER-system.

What might help you in designing and building, is to find any old cheap case with a pull out motherboard tray. Which, imho, is one of the most important parts.

The next most important parts are the drive bays. Once you get the measurements of the backplane and bays down, then you can build any system you want.

But the real trick it to know what you want to build, before you build it.

I've seen cases made from wood, plastic, carbon fiber sheets, and even built into vehicles, and if you don't have the mounting holes and wiring areas down, you'll have problems.

My next 4 cases will be an mATX system, a wooden case of some sort, a wall mounted, picture framed system, and a huge +/- 32-ish bay cube with 2 of the 16 port SATA-2 cards from Adaptec in it. I plan on making that one Borg-like.

Anyway... Good luck!
 
Hehe, unless you dont want a removable mobo tray that is....I dunno...for the chasis/mounting technicalities I'm going very simplistic for my design...it's still gonna be stellar though.
 
I have been designing my case for awhile and been constantly building it. I happen to get out of spending for materials like aluminum and acrylic.

1. Free acrylic from my father= He works for a place that makes acrylic, he brings home good scrap material.

2. An aluminum extrusion place is supplying me the needed aluminum for my project. Also happens to be free of charge.

Got a 6ft high case mod going to support 2x Pentium 3 slot2 quad xeon motherboards.
 
Scorpionjwp said:
Got a 6ft high case mod going to support 2x Pentium 3 slot2 quad xeon motherboards.
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I'd be interested in seeing a pic of that if you're able to post one....
 
Scorpionjwp said:
Got a 6ft high case mod going to support 2x Pentium 3 slot2 quad xeon motherboards.
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I'll want to take a look at that thing....sounds like you've got something in the works that'll make my 18x18x24" look teeny tiny. :p

I'll have to check out price differences, my chasis is gonna be simple pieces of metal welded together, so that the entire body is one solid pieice, cus with all the cooling it'll weigh a good 100lb, and i wanna be able to lift it with some nice handles. If I could I'd like to do the body out of aluminum...but if there's a big price difference I'll just do steel....but fricken that thing is gonna be heavy. I remember my YY-0221 cube server case, it was a good 35lb or so on it's own..pure steel...and mine's essentially twice that size.....i might be lookin' close to 80lb for the empty chasis alone, crap...comp is gonna weigh ALmost as much as me....a good 150lb for sure....sick. :p

It'll still have to be somewhat mobile though, gotta find some SICK casters and rank handles...cus I intend to be taking this thing to LAN's both local and "out of town" like QuakeCon next year for sure when I'll have the cooling all finished up...this auguest is too tight...cus the case itself wont be cheap to have built....and I'm dropping a good $350+tax on ccfl's and fans alone.....
 
Same as mashie I've done it a few times.

Best advice I can give is take your time to plan everything fully :)
 
gordy_hand said:
Same as mashie I've done it a few times.

Best advice I can give is take your time to plan everything fully :)
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Yes, otherwise you just get frustrated to the point where you lose sight of what you were trying to accomplish...works the same as with many other things.
 
cornelious0_0 said:
How's this for ya....secondary PSU being used.....71W and 6.3A worth of fans and ccfl's...it's gonna be bitchin'. :cool:
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Expect your bill to go up.

-J.
 
Yeah but thats not always a bad idea :D

Plans before you start are always good but you always learning things along the way, just plan every step you intend to take , measuring as many times as you can as there is often no going back :)
 
I do like to say that part of my mod consists of a prebuilt srka4 that just happens to be missing the side panels and top panel. So I have to make do and add the other case to the top of this case, also have to make the panels for the bottom case that is part of the upper case.

If you have seen my post and have been confused, I am building another case on top of this one I am working on to make the overall case mod about 6 ft tall.

But here is a link to a picture straight from my website:

Please note the item next to the mod is a soda can.
http://www.nubiawargods.com/gallery/gal1/BothUnits.jpg

This is what I have so far.
 
Qtip42 said:
Why ask for advice? People are constantly asking for tips or advice and I never have any help for them.
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:eek: Ouch, that's harsh dude... you seem to imply that I'm a taker and not a giver. Not so, mon frair... when I have something useful, even if only useful to amuse, I'll post it. e.g. - my post on [H] about my recent (and very wacky) PSU mod.


Qtip42 said:
Specific questions > general questions.
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Granted, and I'm sure I'll get to that point. I just wanted to have the voice of experience pipe up and say "hey, watch out for THIS pitfall", etc., since the time to circumvent would-be problems is in the initial design whenever possible. I don't have time to go through 10 versions by "just building". I want it done right the first time... or the second time if the first proves impossible. In other words, I think getting general advice at the onset has merit as well. It'll save time and energy, and get everyone talkin' about what can be done, what not to do (e.g. this thread)... fun fun fun!!!

BTW... Thanks to everyone that threw in their two cents... some good stuff, thanks again.
 
Oops, just re-read that... you said you don't have any help FOR them... somehow when I first read your post, I thought you said you don't have any help FROM them. lol... :D soz
 
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