silent-circuit
[H]F Junkie
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2005
- Messages
- 16,132
Hmm, I do use an optical for making highlight reel movies from my son's sports, bu tI can just plug in a usb, right?
Exactly.
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Hmm, I do use an optical for making highlight reel movies from my son's sports, bu tI can just plug in a usb, right?
I love the ventilation holes in the front panel! Really beautiful case already overall!
As for the front IO, I would personally only include a single USB 3.0 port, like on the A4, perhaps with a headphone jack as well, but that's it.
For a 6l case, reaching out to plug things on the back is really no problem at all imo, and I would much rather prefer a clean, minimalistic look on the front panel![]()
Do we want the convenience to plug in a.USB drive and charge our phone using the front ports?? Big questions, lol
Yes, we do. Everyone uses usb devices, but few are willing to dig through the cable mess on the back every time.
This discussion exist in every case design thread. Just check the others and spare yourself the trouble of this argument.
Many monitors have built in 4+port USB 3.0 hubs at this point, and I've seen keyboards with hubs as well, even gaming oriented ones. Personally I haven't used a front USB port on a case in years, but maybe I'm in the minority there.
Ok, here are renders of the latest design. Please take a look and let me know what you think.
A few changes I've made:
> I changed to a simpler chassis design with only 2 walls, and modified the divider to act as a stiffener and tie the chassis to the thick front panel. When the cover is removed the top of the case is more open now, so working in the case seems like it will be easier.
> The 2.5" HDDs are tool-less. They are held in by the spring steel brackets that envelope the M3 screws that are pre-installed on the drives. I am waiting for quoting back from a spring mfgr to finalize the design.
The HDDs are pretty close to the MB, so the spring brackets make it easy to get them out of the way when installing cables and such.
It is possible to hold the 3 drives shown, HDD or SSD, but really the idea is to offer enough flexibility to get 2 in there. To fit the bottom HDD, the PSU has to be SFX not SFX-L to get enough room. Depending on the MB connectors, there may not be room for both HDDs on the front wall. There is an alternate set of holes for a HDD bracket, in case the MB conns get in the way of the standard locations.
> The chassis is 2mm alum and the case cover is 1.5mm alum now to give the design some interest, and less of a HVAC look. The price delta isn't as bad as I thought it would be, so this should work.
> I still have to model in the PCIE cable run (it runs behind the GPU), and I'm going to add some bumpers to stabilize the GPU. And I need to design the attachment for the cover.
> Sorry but I haven't done much with making the front panel interchangeable yet (for more or less jacks, different styling, etc).
Thanks
[pics removed]
PS -- Hopefully I'll be cutting chips this week on a proof of concept (got a bunch of alum from my wife for bday, woo hoo)
The radius of the corners will be very dependent on the manufacturing method. If it's cut with lasers then it can be very small.
So I'd leave it at a placeholder value and once you've settled on a manufacturer you can discuss it with their engineers.