DAN A4-SFX: The smallest gaming case in the world

dondan said:
The last two evenings i worked on the new heatsink.

The current heatsink with have the project name HSLP-48. It based on the AXP-100, but it is bigger and has nearly the same size as the Nexus. Currently I plan to work together with Thermalrigt so I can bundle it with the TY-100 FAN. The fan will be mounted with anti vibration rubbers so you can mount the fan in that position you need it. The heatsink will support normal RAM height. Here are some renderings. I will open a new thread in the next days.

untitled.22u0ujm.jpg

untitled.23g6uw2.jpg

untitled.24q7ump.jpg

Kickstarter-Update: 550 cases will be shiped tomorrow and the next 200 on Friday. My toner is empty so I have to wait for a new one to make the last 70 cases ready.
Click to expand...

In the words of the pink ladies: "Tell me more, tell me more"
Why a gap in the fins?

Looks nice and with 6 heatpipes it should have some serious cooling potential.

Other questions I would like to see answered:
direct contact heatpipes aore copper block?
Aluminium or Copper?
 
dondan said:
The gab is necessary for mounting the rentention kit. I hink full copper will end up in a price nobody is ready to pay. But I will check that later.
Click to expand...
Copper is 6.000 USD per ton. Thats 3 USD for half a kilo, which is probably around what a heatsink this size would weigh.
Please consider copper :)

The cooler could be thicker if it only allowed very low ram right? Why not just go the enthusiast way, and make it as thick as possible?

Btw, cooler looks amazing im stoked.
 
dondan said:
The last two evenings i worked on the new heatsink.

The current heatsink with have the project name HSLP-48. It based on the AXP-100, but it is bigger and has nearly the same size as the Nexus. Currently I plan to work together with Thermalrigt so I can bundle it with the TY-100 FAN. The fan will be mounted with anti vibration rubbers so you can mount the fan in that position you need it. The heatsink will support normal RAM height. Here are some renderings. I will open a new thread in the next days.

untitled.22u0ujm.jpg

untitled.23g6uw2.jpg

untitled.24q7ump.jpg


Kickstarter-Update: 550 cases will be shiped tomorrow and the next 200 on Friday. My toner is empty so I have to wait for a new one to make the last 70 cases ready.
Click to expand...

dondan , is it possible to increase the fin density or number of fins on that cooler? If we compare the Thermalright AXP-100H to Noctua NH-L9i, the Noctua is heavier (345g w/o fan) compared to AXP-100H (296g w/ fan). So as to give it more cooling power as well.
 
dondan said:
The gab is necessary for mounting the rentention kit. I hink full copper will end up in a price nobody is ready to pay. But I will check that later.
Click to expand...

You underestimate our obsessiveness. ;)

Two points of notice, though:

1) Why is the fan mounted blowing air away from the motherboard? Just curious as to your reasoning.

2) I have a Noctua NH-L12 which I've modified to have a fan underneath, so that it's essentially a slightly larger version of what you've got here. It has the same gaps in the fins for mounting.

All I can say is that mounting system SUCKS. It is incredibly, incredibly finicky, and trying to get a screwdriver down the gap, between the fan blades, and set into the screw... While making sure that the retention plate is properly set and doesn't shift off... Is one of the most frustrating experiences one can have while building a computer.

I would strongly suggest looking at alternatives. I'm probably going to buy the cooler either way, but...
 
dondan said:
The gab is necessary for mounting the rentention kit. I hink full copper will end up in a price nobody is ready to pay. But I will check that later.
Click to expand...

Dude people are paying 270€ for a fuckin aluminum box (no disrespect the case is awesome but in the end that's what it is). Cooper + nickel plating + direct touch please.

StrawKite said:
Why not just go the enthusiast way, and make it as thick as possible?
Click to expand...

VLP Ram isn't exactly enthusiast, especially as there are basically no 16 GB DDR4 sticks available. I would just go with standard height (heat spreaders are gimmicks anyway).
 
Calysto said:
So, Noctua didn't want to partner with you?
Click to expand...
No I never asked them, i think the Thermalright 100m fan is the best option because a 120mm fan will not fit between IO area and RAM and a 92mm is too small. So Noctua will not have a fan for me.

Philfreeze said:
Other questions I would like to see answered:
direct contact heatpipes aore copper block?
Aluminium or Copper?
Click to expand...

Copper block. Current plan: fins = aluminum heatpipes = copper

StrawKite said:
The cooler could be thicker if it only allowed very low ram right? Why not just go the enthusiast way, and make it as thick as possible?
Click to expand...
Because there is no real LP DDR4 on market. Furthermore if I make it much more thicker you can't mount a 14mm thick fan.

Calysto said:
So, Noctua didn't want to partner with you?
Click to expand...
No I never asked them, i think the Thermalright 100m fan is the best option because a 120mm fan will not fit between IO area and RAM and a 92mm is too small. So Noctua will not have a fan for me.

Philfreeze said:
Other questions I would like to see answered:
direct contact heatpipes aore copper block?
Aluminium or Copper?
Click to expand...

Copper block. Current plan: fins = aluminum heatpipes = copper

StrawKite said:
The cooler could be thicker if it only allowed very low ram right? Why not just go the enthusiast way, and make it as thick as possible?
Click to expand...
Because there is no real LP DDR4 on market. Furthermore if I make it much more thicker you can't mount a 14mm thick fan.

darksable said:
I'm the one who got in contact with Noctua; I haven't heard back from them yet. Hopefully this means they're actually discussing the idea.
Click to expand...

I wasn't never in contact with them.
 
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whats the ETA on a cooler like this? reasonably can we expect this by this summer or is it more a 2018 thing?
 
As shown and with the design you specified, I will be ordering one!

Is it worth another Kickstarter, that way you have some level of commitment from the community and can gauge true interrest?
 
dondan said:
No I never asked them, i think the Thermalright 100m fan is the best option because a 120mm fan will not fit between IO area and RAM and a 92mm is too small. So Noctua will not have a fan for me.
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My mistake, I thought you mentioned Noctua.
Well, considering that even the stock cooler for the new AMD RYZEN cpus won't fit in your case, your new cooler can't come soon enough.
AMD-Ryzen-7-1800X-1700X-170-confirmed.png
 
dondan said:
The gab is necessary for mounting the rentention kit. I hink full copper will end up in a price nobody is ready to pay. But I will check that later.
Click to expand...

personally considering the audience, it hardly matters if this would cost double or triple compared to competition as long as its the ultimate-no-corners-cut-small-profile-full-copper-cooler™ and performs noticeable better than the rest. if you start cutting corners, your basically doing something thats more or less in the market. if youre seriously doing your own cooler, then really do it all the way it should be done ;)
 
Calysto said:
My mistake, I thought you mentioned Noctua.
Well, considering that even the stock cooler for the new AMD RYZEN cpus won't fit in your case, your new cooler can't come soon enough.
AMD-Ryzen-7-1800X-1700X-170-confirmed.png
Click to expand...

ive been kinda considering 7 1700 if it performs well. no idea of the stock cooler performance ofcourse, but the fan looks kinda thick on the pic? might fit with slimmer fan...but im kinda pessimist when it comes to stock coolers.
 
Pantera_666 said:
dondan

How about if you use the advantage of your case vs any other one???

THERE IS NO GPU ON THE PCI-E SLOT! DON'T MESS WITH THE RAM SLOTS

Do a rectangular-ish cooler that WILL BE compatible with every itx mobo out there, without any drawback!

View attachment 17464
Click to expand...

This! Potentially you could use the ATX screw holes on the mobo next to the PCIe slot as additional mounting points to connect to so the extended weight doesn't strain the CPU backplate to much.
 
Pantera_666 said:
dondan

How about if you use the advantage of your case vs any other one???

THERE IS NO GPU ON THE PCI-E SLOT! DON'T MESS WITH THE RAM SLOTS

Do a rectangular-ish cooler that WILL BE compatible with every itx mobo out there, without any drawback!

View attachment 17464
Click to expand...

Imagine that shit with dual 92mm noctua fans!
ZScp799.png
 
Pantera_666 said:
dondan

How about if you use the advantage of your case vs any other one???

THERE IS NO GPU ON THE PCI-E SLOT! DON'T MESS WITH THE RAM SLOTS

Do a rectangular-ish cooler that WILL BE compatible with every itx mobo out there, without any drawback!

View attachment 17464
Click to expand...

I think it will be not a good idea for the success to hide the PCIe port. E.g. I think this cooler will be also interesting for Sentry owners. So a bit of compatibility is important. It will look like this:

strix-z270i-gaming-2dzguat.jpg


And now the bad news, the Z270 Strix will not fit because of the phase heatsink.

StrawKite said:
Imagine that shit with dual 92mm noctua fans!
Click to expand...

A ITX board is 170mm long 2x92mm = 184mm ;)
Furthermore with your layout Asrock x99e ITX will not work with my heatsink.
 
dondan said:
I think it will be not a good idea for the success to hide the PCIe port. E.g. I think this cooler will be also interesting for Sentry owners. So a bit of compatibility is important. It will look like this:

strix-z270i-gaming-2dzguat.jpg


And now the bad news, the Z270 Strix will not fit because of the phase heatsink.
Click to expand...


PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!

DON'T MESS WITH THE RAM SLOTS!!!

Is hard enough to find the components that we like and will work on your case...

Don't take the ram from us Dan!!!
 
dondan said:
I think it will be not a good idea for the success to hide the PCIe port. E.g. I think this cooler will be also interesting for Sentry owners. So a bit of compatibility is important. It will look like this: (image)

And now the bad news, the Z270 Strix will not fit because of the phase heatsink.



A ITX board is 170mm long 2x92mm = 184mm ;)
Furthermore with your layout Asrock x99e ITX will not work with my heatsink.
Click to expand...

As a very excited Sentry owner-to-be, it also uses a PCIe riser. If your heatsink hung over the PCIe slot, it would prevent us from using the primary 2.5" drive mount, but there are a LOT of other solutions for storage. I would really, really love to see something that's got enough cooling capacity to really stand out from the crowd here.

Just in case working with Thermalright doesn't work out, you do have a couple other options.

I know that you haven't gotten in contact with Noctua; that's something I did independently to gauge their interest. I haven't yet heard back from them, but I'll let you know when I do.

I also just reached out to Zalman. I was hesitant about them at first, because their fans are built into their heatsinks, rather than being replaceable with a fan of our choosing, but their cooler worked surprisingly well in the Steam Machine prototypes, so I figured they were at least worth approaching.

Hopefully we can find at least one company that's willing to work with us to design a cooler that takes advantage of these two awesome cases.
 
Pantera_666 said:
dondan

How about if you use the advantage of your case vs any other one???

THERE IS NO GPU ON THE PCI-E SLOT! DON'T MESS WITH THE RAM SLOTS

Do a rectangular-ish cooler that WILL BE compatible with every itx mobo out there, without any drawback!

View attachment 17464
Click to expand...
This is genius. Pretty much any SFF build has a PCI-e extender these days, there is no reason not to use that area.
 
Would the cooler design idea above interfere with the pci ribbon ? if not this is a great idea, though a custom cooler of that size, full copper, and a unique offering I feel will be far too costly.
 
Why not just make the cooler install from the bottom. I know most every one does it from the top for ease of installation but this is basically a SFF only case and I tend to think most of us would rather more fins (better performance) as apposed to making the very rare situation of taking off a CPU cooler easier. I know some people dislike the idea of having to take off the motherboard to get to the CPU but I for one would take better performance over that.
 
dondan said:
The last two evenings i worked on the new heatsink.

The current heatsink with have the project name HSLP-48. It based on the AXP-100, but it is bigger and has nearly the same size as the Nexus. Currently I plan to work together with Thermalrigt so I can bundle it with the TY-100 FAN. The fan will be mounted with anti vibration rubbers so you can mount the fan in that position you need it. The heatsink will support normal RAM height. Here are some renderings. I will open a new thread in the next days.

untitled.22u0ujm.jpg

untitled.23g6uw2.jpg

untitled.24q7ump.jpg


Kickstarter-Update: 550 cases will be shiped tomorrow and the next 200 on Friday. My toner is empty so I have to wait for a new one to make the last 70 cases ready.
Click to expand...

Didnt know that you plan to team with Thermalright and already have rendering.

I Asked them yesterday and have talked to them throw Facebook all day.

They where really interested to produce a cooler for this case and sentry.

When i Tell 3000 customers today and more to come and no cooler like this today on the market.
 
No compatibility with the z270 strix is disappointing, seems to be the most popular motherboard for Dan cases. At least in this thread. Its additional M.2 slot is what makes it a winner I think. Please reconsider that limitation if possible!
 
dondan said:
The last two evenings i worked on the new heatsink.

The current heatsink with have the project name HSLP-48. It based on the AXP-100, but it is bigger and has nearly the same size as the Nexus. Currently I plan to work together with Thermalrigt so I can bundle it with the TY-100 FAN. The fan will be mounted with anti vibration rubbers so you can mount the fan in that position you need it. The heatsink will support normal RAM height. Here are some renderings. I will open a new thread in the next days.

untitled.22u0ujm.jpg

untitled.23g6uw2.jpg

untitled.24q7ump.jpg


Kickstarter-Update: 550 cases will be shiped tomorrow and the next 200 on Friday. My toner is empty so I have to wait for a new one to make the last 70 cases ready.
Click to expand...

Will this cooler work with the ASRock x99e/itx and it's narrow ilm mount?
 
Pantera_666 said:
dondan

How about if you use the advantage of your case vs any other one???

THERE IS NO GPU ON THE PCI-E SLOT! DON'T MESS WITH THE RAM SLOTS

Do a rectangular-ish cooler that WILL BE compatible with every itx mobo out there, without any drawback!

View attachment 17464
Click to expand...

I definitely agree with this! A lot of cases are using PCI-E extenders, so this idea isn't that niche. The market wanting something like this is going to keep growing as the trend continues with these SFF PCs. Even Silverstone's Raven case could use something like this.
 
Would going for a 100mm fan really do that much difference instead of going for 92mm? As long as all ITX boards (at least most :p) are supported and there are support for the AM4 socket I'm definitely interested :)

*edit*
About the 92mm fan question, that was based mostly on compability concerns.
 
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Aircoookie said:
There is a GPU compatibility list and IIRC it was attempted to start some spreadsheets for compatibility.

For the SFX psu, the included stock cables work ok, exact lenghts needed for custom cable vary with GPU size and motherboard layout.

Cable ties seem to work fine, but I'd maybe try using rubber pads in between or something.

Go with SF450. It seems to even be more silent than your SF600.
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I suppose the 600w is starting to be bit overshooting these days, especially as i have no plans to overclock.

but whats the deal with SFX-L's? Like SX500-LG compared to the SF450? ...or did that SFX-L get in the way of 3rd SSD? - so only two SSD's with SFX-L? Then again if i get 2x 1tb SSD's two would be more than enough anyways, so its really more of question whether the SFX-L is really more quiet than the 450w silverstone or not.
 
Jonas Mellkvist said:
If you can remove the heatsink in the back it will be compatible
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It will dissuade all but the bravest/not lazy Strix owners from buying the cooler though. Despite the very informative explanation provided by another poster upthread on how the heatsink is probably useless, count me among the not-brave-and also sort of lazy owners unwilling to remove it until someone else does it and confirms they can still do a light OC without a problem...

I understand you can also replace it with lower profile stuff but then we get into the realm of diminishing returns for a lot of work. Much better to just buy a cooler that works with minimal fuss.
 
illram said:
It will dissuade all but the bravest/not lazy Strix owners from buying the cooler though. Despite the very informative explanation provided by another poster upthread on how the heatsink is probably useless, count me among the not-brave-and also sort of lazy owners unwilling to remove it until someone else does it and confirms they can still do a light OC without a problem...

I understand you can also replace it with lower profile stuff but then we get into the realm of diminishing returns for a lot of work. Much better to just buy a cooler that works with minimal fuss.
Click to expand...

EXACTLY.

dondan, who cares about sentry users. WE backed your project. Pantera_666 had a great idea. use the WHOLE space up to the pcie slot, make it compatible with the latest and greatest mitx board ( strix z270i) . we'll be able to put DOUBLE 92mm fans like StrawKite brilliantly taught about. we'll be able to use ANY RAM size and it will not interfere with any heatsinks on the motherboard. BRILLIANT.


if the sentry guys want a cooler, make THEM a diluted common denominator version.

#COPPER_STRIX
 
dondan said:
The last two evenings i worked on the new heatsink.

The current heatsink with have the project name HSLP-48. It based on the AXP-100, but it is bigger and has nearly the same size as the Nexus. Currently I plan to work together with Thermalrigt so I can bundle it with the TY-100 FAN. The fan will be mounted with anti vibration rubbers so you can mount the fan in that position you need it. The heatsink will support normal RAM height. Here are some renderings. I will open a new thread in the next days.

Kickstarter-Update: 550 cases will be shiped tomorrow and the next 200 on Friday. My toner is empty so I have to wait for a new one to make the last 70 cases ready.
Click to expand...

Cooler looks quite attractive! Thermalright is able to do some good fans as well. However, I think Noctua is very experienced in the heatsink and fan department, so I wouldn't rule them out if they are interested (although I understand the argument with the 100mm Thermalright fan). They might have the resources to do proper physics simulation for heat transfer and air. Not all big heatsinks perform well, which I think is due to poor design and lack of physics simulation. Noctua also have a slim 120mm fan coming as well. Although it's been coming for a long time. Last I heard was H1 2017, though.

To really dope the heatsink up and achieve legendary status: make it black

iippo said:
personally considering the audience, it hardly matters if this would cost double or triple compared to competition as long as its the ultimate-no-corners-cut-small-profile-full-copper-cooler™ and performs noticeable better than the rest. if you start cutting corners, your basically doing something thats more or less in the market. if youre seriously doing your own cooler, then really do it all the way it should be done ;)
Click to expand...

Agree with this.
 
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Thermal right is the easiest to adjust. The AXP-100h is 51mm tall without the fan. Only adjustments needed to make the axp-100h in to our perfect cooler is to reduce it by 1mm, extend the fins and add a fan mount underneath the heatsink. This is by far the easiest to implement vs going to any other manufacturer.

Noctua is great but they would have to do far more work than what Thermalright would have to do. A 120mm fan, regardless of how slim it is, will be far less compatible than the 100mm specially in a mitx that is already cramped enough.

I can wait another 3 years for this heatsink.
 
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