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Designing a Cube

S

sevisehda

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 1, 2003
Messages
281
I'm trying to design a cube case(15" interior space each side) to hold my computer and water cooling setup. However I'm unsure of the best arrangement of parts.

The list of parts that must fit are...

MB with the normal fixings.

2 HDs
2 Optical Drives

1 blower (a cylinder 7" diamtere 7" tall)
2 Danner Mag3s
2 Heatercores.
2 PS

One half(will hold the the watercooling parts as well as the power supplys. It will be lined with sheet steel to shield the magnetic field given off by the Mag3s. On top of the steel will be a layer of sound dampening material. Since all the noisy parts are in this half it should make for a pretty quiet setup.

The other half will be for the MB. A large plexi window to give a good view. I'd like to tuck the drives away in a smaller compartment for a really clean MB look.

I've only seen a few cubes and was trying to find links so I could finalize my design. So far I have 3 options.

1) Standard side by side layout, the MB would face the left side of the case.

2) MB in front. The motherboard would be mounted in the front of the case. with all the cooling in the rear. The problem would be the IO plate on the left facing the user so the face wouldn't look great. Or I could have the IO plate on the bottom it would look clean but plugging things in would be a pain.

3) MB on top. I could lay the case on its side. With the bottom half being for cooling while the top was for the MB. 2 problems arise, 1 I'm rarely above my computer so viewing wouldn't be great, 2 the cooling loop would suffer from a res/airtrap not being on top.

If anyone has any ideas or links to similar projects I'd love to hear them. Thanks.
 
When designing a cube, the most important thing is to make sure all the sides are of equal length. If you cannot achieve this state of equilibrium, your cube will fail!
 
15inches internal for each side. Outside dimensions will depend upon the thickness of the MDF.
 
Why not just get one of those shuttle cases? And then just mod it to have a window on each side.
 
Originally posted by M4d-K10wN
When designing a cube, the most important thing is to make sure all the sides are of equal length. If you cannot achieve this state of equilibrium, your cube will fail!
Click to expand...

Definitely important . . . remember this, or you won't end up with a cube!
 
best thing to do is cut them all at the same time. so there all equal
 
Shuttle case wouldn't do. I'm not looking for a showy all acrylic case. I'll be using MDF for most of it. Mainly because of its sound dampening properties but also for ruggedness. The only reason it will have a window is so I can see all the money I'm going to dump into it, and so people dont mistake it for a large brick on my desk.
 
Originally posted by DRJ1014
best thing to do is cut them all at the same time. so there all equal
Click to expand...
Think about it, how would you fit them together, then?
 
Its true, some sides wwill be 15x15 others will be 16.5x16.5 other will even be weirder than that.
 
Funny stuff guys (I almost hit reply on "cube design" myself with similar silly advice)

Serious advice though, as I've said before, is build a mock-up with cardboard and a glue gun. See what fits and how its gonna look. Takes a little time but saves headaches and $$$ in the long run
 
I made a cube. It was the box our 20" tv came in. It worked great until my mom sat on it.
 
I really don't think you need to make it that big.

A typical atx motherboard is 12 inches on the long side, and I really think that would be a good interior dimension for your cube. The short side of the mb is usually 9.6 inches or something.

Get creative. The impressive mods are the ones where people do some planning and fit all their components into the right amount of space, which can mean tight fits but still allows good airflow etc.

I actually made a mock up of a case like this in solidworks and there was plenty of room.. my design had a dual 120mm radiator positioned in front of the motherboard, with the motherboard on the bottom of the case (heat rises, mb on the bottom makes the most sense to me at least).

So your design should fit too... As I said I think the best mb placement would be on the bottom... that way you can put your coolling stuff in the top half.

I ended up canning the large cube idea for a microatx plan. I don't need the extra pci slots.
 
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