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Help building htpc plexiglass case...

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d1noct

n00b
Joined
Feb 5, 2007
Messages
26
Hey guys till recently i was using an hp pavillion 500w in my living room as my htpc hooked up to my 37 inch lcd tv... it was good but the pc case was behind the tv and it got annoying to keep reaching behind there to put cds in or w/e... soo i want to build a pc case out of plexiglass or w/e its called.. I've seen some nice cases made but and i want to do something like that.. i went to lowes today and saw some plexi but it looked like it was too thin and it was like all wobbly and stuff...(prolly cuz it was big piece) i think it the thickness was 0.080. or 2/25 something like that.. my question is would that stuff be ok for holding pc componets or am i just wasting my time and money? here are some plans i drew up for the htpc case.

picture.jpg

sorry no scanner
 
hey thx for the reply..... i like what you did with that case... mad cool.... anyways so ur sayin i would be able to use this thickness of plexi.... (.080) because i wont be carrying it around or something and it will just sit there.. i would plan on making it with L brackets and not gluing it since it has to be all perfect and stuff
 
I would make a frame of 1/2" aluminum angle that attach the plastic panels to it.

Or if you just want to make it out of pure plastic than you will need like 1/4" thick plastic.
 
hey, a question for mark that may be useful to the op too.

after making cuts to plexi/lexan or whatever it is that you use for cases.. how do you get the corners to looks good. I've seen something about "flame polishing" before. Do you need to have a torch to do that? Can you just use a heatgun? would wetsanding work or something?

curious, as I thought about doing this, but then realized how difficult it can be, so I backed off for a while untill my skillz got better.

Thanks for any info!
 
OH! Another thing I thought about.. what about static? Wouldn't plexi hold a large amount of a static charge? Is there a special type that should be used?
 
First I have noticed no problems with static electricity.

As to flame polishing, you need the flame. but you can sand it with finer and finer sand paper than polish it to be very smooth as well. (but its a lot of work)

Also for flame polishing to work the edge needs to be smooth too (no deep grooves)
 
For flame polishing, you still have to sand it pretty smooth before breaking out the torch.

Keep in mind also that plexi/lexan/acrylic tend to get scraped and scratched up very easily. If it's up above and out of arm's reach, it should be fine, but if it's going to be used by a toddler....you'll probably want to rethink your case materials :)
 
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