Help me on my cube design.. plz

K

k1ng

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 12, 2005
Messages
228
So I am making a cube, a relatively small cube, aiming for 11"

It's gonna be made of acrylic and im shooting for this style... When i saw the two way mirror thing I kinda fell in love with it. Its just really cool.. anyways.

I made a pretty rough design in sketchup and was just wondering if you guys can give me suggestions and comments, etc.

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Im not sure about the front 120's and the 80 intake. I think the holes and potentially a grille of some sorts would take away from the mirror stlye of the case. I don't mind putting the 120's on top, but that still leaves the problem of the 80mm. Suggestions?

Im also worried about the power supply. Right now I have the 600watt coolmax modular (cu-600t i think). The psu has no fan for exaust (just the whole back is grille-ish) and it has a 120mm intake. On normal cases the intake would be sucking air in, from right around the cpu. With my new design, the only thing I could do is have the case rised a bit, and have the fan pull air in from underneath the case

Can you guys give me suggestions and potential probelms I have with my design.
My specs will be:
Some matx board (hopefully the dfi 939 that should be released soon)
a64 3500 air cooled by a vapochill micro extreme performance
currently 512x2 of ocz extreme gamer pc3500 (might upgrade)
connect3d x850xtpe (may change the stock cooler with that of a x800 series or x850pro (something single slot))
I have a 36gb raptor, a 160gb sataII hitachi, and a 120gb wd ide drive.

That was a long post but all help is greatly appreciated
Thanks
 
Symmetry..... I like the interior layout of the case, but when it comes to external modding, IMO I think that symmetry is what it's all about.... Center those fans , possibly use just 2 x 120mm fans, one on top and one on the bottom if they fit, but I have a fealing they won't by the looks of it...
 
centering the fans will be really hard with how I designed it... and how it just needs to be with my design.

If i center the front 120, and take out the other front, I cant center the back 120 because the cards will get in the way..

my original thoughts were to use modders mesh on the two 120's to make it look decent.. But i think it would still take away from the mirror design.

Right now the way it is set up is that the right 120 will push great amounts of air straight into the cpu fan, and the cpu fan will then push down or pull in that cool air, then it will leak out the back mostly and then the back 120 will catch it all.. Heat would get trapped near the vid card though, because nothing is sucking out the air. Any way I change the design something will go wrong, putting the 120's in front will make it look kind of blah (ya never know, it might look decent), centering the front and back 120 is impossible... etc. etc.


any ideas on cooling the bottom chamber and the psu dillema?
about the bottom chamber, do you guys think that the 80mm just sucking out would be enough cooling for the hd's? or do you think i should put another 80 either right in front of the hd's or in front of the case (front of case meaning drill the hole and make it look ugly)


edit:
a 120 will fit on the bottom section of the case, but theres about a 1/16" clearance between it and the mobo tray.. that aint happening (that was wiring room)
 
I think that one 80mm should be fine for the harddrives. you're going to have so much air pumping through there with the 3 120's that it should evacuate the air the 80 is pumping over the hdd's up and out.

I love the design. The small cube is way cool.
 
so your saying the one 80 pushing air out the back is fine, or the one in the front?

thanks for the comments.. This is totally prep work now. My dad built my house, so he's gonna help me build this case before i trek off to college :-d
 
Ok, well I've never tried this before, but have put some major thought into it. With my newest case build, I thought about putting in a "ghosted" front panel. One of my plans extending the top panel an extra 1/2" long and then had 2 front panels, one that had all my fans attached to it, and then a second that was 1/2" away allowing air to flow in through the sides and put a lip on the edge of the front panel so the gap is hidden a bit better. It's kind of hard to explain, but if I can find some time tommarow, I'll try to draw up a sketch in AutoCAD, assuming you'll be using 1/8" plexi....

Give me the dimensions of your motherboard and the thickness of your plexi, and I'll try to draw up a 11" cube for ya tommarow if I find the time.
 
Assasin I know EXACTLY what you mean.. I had the exact same thought, but then worried over the airflow.. I thought i was crazy with the idea, but not that someone else thought about it, I think that may be my new design.

had 10 mins before bed :-D
assasin.jpg


the red is what your talking about correct?

p.s. : bad angle
p.p.s: new angle

assasin2.jpg
 
lol I would love to but its 11" x 11" by 11"... Theres practically no room as it is.
 
Look at the link. I did it in a 12" cube. Subtract about an inch for adapting an internal frame and there you are.
 
Ya, that's bit like what I was thinking of. Here is a quick sketch that I just did in AutoCAD in about 5 mins. The main cube is 11" cubed. Then that front panel sticks out about another .7011 I think is what AutoCAD told me, but the top and bottom bevel is 1" long, you do the pathegream thearem crap to figure out how far out it is.... This will allow air to flow in through the sides, but then hide the fan holes.

untitled1.jpg


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Perhaps I just like my computer quiet, but to be honest, I don't think you need any of those intake fans. Why do I say this? A couple reasons:
1) The airflow from intake fan + exhaust fan will not be twice as much as just an exhaust fan. You will get some increase, but nowhere near 2x. Wind tunnels are cool, but unless you're doing serious OCing, a simple exhaust will be sufficient. If you want to 'direct' the airflow, ducts are a wonderful thing.
2) If you want the front to be as "ghosted" as possible, the easiest way is to just not put any fans there at all.
3) Yes, we all like to make fun of retail (HP, Dell, eMachines, etc) PCs around here, but the fact is that most of those don't have more than just a PSU fan and a case exhaust fan (not counting CPU/GPU and such), and while they may run a bit warm, they're still stable (hardware wise--don't count on the software!).

 
Are you going to put in an internal CD/DVD drive? Or you keeping that external?

Looking nice so far, dude!
 
Nice Sketchups, awesome program. BTW, you can use the Export 2D graphic instead of taking screen captures, just incase you didn't know it already ;)

As for advice, how about losing some fans and just put a grill on the top? Hot air rises afterall and you may not need the forced air approach. Many consumer electronic devices do this.

Another idea is to use crossflow fans, I really like them (using two myself). You could lower the height of your case a bit too if you use them.

p.s. I didn't notice any 'thickness' to the panels of your case, remember to take into account of this and the fixings required. As for the mirrored acrylic, are you buying it already applied, or are you using the automotive stuff (for limo's and gangsta rides)? Good luck, looks sweet!
 
SImple, though not necessarily the best, solution for the PSU is just flip it over. Then the fan would be puling from inside the lower area with what should be relatively cool air. Just a thought.

Joe
 
@ferris, when i orignally looked I didnt see any dimensions, so I just assumed it was larger than a foot, my bad.. I guess watercooling would fit, but im not really a watercooler (would be first time) and I just really don't feel like spending a ton of money on this project.


@assasin, that wasnt exactly what I was thinking about, but it solves my problem of the ugly fans. If I do something like that, I could even put the 80 on the bottom for added hd cooling... Thanks for the ideas.

@mohonri: your 100% correct, I probably don't need that many fans, and I probably dont really need an intake. I will be overclocking, but not extreme overclocking. I just generally like my parts cool. Another reason why I could just drop the front fans is that Im going to college like 10ft from canada (a little joke). Im going to RIT, for computer science, (its really cold at Rochester most the year, and when it snows, there are heated underground tunnels to get to class :-D) Anyways, I like your ideas, but I have fans to spare and I like my stuff cool.

@ monkeynetman: Theres a slot loading dvd burner on the right side of the case, its standing virtically

@Mysterae: I looked for something like export or image in sketcup but didnt find one. Thanks for the info. Like I said before, I could put the fans on the top, but that would leave me with even less headroom. Also, with assasins design and my 2 120's, there wont be much hot air in my case. 3 x 53dB, 151.85 CFM goodness :-d (btw i do have a fan controller) About the thikness, I was going to get 1/4". As for where I am getting it, I think this is the right stuff:


click

@ IndyJoe: If I flip the psu over, and have the 120 pointing towards the mobo and not the bottom of the case, theres less than 1/4" between the psu and mobo, theyre prettymuch touching, and there wont be a good amount of air goin into the psu.

thanks again for thoughts and suggestions
 
Here's an idea (you'll have to do some rearrangment): put the MB on the bottom of the cube. Put the PSU over the PCIe/PCI cards, with the fan towards the cards(PSUs are just fine with hot air--remember how they used to be the only thing drawing air across the CPU?). "Hang" the hard drives from the top (kind of over the CPU) in front of the 120mm exhaust fan.

Even if your CPU cooler is really tall, if your cube stays the same size, there should be more than adequate room. I know you like your components cool, but even with just the PSU and 120mm fan as exhaust, that should be plenty.

 
I meant with no fans, just grills or air vents. Depends on how hot your stuff gets though!
 
Oh Mysterae theres no way im going fanless, i just won't do it. lol it sounds arrogant.. but i like my stuff cool, and I dont mind sound (from the fans)
 
haha.. thats pretty funny.. I wonder how many fans it would take to acutally make the thing move... lol NEXT PROJECT :-D
 
You can actually buy a film that you can just lay on the plexi. It has the same characteristics as the mirror stuff and is a ton cheaper. It is supposedly not intended for high tempetures, otherwise it will bubble. Someone in the worklogs used this stuff about a month ago, I can't remember who did it or the name of the thread, but I'll try to dig it up again....
 
I've done some thinking, and what do you guys think of pretty much the same design, but with aluminum? Could I still use those acrylic cubes for the corners?
 
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