Need help designing a new case

[CubedPC]

I currently produce a micro atx acrylic cube which i sell throguh frozencpu and xoxide. I have recieved a lot of feedback requesting a full size version of this case, and so I made a new design. I have to get this design cut soon, so I want to know what you think of this design. I am especially concered with whether 4 x 120mm fans is too much cooling, and whether the motherboard facing outwards is a good idea. Any feedback would be apreciated.
Here are the specs for this case:
13" cast acrylic cube
full atx motherboard, oriented to face outwards
3 x 5.25" bays
4 x 3.5" internal bays
fold open design to allow for quick access to components with 3 thumb screws

Here are some pictures for an idea of what it will look like:

Folded open:

Front:

Looking at motherboard from left side:

Back:

If you want to see the current design for comparison, you can see pictures at http://www.cubedpc.com/

Thanks for your input,
-Steve

 

[133]

Nice design there. Looks kinda big and bulky.

is this for a server or just a PC?

btw..there is no such this as "too much cooling"

 

[ness1469]

Urmm.. is the right side going to open, too, or would people have to reach down in there to screw HDs in?
Personally I think that a removable HD rack would be ace.

Also, the fan on the part that opens might be a pain, because you would have to give the cable some extra slack and some people are obsessive about making sure that no cables are near their mobo.

What about switches. Are those included and where do they go?

 

[CubedPC]

133: Its really not that big, at 13" cubed it has a smaller volume than most midtowers and the other cube case, the UFO-2 is over 2.5 times bigger. I intended this design to be for use as a PC.
I also believe that there is no such thing as too much cooling, but I just want to make sure that others believe this as well. I personally thing the large number of fans is great, as it would allow great airflow at low dB levels, or incredible airflow at higher dB's.

ness: That is the one problem with the design that I have been trying to work out, but have found no good solution that would be able to keep the design simple enough to keep costs and labor low. It really would be hard to make a removable drive bay in an acrylic case, not to mention, how could you remove it? The only solution that would be viable would be to move the cd drives to the bottom of the case and the hard drives to the top. This would work well but would look weird.
As for the fan, my initial design called for the fan not folding down, but this made it so that the piece that folds down would be weak and hard to assemble without the piece on back bracing them and keeping them from folding together. Since the cable to that fan is probably going to be run to a fan controller in the front of the case, It would be almost as easy to run it down the case to the bottom and over to the fan controller.
There would be a power switch included which goes in the hole right under the 120mm fans in front.

One thing I have been thyinking about today is if I should make the bracket that holds the hard drives half height. There will be a lot of air flowing through that part of the case, and only putting one screw on that side of the hard drive would allow significantly better cooling of the hard drives. Acrylic is a pretty good insulator and could otherwise increase the tempurature of the drives a little bit.

Thanks for the input thus far.
-Steve

 

[DRJ1014]

its actually looking good

 

[sevisehda]

Looks nice, I'd be interesting in one but I need something a little bigger to fit all my water cooling stuff into.

The only thing I don't like is the lack of air over the HDDs.

 

[DRJ1014]

o i didnt realize the air thing until now. add a fan there