New Case Design; Need some input

[memnoch_thedevil]

I should be building my new i7 system some time next week, and I have spent a lot of time looking at cases. I see all of the beautiful work on here and other forums, and wish I could do some like that my self.

I have been wanting to build my own case for a while now, but not really sure how to go about doing it. I have had a kind of crazy design in my head for a while now, that I want to try out.

The case is not much bigger than a mid tower, it is about 18.5" tall by 9.6" wide, but is slightly longer than most at around 23" long...

The reason for this, I want to try a different method for air cooling, really and truly separating the heat zones, and at the same time give it ample room if I want to test out water cooling, with out having to mod things too much.

So this is what I have come up with so far. Forgive the bad design, I am useless when it comes to sketchup, AutoCAD, photoshop, or any other similar programs, this is actually my first time using sketch up at all, and I haven't slept in 2 days messing with this stupid thing lol. My hands are literally going numb.

The basic goal is to have a case that's not super huge, but has great cooling and space. I slapped a Corsair 1000w psu in there for reference, and for the most case, everything is to scale. My PSU is much smaller than the Corsair, so there are more options, like having the PSU mounted differently opens up more space, so more drives or opticals, etc...Even with the Corsair, I could use a larger drive cage, and could also mount the PSU sideways. I would have to run a cable under neath, by the fans, to the rear for power, that why it is mounted the way it is now, that and I thought 1 front mounted fan could look nice with a good led.

The psu air comes in the front and goes out the front bottom, the hard drives get air in from one side of the side panel, and it is expelled out the other. There would be a large piece of aluminum from the bottom near the psu expanding to the top and back of the motherboard, keeping the heat separate. That same metal, can be used to help with cable management, as well as perhaps a few holes for cables, with something rubber in them to help keep the air out.

This leaves the mother board area open to 2 200mm fans on the bottom for intake, and 2 200mm fans on top for exhaust. The back would be sealed off as best as possible to allow for true bottom to top cooling, allowing the heat to follow it's natural path easier.

Any way here are a few pictures to give you an idea of what I am thinking about, so please tell me if this is just as stupid of an idea as it gets, or is it a viable deal?

Also, feel free to laugh at my horrible google skills

Night all...

 

[crazjayz]

Hiding wires may be a problem, along with noise. With that many fans, it'll be nearly impossible to keep things quiet. Secondly, you're PSU is trying to shove air downwards, which is difficult if placed on anything that isn't flat. On top of that, any warm air exiting the PSU will probably be sucked back into the case by the 200mm bottom intake. But that's just my $0.02.

 

[memnoch_thedevil]

Well it would have to have feet to allow for cool air to be pulled in. I see what you are saying about the PSU, my PSU is actually quite a bit smaller than the Corsair, and I would probably mount it in the other orientation, with the fan on the bottom pulling air in. I'm not sure it would actually be that loud, the fans over the HD don't have to run full speed, and honestly 1 fan on either side would probably be enough for hard drives. I put 2 on there to show that there was room for a second hard drive cage, so another set of fans could also be used, but they could be undervolted easily enough to keep those 2 fans silent.

With the height of the case being a Mid Tower design, I think that the 200mm fans could also be run quite low as well, since the air flow is straight up, in and out with out much resistance. As for wires, the panel that separates the hard drives, psu and dvd drives, would have ties on them,as well as a cut out towards the middle for the video cards. The secondary power source for the motherboard would probably need an extension though given the length of the case, but with an extension, it could run to the top of the case along the panel, then across the top of the case around the fans, and then down to the source. The top 2 fans and bottom 2 fans are in a 2 part housing, so the wires from those are hidden internally, with a small cut at the top near the drive cage for the top 2, and a small cut near the psu for the bottom 2. Front audio/headphone etc...would run along the top down the back of the mobo tray, and wrapped up and under. Longer Sata cables might be the better way to go too, as the same applies, you could go under the drives, out the side of the drive cage, up to the top of the case, and then down the mobo tray.

Because of the size of the 200mm fans there is plenty of room behind the try, as well as room in the PSU area to hide wires neatly and run them to where they are virtually unseen.

Perhaps just one 200mm fan on top and bottom? That would decrease the over all length of the case quite a bit. I also though about dual or triple 120's/140's in the top and bottom, that would decrease the width back down, and allow for easy conversion to dual triple rads in the top and bottom, mounting a reservoir would be easy to do on the panel separating the chambers, and with smaller fans the pump could rest on the floor as well.

Any other thoughts? I just want something different, and to build it lol...

 

[Arcygenical]

Well, that's a pretty slick design IMO - if you can pull it off!

You'll need to put the case on some feet, at least 10mm-15mm tall feet too, for that PSU to exhaust air properly.

That front fan, right in the PSU area, is a bad idea IMO... If anything, have it in a position to blow across the drives, not right into your makeshift PSU bay.

Personally, I would swap the dual 200mm fans to dual 140mm fans, and run the bottom ones at about 7v (with a filter) and a top at around 5v (with grills). 200mm fans would provide little to no benefit in this case, cost a ton more, and are (IMO) more prone to breaking. Making the case smaller is never a bad thing either.

 

[Dan_D]

There is promise there. I like the width of the case. If I were to design a case, it would probably be similar in terms of dimensions.

 

[memnoch_thedevil]

Well, that's a pretty slick design IMO - if you can pull it off!

You'll need to put the case on some feet, at least 10mm-15mm tall feet too, for that PSU to exhaust air properly.

That front fan, right in the PSU area, is a bad idea IMO... If anything, have it in a position to blow across the drives, not right into your makeshift PSU bay.

Personally, I would swap the dual 200mm fans to dual 140mm fans, and run the bottom ones at about 7v (with a filter) and a top at around 5v (with grills). 200mm fans would provide little to no benefit in this case, cost a ton more, and are (IMO) more prone to breaking. Making the case smaller is never a bad thing either.

Thanks...well the fan in the front isn't really a fan, I had a blank box for the dimensions of the Corsair PSU, and I just tossed in a 120mm fan in the blank box to represent the fan on the power supply, and it's orientation if it were lined up in that direction.

I kind of agree with the 200mm fan, but it would still be kind of cool, and a little different than most you would see. I imagin it would take little effort to swap out the 200's for a triple rad in top and bottom, there would even be room to do a push/pull on both rads lol...

There is promise there. I like the width of the case. If I were to design a case, it would probably be similar in terms of dimensions.

I kind of like the width too...but I am still learning this program and the initial design needs a lot of work...

On a more custom note, I would really like to take apart a power supply, leave it attached to the bottom plate, then stick it in a sort of "bay" below the 5.25" bays, then take the panel that has the connectors for the PSU, and attach it to the side of the wall facing the motherboard, then make custom length cables. then the "bay" that holds the PSU would have 2 120mm fans on either side of the case in the same orientation as the HDD's allowing for cross flow cooling in one side and out the other, but over an open PSU so the internals would run much cooler. That would be of more individual custom component of the case lol...

I'm messing with it again now, but trying out either 140 or 120mm fans to see the size, I think I could reduce the overall foot print even further...

Oh, by the way, the initial one up there, the tray is large enough to house EATX easily lol...as well as maybe an ATX board, and an ITX board for a second wireless htpc built in lol...

 

[gwarren007]

I would to think mounting the Psu at the top in that bay with the exhaust exiting the same as the fans on the top would be much better. You could screen the whole bottom for cool air intake and the HD's would recieve the first cool air, requiring no fans.

 

[crazjayz]

Also, keep in mind, with the PSU mounted like that, you'll be running the power cable along the whole underside of the case.

 

[memnoch_thedevil]

Well after a few hours of working on it after I posted the other day,,,Sketchup decided to revert back to my original post pictures...hours after I had modified, remeasured and made some fairly decent changes. Then of course after that, it Auto Saved over itself, losing all progress...

Needless to say I hadn't messed with it for a couple of days, and I work this weekend so little time to play.

I did however go back to the frame, create each of the base components; left & right side panel, front and top panel, and the case frame. Also settled on final dimensions. Here are some shots of the core components with the dimensions, I have got a lot more done since this, but I am saving it for later, because I am quite pleased at how it is turning out, and I have a ton of ideas for little features, to make it more user friendly etc...

I will post some more of those later...

Any way for reference here are the dimensions of some popular cases to compare:

I assume they are all by (L,W,D)


Antec 300: 18" x 8.1" x 18.3"

Antec 902: 19.4" x 8.6" x 18.6"

HAF 922: 22.2" x 10" x 19.7"

CM 690: 20.7" x 8.4" x 19"

Unnamed: 18.6" x 8.7" x 22.2"


So it's fairly close to them all in size...it is shorter than them all, about the same in width, and obviously a little longer in the depth department.

Let me know what you think so far! Lot's more to do though still. But I did find a guy near me that works for a CNC shop that has access to CAD cutting equipment, so I should be able to build this after all.