Scratch-Built Aluminum Case

vrogy · May 14, 2005

Well, the xoxide people turned out to be a bunch of lame noobs, so I'll be posting here from now on, I guess.

Basically, this project was to create a comp I could haul to robot events and on car trips, that would be able to be 'zipped up' and shipped around without worry of getting the poor weak case tweaked.

The basic frame is four 1/2"X1.5" solid Al bars, end-tapped and bolted to two 8"X9" 1/4" thick Al plates. I can jump up and down on it all day without worrying about it bending or breaking- and I weight about 175. Did I mention I also build combat robots? I think the methodology of building for bone-crunching impacts has kind of skewed my take on computer cases..

Anyways, I've put in a micro ATX board, a standard-sized power supply, and a couple optical drives, DVD and burner. In addition to that, it'll have a set of blue cold cathodes, three blue LED fans, blue loom and wire trimmings, blue dials, and an 80GB HD. Not great specs, but enough to get some work done.

On to the pictures:
I have a detailed gallery with notations at:
http://vrogy.com/case1/
Here's a quick shot its current condition:

With Al plates on:

DR_K13 · May 14, 2005

COOL. and welcome to [H]

Rustedimpala · May 14, 2005

Heck yeah!! I like it! Industrial indestructible. I couldnt even break that, and Im good at breaking things!

kuyaglen · May 14, 2005

Sweet...armor plating...

Tim_axe · May 14, 2005

I originally dismissed using Aluminum as a building material for my last (failed) from scratch case attempt because I heard it was a PITA to weld it with the equipment I have avaliable to me. Getting some thick bars to tap like you did seems like an awesome way to avoid those troubles though.

BTW, are the aluminum sheets primarily for safe transportation? I can't tell if the CD/DVD bays have a cutout in the sheets, although it looks like there isn't... Also, that thing is a lot smaller than it looks!

vrogy · May 14, 2005

Tim_axe said:
I originally dismissed using Aluminum as a building material for my last (failed) from scratch case attempt because I heard it was a PITA to weld it with the equipment I have avaliable to me. Getting some thick bars to tap like you did seems like an awesome way to avoid those troubles though.

BTW, are the aluminum sheets primarily for safe transportation? I can't tell if the CD/DVD bays have a cutout in the sheets, although it looks like there isn't... Also, that thing is a lot smaller than it looks!

The CD-RW and DVD drives do have a cutout.. I've got a a couple slats of Al and polycarb stacked on them now, but it looks like shyte. I'm thinking of milling a custom piece to get the right clearance, or perhaps just truing up the current slots and tossing on some springloaded doors..

Aluminum is some cool stuff.. it's easy to cut, it's relatively light, and it buffs to a nice shine- plus corrosion isn't a real problem. It really suits the way I build, because I don't weld stuff.

Silversierra · May 14, 2005

Cool case. Does it overheat though? I don't see much ventilation, or is it hidden?

vrogy · May 14, 2005

The fans aren't in there yet- I'm going to do a couple 80mm fans in the back, one down in the lower front corner on the right side, and a couple minimuffin fans in the top, behind the drives- some 40mm ones will juuuuust fit.

In any case, heating isn't a problem- it sees it really does act as a heatsink- it was left on overnight in an 80-degree room(AC was off

) with the left, front, and back panels on, just the PSU's 80mm fan and one 80mm perched down in the lower right corner to keep it cool, and nothing's hot.

Mad Machinist · May 14, 2005

Pretty nice piece of machine work.......did you layout the holes and drill and tap with or without a DRO on the verticle mill.......and if you didn't use a verticle mill......damn nicer job of layout and assembly.

Mad Machinist · May 14, 2005

vrogy said:
The CD-RW and DVD drives do have a cutout.. I've got a a couple slats of Al and polycarb stacked on them now, but it looks like shyte. I'm thinking of milling a custom piece to get the right clearance, or perhaps just truing up the current slots and tossing on some springloaded doors..

Aluminum is some cool stuff.. it's easy to cut, it's relatively light, and it buffs to a nice shine- plus corrosion isn't a real problem. It really suits the way I build, because I don't weld stuff.

Do you have a corner rounding end mill?.....If so mill the opening for the cd tray with an end mill and then mill the corners of the tray cover to match the radius.....if you don't have a corner round.......drop me a line......I have a few extras in the smaller radii.

vrogy · May 14, 2005

Mad Machinist said:
Pretty nice piece of machine work.......did you layout the holes and drill and tap with or without a DRO on the verticle mill.......and if you didn't use a verticle mill......damn nicer job of layout and assembly.

http://vrogy.com/case1/image_47.html

It's not actually much use on big projects like this, but it's great for my little 1-pound combat robots. I did most of the layout with my dad's old carpentry tools- speed squares, framing squares, and sharpies, and only really used the mill for drilling the tap clearance holes on the big bars, I used a little Skil cordless drill to do most other through-holes and countersinks.

I have some more picture up at http://vrogy.com/case1/ for the interested.

Mad Machinist · May 14, 2005

You obviously have more patience than I............

That is a damn tough project to drill tap and have come out square...... My compliments to the chef

vrogy · May 14, 2005

Mad Machinist said:
You obviously have more patience than I............ That is a damn tough project to drill tap and have come out square...... My compliments to the chef

Hey, it's not that bad.. and tapping holes is easy now, I started using this method last night:
http://www.vrogy.com/misc/powertapping.MOV 56k warning- 14MB quicktime.

The drill clutch is set to slip before the tap shears itself, so you don't have to worry about that- in fact, the greatest danger is tipping the tap over once it's in and snapping it off. The obly real problem with this is the drill- it tends to overheat and use up battery power very rapidly with all that reversing.

vrogy · May 18, 2005

My self-imposed deadline looms near, as I'm flying out to Ontario on the 2nd of next month.. I need to have this pretty much all done- nothing hackish- by at least the week before. Add onto this school crap I've got to sort out before I leave FL for three months... and it's "Yay, stress!"

Sorry for the rant, here's the info you all really want: I made the cutouts and installed two 80mm fans in the back. For now they're just some old crappy fans, I'll replace them with newer, brighter ones when I get them in. I've also added the temperature readout/fan controller/HDD sensor/clock/self-destruct device on the side, and I'm likely going to just do some through-holes for hitting the little switches to set the time/switch the temp sensor readout to the HDD, CPU, and VGA.. Also, I'm pretty sure I know how I'm going to setup the cold cathode driver- between the lexan sidewall and the PSU, with a little hinged access panel above the dials for adjustment of fan speed, etc.

Anyways.... PICS!
http://www.vrogy.com/case1/

zeusenergy · May 18, 2005

vrogy said:
Well, the xoxide people turned out to be a bunch of lame noobs, so I'll be posting here from now on, I guess.

Basically, this project was to create a comp I could haul to robot events and on car trips, that would be able to be 'zipped up' and shipped around without worry of getting the poor weak case tweaked.

I hear ya on the Xoxide forum. Most of the places you go online are full of wannabes and h8r's and trolls. It's pretty cool in here, most of the ppl in [H] can be inviting and will support what you're doing. Your work so far looks very clean! I'd like to see the rear panel once you get it all cut out for the ports. Should be interesting to see how you accomplish that. Keep up the good work.

crazyman_130 · May 18, 2005

where do you get your metal...i need some 8th inch and 16th inch sheets about 2 feet wide and 5 feet long

Ozymandias · May 18, 2005

How did you get that brushed AL look? Did it come that way? I'm asking because I already have an AL case, but some of it's scratched and I wanna restore it to it's former glory before I haul it off to college ( I gotta impress all the nerds there

).

uzor · May 18, 2005

AFAIK, just take an orbital sander to it.

zeusenergy · May 18, 2005

uzor said:
AFAIK, just take an orbital sander to it.

Wire wheel on a drill or dremel works well too. I like it better cause it tends not to swirl like the orbital might. Of course I never tried an orbital per say! So wtf do I know?? LMFAO!

vrogy · May 18, 2005

crazyman_130 said:
where do you get your metal...i need some 8th inch and 16th inch sheets about 2 feet wide and 5 feet long

Ahem.. *cough* These were stripped-down streetsigns. .
My father works for the City, he knows folks in the DOT- they hook me up with old streetsigns. Some good places that are also online are www.mcmaster.com and http://www.onlinemetals.com/ . If you're near a largish city, though, try looking for a Metal Supermarkets, or just look up "Metal" or even "Sheet Metal" in the yellow pages of your handy-dandy phone book. Hell, try google.

Ozymandias said:
How did you get that brushed AL look? Did it come that way? I'm asking because I already have an AL case, but some of it's scratched and I wanna restore it to it's former glory before I haul it off to college ( I gotta impress all the nerds there ).

I used a wirebrush and a nice, strong corded drill, then did a one-way pattern over the plates. After that, I took some rough-grit aluminum oxide sandpaper and manually scratched random patterns all over it, mostly circular. The result, of course, is that a camera and the naked eye pick up all the tangental scratches and reflect them at once

zeusenergy said:
Wire wheel on a drill or dremel works well too. I like it better cause it tends not to swirl like the orbital might. Of course I never tried an orbital per say! So wtf do I know?? LMFAO!

Dremel? That's insane.. that would take days..

vrogy · May 18, 2005

zeusenergy said:
I hear ya on the Xoxide forum. Most of the places you go online are full of wannabes and h8r's and trolls. It's pretty cool in here, most of the ppl in [H] can be inviting and will support what you're doing. Your work so far looks very clean! I'd like to see the rear panel once you get it all cut out for the ports. Should be interesting to see how you accomplish that. Keep up the good work.

Thanks. The old commercial case came with a little plate that fit over them all, so I just made a hole that would keep it in place once the mobo was bolted in:
http://www.vrogy.com/case1/image_33.html

The_Mage18 · May 18, 2005

Awesome case man! It really shows that you took some time and effort into making it. Oh and congradulations on making the front page!

So... Taking orders yet?

vrogy · May 19, 2005

The_Mage18 said:
So... Taking orders yet?

... If I ever did anything like that, I'd do it MUCH better than I did this.
I'd design the whole thing in Solidworks, have it all waterjetted, then just do surface finishing and hole-tapping to assemble them, and end up with something that would probabaly look much better than this has, take less work, and be stronger, too.. but that's the nature of revisions.

zeusenergy · May 19, 2005

Real nice job. I love the solid build ethic you've managed here. With regard to the work you did on the ports, that's a great way to easily get them to fit. It's no fun to have to cut every damn hole! Keep it up, and great work again.

vrogy · May 20, 2005

zeusenergy said:
Real nice job. I love the solid build ethic you've managed here. With regard to the work you did on the ports, that's a great way to easily get them to fit. It's no fun to have to cut every damn hole! Keep it up, and great work again.

Thanks.

I've got more pics up:
http://www.vrogy.com/case1/

I started work on the fully-scratch case handle... it'll bolt to the top, and hinge down flat... might fit a lock-down spring of some sort, dunno yet.

And here's a few samples:

N H O · May 20, 2005

yo i lik the creativity

g'job on the case

wat kinda fan is that??? i have the exact same one but i dont kno wat kinda fan it is

its loud and moves alotta air tho

vrogy · May 20, 2005

N H O said:
Hi. I like the creativity good job on the case

What kinda fan is that? I have the exact same one but I don't know what kind of fan it is. It's loud and moves alotta air, though.

Wow. ...It's just an old PSU takeout, blue LED fans with thermal-feedback setups are on the way.

To all: should I start watermarking my images?

vrogy · May 22, 2005

Almost done with the handle.
http://vrogy.com/case1/ as always for additional images.

Sticking with the whole "Overkill = Teh Good" theme, the handle is a slab of 1/2" X 1.5" X 4.75" 6061 aluminum, and secured by a couple 1/4-20 bolts on either side. The hinge pieces are anchored to the top-plate of the case by 16 6-32 bolts, and the axles will be stainless 1/4-20s. I'm thinking about milling some somewhat ergonomic finger-grips into it once I get it functional, and maybe upgrading the moving bars that extend to the sides of the handle piece to stainless or plain steel at some time in the future, but I think it should hold for now. Get it, hold?

vrogy · May 24, 2005

vrogy · May 28, 2005

Heh, almost forgot about this. My deadline is looming near, Thursday of next week, and I still need to make a couple port-covers and vent-holes...

But I have everything vital in, and the drive blinders are drying outside.

http://vrogy.com/case1/

I'm trying this linked thumbnails method- page loading times are getting pretty bad.
If you like it, say so, and I'll change all the old linked images to this style.

Scratch-Built Aluminum Case

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