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PROJECT MINOTAUR: My own custom-designed custom-built PC Case

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fateshammer

Member
Joined
Mar 1, 2004
Location
Alberta, Canada
First of all, this is not a mod but a complete build from scratch. So I'm posting this in the Cases and Power Supplies forum. Should the mods feel it belongs somewhere else, feel free to move it.

My rig needed a new home, and after going through the options of what's out there I finally decided that I've had enough. I'm sick and tired of the off-the-shelf standard casing that have been around for ages, especially after seeing some lame weird-looking ones that have recently flooded the market. So I started working on some ideas. I ended up doing 5 or more concepts until I settled on MINOTAUR. The idea was to keep it simple yet functional. I would be working on a very limited toolset, no precision tools for cutting and bending, etc. It would all be manually constructed. Hence, the construction methodology would be a little crude. This is my first attempt at designing and building a computer case, so this will serve as an early prototype for what I decide to do after MINOTAUR. Whatever I learn from working on this project will serve to guide me in refining my next one in the near future. As to the choice of the main material, it was easy. I would use aluminum, light and relatively easy to manipulate. Once again, this is not just a mod, but a complete build from scratch.

I will post the whole progress of the project here, showing pics of only the relevant stages of the construction, instead of a step by step presentation, explaining some as I go. I respectfully request that any comments be reserved until after I put up my concluding post of this thread. There were a lot of improvisations and on-the-spot choices/decisions in the construction process, since I didn't bother designing it down to the tiniest detail. I only determined the framing and overall shell.

My 2 primary goals:

1) Isolate motherboard from PSU and Hard Disks
2) Motherboard should lie horizontally on the case and not standing sideways like in the standard ATX cases

Okay, I've babbled long enough, so let's get to it.
 
Here's my rig:
01ratsnest9cx.jpg


Essentially, this case will house the following major components:

AMD Athlon64 3200+ (Winchester)
Abit AV8 Mobo
2x512 PDP Patriot XBLK PC3200
CoolerMaster Hyper 6 Heatsink
OCZ Powerstream 520W PSU
2-WD IDE Hard Drives
1-DVD Drive
1- Silverstone Thermal Controller (Eudemon)
 
At the onset, the first thing I did was reconnoiter possible sources of materials with reasonable pricing. I needed to see what sort of stuff I can easily get that would save me a few headaches. I found a hardware store that offered a wide array of metal products and surplus metals, looked through their stocks and after a few minutes of inspecting I already had a clear picture of what parts and profiles I would use for the project. The next step was just a matter of drawing out the design in AutoCAD for the appropriate dimensions. Afterwards, I went back to the store and gave them my cutting list. Since the particular store didn’t offer metal bending, I was left with the option of doing the manual bending to some parts, as you’ll see later. After a few days, I got the aluminum parts that I needed all cut up.

02partscutorig2pz.jpg


Its basically comprised of aluminum panels, hollow sections and perforated panels of varying sizes. I'll show how each part were used subsequently as we go along.
 
I then did a quick 3D modeling and rendering in 3DSMax as an initial and early visual aid. Here’s how MINOTAUR roughly looks like:

03aprelimrenderscopy3av.jpg


It’s just basically a cube 320mm(L) x 370mm(W) x 420mm(H) in dimension. It will consist of a top housing for the mobo and a bottom housing for the PSU and hard disks and optical drive, both parts to be joined and secured by the handle-frame that wraps at the edges and terminates as legs. At first I wanted very much to make the handles and legs a one-piece element, like an inverted letter U. But since the particular hardware store I bought the materials from doesn’t do bending, I was left scratching my head how to properly bend the whole piece manually and still get within dimensional tolerance. That’s a 50mm x 2mm thick strip. I needed to get within 2mm max of my required dimensions. If you notice, I’d have to do six bends to get that shape for the piece. Bending it manually is easy, but manually bending accurately within tolerance is another story. Initially, I considered taking the 2 pieces to a machine shop for accurate bending results, but I didn’t have the time and patience to look around for those guys in my place, plus it’d be additional cost to bear. So in the end, I decided to just split each single handle-leg frame into 2 pieces, I’d have a separate handle and a separate leg.
 
As I previously mentioned, a lot of the building process involved improvisations, and this is one of them at this early stage of the project. And I have to admit that it was also one of the many frustrations that came along in this undertaking. So, put simply, the top part of the case would be secured to the handle and the bottom part secured to the legs. Then both top and bottom housings would be secured and held in place by the side panels. The middle of the top part is perforated aluminum sheet (3mm diameter holes) 1mm thick. So I quickly went back to the CAD drawings and determined the necessary dimensions for said revision. Then I cut the strip accordingly and proceeded to bend them manually, using the edge of a sturdy study table as a guide (told you this was going to be a crude construction). Here’s a shot of what I had during this stage:

03partscuttools5xe.jpg


At the topmost left of the pic are the legs already bent, next to them are the handles. Of course, as expected I didn’t get the dimensional clearance accurately for the handles when I bent them, I was off by about 5mm, so I had to straighten one of the bends and re-bent them all the while cursing why on earth I undertook this project in the first place, LOL. To the right on top is the perforated sheet already bent. The 20mmx20mmx1mm hollow square tubing frames are already cut to size, those are the ones in the middle of the pic. And those are the only tools I had at my disposal. Don’t be fooled into thinking that it’s that orderly when I started working, everything was all over the damn place that I spent more time looking for my stuff than actually working, heheh. I had no workshop, and certainly no proper working table, so that brought additional strain on my back. Next stop: Framing.
 
Here’s the bottom framing for the lower housing:

04bottomframe2us.jpg


The 20mm x 20mm hollow square tubings are connected with metal corner brackets. I used a 25mm x 50mm rectangular tubing for the lower bracing with the original intent of hiding some wirings inside, but in the end I never got to implement the wire-hiding plan due to exhaustion and time constraint.
 
And here are the legs attached to the bottom framing:

05bottomframeandlegs7le.jpg


I used round-head aluminum screws to attach the legs to the frame to give it a more ‘industrial’ look and feel. And I think those shiny protruding screw heads just look damn sexy.
 
Next up are the side panels and perforated flooring for the bottom housing. I did not screw on the perforated sheet to the frame, instead I used heavy duty double-sided mounting tape to minimize vibration.

06bottomhalfpartial8nj.jpg


For securing the aluminum panel siding to the framing, I used Philips hex head screw, like the ones most commonly used in standard metal cases.
 
And here’s the framing for the top housing:

07topframe6gh.jpg


Same frame structure as the bottom housing except the bigger hollow rectangular section is on top. At this point, I started to use heavy-duty double sided mounting tape extensively on the corner brackets, it surprised me a bit that they held so well without the use of screws. I had the sudden urge to slam the frame hard on the floor to see how sturdy it is, but I dropped the crazy idea.
 
And with the handles on:

08topframeandhandles8tq.jpg


I sanded the exposed parts (handles, legs and sidings) to give it a brushed aluminum look. I used a rough grit sandpaper to achieve this, I can’t for the life of me remember specifically what grit I used, maybe it was 100 or 80. Again, I used round-head screws to secure the handles to the framing.
 
It’s time to cover up the top housing. The perforated sheet is held tight in place by the 2 aluminum strips screwed on to the frames.

09tophalfpartial1ab.jpg
 
Next I did a very crude and improvised framing for the optical drive:

10cddriveframe1yo.jpg


I cut some 35mm strips from the aluminum panel leftovers, then secured those metal corner brackets with double-sided mounting tape to the strips. The optical drive will sit on those corner brackets.
 
Front view of the bottom housing:

13bottomwithtempsensor8hu.jpg


The Silverstone Eudemon temp sensor is secured beside the optical drive. All the support frames for the drives and temp sensor on the bottom housing are secured to the perforated flooring by heavy-duty double sided mounting tape, no screws. Here, I already fixed in the guiding angle brackets at the top frame of the housing. It will serve to guide the top housing when placed on the bottom housing.
 
Speaking of which, here’s the improvised mobo tray:

17mobotray2hs.jpg


The motherboard standoffs are already in place, those 2 rectangular openings are for the wires and cords that will snake in below, from the bottom housing.
 
And here they are, one on top of the other.

16topbottompartial023jb.jpg


The mobo tray is already placed on the top housing’s support brackets pictured earlier.
 
Next, time to whip out my trusty Black and Decker RTX rotary tool and do the panels. Here’s the 1.5mm-thick aluminum rear panel with appropriate cutouts for my components after it tasted my kung-fu skills on the rotary tool:

18reariopanel0ia.jpg


On the top left, the rectangular cutout is for the mobo IO panel, top right 2 cutouts (shaped like the number 1) are for the video card and sound card. Bottom left is for the PSU, and bottom right is for the hard disk 80mm fan.
 
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