Mark_767

I have a HUGE design for a case I thought up today. It couples air flow with usability and is perfect. I have many prerendered 3D images made for the design, each is about 3-4 megs... Just kidding I rendered em in vector so even 56k is fine. Each is about 3-4 KB, nevermind I had some problems with PNG so here have some worse quality JPEGS! Here is the motherboard just so everyone can tell whats what a little better as it gets crowded. For those confused, the orange box is a pci card, the red one is the video card. The gold box is the cpu. The purple is the little connectors at the end. The grey box is the northbridge. The 4 grey boxes are the ram slots. This is just to give a basic IDEA of the motherboard.



Now the design of my case is to have two boxes one on top of the other mounted. You can turn the box one way over if need be. It would become a fat tower.(If you turned it the other way 4 fans would be blocked.) It is a pretty much square case. The motherboards in a flat bottom box. The air goes right through. The video card is turned so that the wind passes by without being stopped. Plugging things in would constrict airflow by having less space for a fan. (Currently 3 120 mmfans along the line forms both ends of the case.) Instead extension cables are hooked up to the motherboard ports needed, (excluding serial cord and such would be a waste of extension cord which can always be changed later.) Also this is built for a watercooling setup. As a heatsink would be a major flaw in the design by blocked most of the airflow in the middle. I have 1 pci card hooked up assuming I will need one eventually, or even 2. They shouldn't get in the way as the will be going with airflow just like the video card. The cables will run along the sides where there is only one hole for wires. (Extension cables, power supply cords, and cpu waterblock tubing.) The hole for the wires is modded itself. As shown in this picture.



To clarify that picture. The grey is just random flat metal that is on the top box looking down so the bottom box is behind that grey area. The wires will go through the red slots. The waterblock tubing will take up three of those (and any more wire it can.) and the last hole will take any extra wires. The blue space is where a 120 mm fan will blow down into the case. To get bulky wire ends through, you simply remove the fan. Then move the wires to the holes outside the fan slot And put the fan down. This hole will go right above the cpu. This way the 120 mm fan just leads another helping hand to the cpu cooling. Now for finished bottom box prodject (I wish, just a theory.)



See the motherboard is the blue. The grey around is supposed to be open space is the bottom box. The six dark blue squares are 120 mm fans. (This has been measures out thats why the motherboard has so much space on the sides.) The black rectangles on the sides incase you were wondering, are side panel windows. (More like slits. A window wouldn't work with this design on the big side. Since there was nothing there I thought perfect for seeing the wind going on the inside.) So that is the bottom box. Now to the top box. This will hold the hard drives cd rom/floppy drives, the watercooling items, and the power supply. Here is a picture from the right view.



This is now the top half of the case. The green box on the right is the psu the middle box is the reservoir for water cooling and the left is where the cdrom/hard drives will be. (Don't concern yourself with the otherstuff as there is other pictures.) As stated, the psu will be on the side of the case where the bottom boxes' exhaust fans are, this will go right on top providing one more exhaust fan. Which is a nice little fit in. I also like the the reservoir is right on top of the cpu (a little away from right on top.) so the liquid perfectly is gravity fed. Not to mention all the watercooling components are closeby so it will really take stress off the pump. Here is the left view.



Since there is no room on the sides for fans to be well placed, the fans will be on the top. There will be 4 in blowing fans on top. Then for exhaust of this box, there is the fan with the wires blowing down to the bottom box. And then there are the fans on the dual 120mm radiator (and then the 2 fans I point out in this picture are to get the air flow from the radiator.) That box behind these two blue boxes (if you haven't figured it out the blue boxes are fans. ) Is the radiator on its side. Here is a top view picture to understand the radiator.



"Ohhhh now I get it." Yeah sorry this is all so confusing but I can't seem to do much better. There aren't any more pictures so no worries. Now the big red box is the radiator. It is blowing the way the arrow states. Which is right wehre the two fans are in the other picture. (The fans got cut off a bit in paint if you notice.) Now that yellow box is the fan that blows into the bottom box with the wires around it. The peach box, is as stated the reservoir. The orange box there is the pump. The green box is the PSU. And the grey box is the harddrives/cd roms. The blue squares in this picture that make everything hard to see is the 4 top fans I pointed out. This is the very top of the case.

Does anyone think this is a good idea? I feel it will cool very well. 13 120mm fans . It will be very hard and don't know if I will even be able to do it. I would need to learn to solder and such but I think it is doable. Would you guys think it would cool well? Want to hear some opinions. If anyone is like "Snap whydin I think o' dat idea!" Well you can make this and I would be very glad for pictures, just remember who came up with the idea. (This is assuming it is a good case design which I'm sure it isn't and I will find out in a few posts.)

EDIT: One broken picture, and that was my only picture error on my first picture thread, .

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-Thrilla-

hmmm the design is quite good, and great 3D job
Which form factor is that motherboard?

Things you need to consider:
wiring (big blocks look cool, but count in the extra wires)
mounting
hardware strength (material for the case)
installation (what if you want to change something, is it hard to take it apart)

Overall, I like it, but a case like that could really add more spacing for some cold cathode!

Remonster

Make it all clear, plexiglass!

-Thrilla-

I wouldn't use plexi glass.....
Why?
. Too many people use them already, not unique
. It is not EMI shielded
. It's kind of weird having PSU and things inside not just the mobo, so doesn't really look that good, especially in tight spaced case
. Easy to get scrached

mistformshadow

Use Lexan instead of plexi-glass. You can pretty much shoot it with a gun and not scratch it. They use it for high pressure projects and other things. My dad made a skid plate for his 4-wheeler, and it is almost as scratch as my favorite CD. We live and drive it in the rocky mountains, too. Big rocks.

Mark_767

I'm on a budget... Something tells me that something that can take a bullet that well isn't going to be cheap... Thrilla - What wiring are you talking about considering? I am confused. The mounting I suppose is onto a desk I suppose. Or if you are talking about mounting the second box onto the first. I will just have the top box open on the top and closed on the bottom, push the wires through while the top box is off and slanted on a 90 degree angle next to the bottom box. Once the wires are and the fan is blocking their escape, I will put the box in and pull the slack of the wires up. It should be easy to change things, because I plan to make it so that the top box screws on to the bottom box, and that the top box and bottom box have a removable top. You would just remove the top box then the top of the bottom box. This case would be an ATX form factor. Or basically any form factor you want, the idea is that the motherboard has a bit of space in there and that it doesn't matter. I agree with thrilla, plexiglass would look bad for everything. But I definately want to see inside, because it will look so cool seeing everything go down a hole with a fan. So I think I will do a window or two on the top box which I will need to design. Right now I can see the motherboad (in design) because it has the two windows on the small sides. I assume I will make these windows out of plexiglass because I don't know anything else to use. The rest of the case will be aluminum or such. I plan to tear apart a spare case I have and use things. (I will definately use the hard drive and cd rom trays.) What I am thinking of taking is the place the motherboard screws onto. Thats where I will put my motherboard to be safe. Then I will attach that to the bottom of it. Basically the case will be black.

__________________
Upgrades
A rebuilt/working computer... (hopefully)

-Thrilla-

By wiring I mean all the IDE cable, the PSU cable. Sometimes if you have a bad design you'll have to twist those cable or jam it in somewhere, which is not good, so leave plenty of space for those devices and you're good to go.

Cheers.

Mark_767

For IDE cable I have one of those company shreaded ones that is cut in increments and formed into a round cable. So I'm good there. PSU cables should be fine, plus there won't be that many since everything will be on top except mobo/video card. The fans will go in through a small hole inbetween the top box and bottom box.

__________________
Upgrades
A rebuilt/working computer... (hopefully)

Mark_767

I started doing some modding to my old case and was abrubtly stopped to a stand still. How do you remove the things that hold the case together? Screwdrivers don't work and I tried plyers and barely moved it after about 3 minutes. How do you get these out? And another thing, what is a dremmel, and how do I get one? I tried cutting some of the metal to do a 92mm fan mod on the sheet the motherboard will go on. I fortunately was able to add screw holes that worked! But I can't cut off the bulk sticking out. Right now a fan wouldn't fit there is no where for it to sit. Can someone please tell me where to get a dremmel? I need to do some major cutting. I can solder any metal to more metal right? I was going to go to radioshack get a solder kit and solder parts together.

__________________
Upgrades
A rebuilt/working computer... (hopefully)

ENTERPRISE

Nice design mate..keep it up..good airflow too

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