[Intermediate] Das Box

[Intermediate] Das Box

Project: DAS BOX

FINAL PICTURES FOR THOSE OF YOU IN A HURRY



Having never competed in this before I am a bad judge of my skills in comparison to everyone else. I put myself into the "Amateur" category but I expect to get moved once the competition begins.

I going for a scratch build made of wood. It will be air cooled and it will be completely silent yet offer the cooling equivalent of a HAF X.
I have Google sketch-up drawings now and I have already started to gather the extra parts needed.

This will be a simple looking build, but it will have many complex parts. Including the ability to convert it into to a tech station and then back to it's enclosure without turning it off or unplugging it.


Case parts:
Silverstone 180mm penetrator fans X 4
1/2" premium pine boards
Stain or paint (I haven't decided yet)


Hardware:
Rampage Extreme III
Core I7 920
6GB DDR3
HD 6950
Ultra 1200W PSU
Crucial 64GB SSD X2
2TB HDD

Here are the preliminary drawings:

Finished View

And the much more complicated see-thru view:


Here is a diagram of how the airflow will work. This setup will allow me to have a completely solid case on all sides except the bottom.


I will enjoy seeing your comments.
Edited by Machiyariko - 7/23/11 at 8:14pm

OK here is the weekend update. I do not have a lot of time during the week to work on the project so most of my updates will be over the weekends. I tend to work fast but I have a lot planned for this so I hope I can get it all done.

Enjoy!

I went out and bought some much needed tools and supplies. Also the 180mm fans have arrived and I can't wait to use them.


I got some wood blades and other goodies you will see later.


The wood I bought is a laminate pine board. I couldn't find a solid pine board that was the size I needed so this will do.


I started to mark the holes for the motherboard tray. There are 4 cut outs on this layer for cable routing.


Some of them will be rounded and some will be strait cuts. In the end you will not really see these as there will be a lot of sound insulation in and around them.


I drilled pilot holes and planned the best way to make the cuts with the jigsaw.


So here is the motherboard tray with the cutouts.


I also cut out the lower section that will house the PSU and HDDs.


Still a bit rough around the edges but thats the next step.


Here is the planer and file that I got for the project.


I clamped the two pieces into the vice so that I could plane the edges. They need to be strait so that the inner "drawer" will be somewhat square.


I started to file the edges. I am rounding them so there is no chance of any wire getting hung up on something.


After sanding the edges a bit I was anxious to get a glance at what the final project would look like.


I cut 5" pieces of pine into the supports for each corner. I balanced it all on top of the lower piece and took my first real look at it.


I placed the fans on top to check out how I will end up mounting them. I have an idea but I'm not 100% sure on the best way yet.



As you can see the motherboard will sit in the middle of the tray and be cooled by the fans. There should be plenty of air flow to cool everything. The 180mm fans put out 100+ CFM of very directed air.


I decided to turn my attention to the lower area which will house the PSU and HDD. I put and old PSU down to check out some possible mounting areas.


I picked a spot and I started to cut out a vent for it.


I didn't want to go with just a round or square hole so I picked an octagon.


BRB frozen yogurt.
Edited by Machiyariko - 1/29/11 at 8:20pm

OK I'm back for round 2 of the 1st update.

So I finished sanding down both of the large sections.


I think they turned out pretty good. I think I may just paint the interior of the case black, it will be mostly covered with insulation type foam anyway.


Next up are the supports for the upper layer. They are 5" tall and they will give us just the right amount of space for everything underneath.


I marked them for center and drilled pilot holes so that they will attach a little easier.


I also drilled hole in the boards so that they wouldn't split when I screwed them together.


I used wood glue in addition to the screws. I hope this will give it some extra stability and strength.


Here is a shot from underneath the motherboard tray. I mounted all 4 of the posts and next comes the bottom tray.


So I assembled the first section together and It's looking pretty good. This is going to end up being a pretty big case. After the outer section is complete it should be about 20"X20"X18".


I added the fans back on to get one last look at their mounting before I cleaned up for the day. I have a plan for mounting them now. Hopefully it will eliminate any vibration that they will make.


As you can see there is plenty of space to route cables all the way around the motherboard tray.


One last shot of the bottom showing the cutout for the PSU.


And that about wraps it up for this weekends work. I will be out of town next weekend so I will try and have an update mid week with some more progress.

Feel free to post any questions or comments. I'm sure the idea that I have in my head on how this is all going to work is confusing to you guys. It's slowly coming together and I hope that after a few updates it will all make much more sense. A wooden, air cooled, tech bench, inside of a insulated enclosure that converts to an open air bench without unplugging anything... all in a days work.
Edited by Machiyariko - 1/29/11 at 8:39pm

OK mid week update. No real work just some parts have come in.

First off is the motherboard back plane. This will allow me to fasten my cards to something and use a port cover.


Next up we have the retention system for the power supply. I wanted something easily removable without tools and this seemed like a unique option. It will be screwed down on either side of the PSU and ratcheted down to hold it in place. It can easily be removed and it was relatively cheap for them to custom make me one.




I decided to go with a premade HDD mounting rack. It is a standard Lian Li model and it should hold 3 HDDs without any problem. I'm probably going to paint it black to match everything else inside of the case.


Here is a look at where the back plane will go in relation to the fans.


Approximate HDD location under the motherboard tray.


Approximate PSU location with the mounting hardware. I'm debating on how exactly it will go together but that will be one of my first steps when I get back to work on this next week.


I will be out of town all weekend so my next update will probably be on Monday or Tuesday.

P.S. It seems like a graveyard in here... are the judges not aloud to speak to us or something? Or maybe my horrible pictures are indeed worth a thousand words and all of the questions are answered by them.

Until next time.

OK updates.

So first this was to mount the HDD rack. I cut a slot into a 4" piece of wood so the rack would be held in place.



I glued and screwed it down to the bottom and tested the fit.



The other side of the rack will be held in place by bolts and wing nuts. I wanted everything to be removable without tools so I went with wing nuts.


Next was to mount the PSU. I cut 2 pieces of wood to hold it in place, this in conjunction with the ratcheting strap will hold it down just fine.




I decided to use some U shaped bolts to help hold the PSU strap down. There will be one on either side and the will be bolted down to the bottom of the case.


This ended up being kind of overkill but at least its functional.

Next I needed to make the fan mounting structure.

I used 2 of the 1" pieces I used before and mounted them to the motherboard tray.

I then added a cross-member to the top to hang the fans from.

These little loops will be the mounting points for the fans.

They will be suspended with rubber bands or something. I'm not sure right now but something to that effect.

Here is the final look of one of the sides. Both fans will be bounted in the same way.

Both sides finished.

After looking at the fan mounts I decided that they needed to be strengthened.
So I cut out some angled pieces of wood.

I attached them on the corners to stabilize them.


I also added some 2.5" pieces to the top to strengthen the whole thing.

And I made some feet from wood as well. I have some felt that I will be adding to the bottom of them.



And here is the last picture of the day. It's coming together quite nicely.


The next step will be to sand and paint it. I have decided to paint the interior a semi-gloss black. I'm also planning to add some insulating foam to all of the available ares that do not have parts installed. I figure the more them merrier when were trying to make this case as quiet as possible.

Next update in a few days.

So, it finally stopped raining and I had a chance to paint the case.

I'm using a semi gloss black paint.


I also cut a hole for the cables to exit the case.

So here is the finished case all black. I may do a second coat depending on how it looks in a few days.


Here I'm painting the HDD cage to match. I have some 2.5" adapters coming in to mount all of the HDD's.



It's going to be raining for the next few days so I will probably have another update this weekend.

I've been pretty busy but I have a bunch of updates now.

So I bought 2 500GB 2.5" WD Black HDDs and I also have 2 C300 64GB SSDs installed into the drive cage. I expect to add an additional 2 drives eventually.


Also my new PSU came in. It's a Corsair 1200W modular model.


I immediately got to taking some of the cables apart and I made this first. I'll re-do some of the other cables after I get everything installed and measured.


And here is that all worked out.


I couldn't wait to test fit some of the parts so here a few shots of that.





I also added an on/off switch to the bottom. You'll notice that I scrapped the idea of usung that seperate back plate and I got a Lian Li one.


I had to trim it down a bit to make it fit into the case but that was pretty easy.




And here are the results. It looks great!



While mounting the HDD cage I ran into a problem with the lower posts. I have no idea how I missed this but I quickly made a plan to fit it.

Before:


After:


By adding and moving the posts I cleared up the clearance issues and made it stronger. So all in all it was a good change.

My next bit of new stuff arrived the next day and I decided to switch all of my parts over to the new case. This would allow me to get some real measurements before the final stretch and it may should reveal any more oversights on measurements.

What's in the box you might ask? Why it's an Thermalright Archon. I decided to replace my IFX-14 after all of these years.


Here are some mounting pictures:




I started to do the initial wiring and I setup all of the fans. I'll be redoing all of this later but It's important to do it now.



I'll get into how I mounted everything else when i do the final tear down and rebuild. But for now I'll just show the semi finished setup.



As you see in this picture this arrangement allows me to go "passive" on the Archon. Thus keeping the noise down. This actually works great and later on I'll have some comparison shots on the temps.


Next up is the outer case design. This will just be a simple wooden box with sounds insulating foam on the inside, and something special on the outside.




It's pretty much just a box right now but in the next update you will see some much needed improvements on it.

Peace out, stay small.

OK so here we are with an update.
I decided to paint the cover with a Dry Erase Paint.
It will be white as a base coat but it will allow me to draw any design on it and modify it at any time. Here are the last few pics of the cover's construction.

















The next update will be when I got some dry erase markers and draw all over this thing.