[miloshs]

Hey guys...

I'm currently thinking of building a tech station for myself together with a friend that has a moderate CNC machine. Sketches are in attachments.

Now what im thinking about are the baseboards.Choosing between wood, plexi or aluminum panels (thickness 5mm-8mm - less for alu, more for wood and plexi). The first thing im thinking about is the price (which will have a great impact on the final material selection), and the weight to thickness ratio. What i mean is....

For a regular ATX system (mobo,vga,ram,tower cooler and some extras) what thickness of the baseboard would you recommend? Im thinking 3-5mm for aluminum, ~6mm for plexi (perspex) and 8-10mm for wood.
What do you guys think would 6mm perspex have no problem when it comes to holding the weight (not bending)?
Also you can see the upright board in the middle... that one is meant to be slide-in/slide-out compatible - no screws or glue. Also HDD's and the DVD are also screwless - slide-in too...

The bars would probably be 15mm x 15mm (1,5mm thick) hollow aluminum square profiles, and the bar holders would be aluminum L-profiles 15mm x 15mm x 15mm (also 1,5mm thick)...

What do you guys think? Any suggestions or tips?

 

[Enthusiast]

Given the amount of support you drew in that picture the thicknesses you gave will easily hold an ATX mobo with GPU and stuff up without bending. Also depending on where your going to put your PSU I would recommend you add some holes for cable management purposes.

 

[miloshs]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enthusiast Given the amount of support you drew in that picture the thicknesses you gave will easily hold an ATX mobo with GPU and stuff up without bending. Also depending on where your going to put your PSU I would recommend you add some holes for cable management purposes.

Yes but what about if it can hold the weight with the middle panel removed? I did plan a small 50mm x 20mm hole on the bottom for the HDD's, but am still unsure what to do with the ATX cable... that is if i dont want it to be seen too much. You can actually see the part of the cable management hole on the 1st two photos (if you know where to look), but heres another from the behind... you can see it right next to the PSU. I reconed that is more than enough for all the SATA power cables.
Also another concern is how to connect/manage HDD's conection to the SATA connectors on the motherboard without the dangling SATA cables around... still thinking on that one...

I'll embedd a 360o video of it once its done uploading to youtube...

 

[miloshs]

Here it is, an almost 360o view

YouTube - SketchUp 2009 07 15 10 51 01 44

 

[deafboy]

Very nicely done, what are you using to generate the renderings?

I've actually been contemplating lately doing something similar.

 

[miloshs]

Quote:

Originally Posted by deafboy Very nicely done, what are you using to generate the renderings? I've actually been contemplating lately doing something similar.

Google SketchUp for drawing/design, and Fraps to capture the video...

So far i've decided to go with 6mm thick 30% transparent plexi for the panels, and aluminum profiles for everything else. That is if that plexi doesn't turn out to be too expensive... it could turn out to be in excess of 45$ just for the panels.

I've added more room for hard drives (6 total now), and now im thinking of how/where to add some room for SSD placement... we'll see how that goes

 

[deafboy]

Nice work with sketchup.

The plexi shouldn't be too expensive. What sizes are you looking for?

The way I have mine planning out right now it's all aluminum (sheet and channel), trying to figure out a good way to somehow integrate a water cooling system in there but I havent come up with a way yet that I like.

SSDs are small enough that you could maybe just add a small aluminum/plexi box that they slide into.