[Carniflex]

mATX, 2mm thick aluminium sheet metal portable case with handle on top. 22L full size components.

Well at the moment all I have is a idea and all the numbers (I hope) figured out. And ofc the stuff formalized in Autocad and Autodesk Inventor. I just sent the drawings to one of the local machine shops for a price quote for a laser cutting. Although the tolerances are such that I could probably get away also with either plasma or water cutting if none of the local laser guys are willing to talk to me.

It will be strictly air cooled atm. I have carrier around a water cooled behemoths for the past some years (current rig is 32 kg I'm lugging around daily) and I want it all feather light! For me this means somewhere between 7 and 10 kg (HDD's are heavy and I need at minimum 2 of them). So some pictures of the idea:




The outside dimensions of it will be: 425 mm long; 273 mm wide; 210 mm high (+ 52mm of handle + ~20 mm of feet); Dry weight: 2.9 ... 3.0 kg; Material 2mm aluminium sheet metal.

I have intentionally pretty much choked the GFX card(s) by not providing openings on the side panels for keeping some of the noise inside the case. I am planning to compensate with ~ 125 cfm 180mm fan in front of the case. Hopefully the case would act as wind tunnel with just a single inward blowing strong fan. Unless the air will just escape through the bottom ventilation grills in which case I will probably have to duct tape these close. For cable management I'm planning to use 15mm motherboard riser bolts so some of the cabling might be possible to hide under the motherboard. Or I might use a fully modular PSU for reduced clutter. Components I will figure out once I get the case done.

 

[MrMhmToasty]

Looks interesting, subbed!

 

[dirty elf]

always love scratch builds! subbed

 

[Carniflex]

I'm debating between two different fangrill/front panel fan intake designs.


The first one has holes surface area smaller and some holes are big enough to allow finger in if someone is really keen on that. But I kind of like the circular holes irregular look. The second one has has about 3000 mm2 larger surface area for openings but the grid is relatively regular and noise spectrum might be more uniform. Cant quite make my mind up atm. For all practical purposes, I suspect, the performance difference between grills would be negligible (approx 19500 mm2 of air holes vs 16500 mm2 of air holes in the grill).

 

[Carniflex]

A small update. I figured out the total cutting distance needed for that case while waiting for the laser guys get around to sending me the price estimate.

The total cutting distance needed is 27 791 mm. In addition there is 12x right angle (90 degree) bends. So I'll see what the price-per-meter will be.

TBH by just eyeballing it I was expecting the total cut distance to be perhaps third of that. AutoCAD does not measure the selected line total length btw apparently out of the box but it can run scripts - so this number is pretty accurate. With 4 kW laser the cutting time should be less than 10 minutes. When googling around then with 1.5 kW laser the cutting speed for 2mm aluminium sheet was estimated from 1.3 to 2.5 m/s and increasing power should also increase the cut speed.

 

[Janac]

We both have 22 liters case in the making

subbed! Lovely case!

 

[mAs81]

This looks very good indeed..You have my sub..

 

[Carniflex]

I got the price quote at last for laser cutting and bending. I must say the price was .. a bit more .. than I expected although still roughly within the ballpark I was willing to swallow. Will have to think about it few days.



So altogether approx 175 EUR + taxes (pushin it to ~220 EUR). The aluminium itself costs approx 35 EUR. The total cut-line length is 28.8 meters and there is in total twelve 90 degree bends. My rough estimate is approx 8 EUR per bend and approx 2 EUR per 1 meter of cut line. What I expected was approx 60..80 EUR + materials. Then again I kind of understand the sentiment - as a machine shoo owner with a 4 kW laser I might not be particularly interested in cutting up the job for just a single run either, especially if the job involves multiple processing steps.

It is probably a fair price, considering the tolerance which I wanted (~0.1 mm). I guess I will send also a mail to a waterjet cutting company I have looked up and see if what they offer is better or not. TBH I do not expect it to be cheaper as waterjet is usually slightly more expensive than laser as far as I understand - but it is also clear that the price I got for the laser cutting is mainly made up of various additional expenses so perhaps the other company has smaller overheads.

 

[Gilles3000]

looks interesting, subbed

 

[Carniflex]

I am putting this project on hold for a little while. The laser-cutting quote is, after careful consideration, a bit too high to swallow right now. I have another side-project going where I am planning to do a desktop CNC machine capable of milling aluminium and the total cost of mechanical and electronical parts is about the same as this laser-cutting bill. I plan to return to this project in some months.

 

[mAs81]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carniflex

I am putting this project on hold for a little while. The laser-cutting quote is, after careful consideration, a bit too high to swallow right now. I have another side-project going where I am planning to do a desktop CNC machine capable of milling aluminium and the total cost of mechanical and electronical parts is about the same as this laser-cutting bill. I plan to return to this project in some months.

Well,this is an expensive hobby indeed..I'm not unsubscribing,this is a very interesting scratch build,so Ill wait patiently for its completion..Good luck on this and the new project,,and keep us posted

 

[vaporizer]

subbed. i love scratch builds.

 

[Gilles3000]

Will stay subbed.

 

[Carniflex]

I visited today a local "makerlab" which had also a 70W CO laser so one of the test pieces I did was this fangrill. This is 2mm thick plexiglass. Some components made of something else than aluminium in my final design will probably make sense. Although I probably will have to give up on bends in which case the case will need redesign. In theory that makerlab has also a small manual bending bench but the size of the unfolded largest pieces exceeds those of the max capacity of the CNC bench they have.

Before I resume this project I plan to finish a small DIY CNC bench though which would cost probably the cost of manufacturing somewhat (assuming I get it work well enough to be of any use).

 

[mAs81]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carniflex

That looks really cool..I'll be very excited when this build will be back on track - Keep it up

 

[richie_2010]

i love the idea and the concept of this case and wish you all the best in getting it done

if you can reduce the costs by not having bends then a good alternate frame could me made with alu angle and screw panels into that

 

[Carniflex]

Meanwhile, the progress of the DIY CNC machine build can be tracked at: https://hackaday.io/project/4308-cnc-desktop-laserdremel-millmicroscope
I expect this to take a while but hopefully this thing will be functional enough to be able to mill 2mm aluminium - if it is then I will use this machine for making this case or something very similar to this case designed here. I did consider doing the build-log in these forums for this as well but after some thinking ... a CNC mill is perhaps a bit too off topic for overclock.net.