In an effort to get my electric bill under control I shut down 8 of my folding rigs (I donated these to a local charity...I can use the tax write off) and have replaced them with 2 E6300 rigs running the new SMP client.

Now I need a case for them....here's the plan:

1. Put both PC's in one case
2. Run both PC's from one power supply
3. No optical drives
4. Integrated video
5. Minimum number of fans

I have also set some parimeters for the case.

1. It has to blend in with the rest of the furnishings in my office
2. I'm shooting for a retro look (sorta like the stereo receivers from the 70's and 80's with the wooden end caps)
3. Keep the case as compact as possible (I'm using mini atx motherboards but two of them still take up alot of space)
4. I don't want anything on the front bezel (no switches, ports, nothing....)
5. Unlike my previous cases this one will be made from aluminum not steel
6. For ease of maintenance the front bezel and side panels will be held in place by magnets (no tools required)

Ok that's enough to get started the rest I will just have to figure out as I go along.

I will be using 3/4" square aluminum tubing to make the frame so I needed to find a way to bolt or rivet them together, nothing I found at the local hardware store would do the trick so I decided to make the "L brackets" I needed from scratch.

I picked up a section of 1 1/2" angled aluminum rod and cut it into a load of 3/4" wide "L" shaped brackets



That was just the start though, to finish them up took quite a bit more work....First they all (30 pieces) needed to be milled to exactly the same size.



Each bracket will have 4 rivets going through it so the next step after sizing was to counter sink the brackets for the rivet heads. Four counter sinks per bracket times thirty brackets.....It took awhile. I used a dial indicator that reads in .001inch increments so that I could make sure that every bracket was done identically.



I used the same proceedure to drill the holes for the rivets to go through.



Finally after a run through the bead blaster and the better part of a days time I had the brackets for the case.




Now it was time to cut the tubing for the case so some decisions needed to be made. I sat there and laid out those mobo's for a couple of hours trying to get the best fit and still have good airflow when I came across the idea of mounting the boards back to back. In order to make this work the case would have to be wider than a standard case (about 10") but the other dimensions could be kept to about the size of a mini or mid tower. I fired up the bandsaw, cut the tubing (I cut them a little oversized) and cleaned up (read squared) the ends using a bench mounted belt sander.



The tubing then went to the mill and using the same proceedures I used for the brackets predrilled all the holes for the rivets.



This is where all the time spend milling and drilling to exact tolerances paid off.....It took me all of about a half an hour to assemble the case frame and everything fit like a glove.



More to come

everyone likes a build by Fueler!

You know, we all know that Fueler builds some amazing stuff.... but he also puts together a mighty fine worklog as well.

I love following these! Good luck man, and I can't wait to see more.

It's like reading a novel published bit by bit in a magazine - can't wait for the next installment! This will certainly look a LOT more professional than the two folding rigs I have running off one power supply - they're just sitting jumbled up on a set of Wal-Mart plastic shelves - I call it my WallyWorld rack mount.

awesome fueler, I'm already deperate for more! Putting 2 rigs in one case is always a hard thing to do. I tried, and failed miserably (was a wooden case, I didn't think the PSU would be as heavy.... when I mounted everything and moved it into my room, put the case down, the psu falls out of place and breaks the mainboard and GPU... was old stuff, but still...)

i'm sure somebody has asked you this before Fueler, but what do you use to design your before you start cutting?

As much as I'd like to say I use one of those fancy 3D design tools (like Sketchup) the reality is I don't have a clue how to use those programs so it's all in my head (probably explains the headaches).

wow, thats even more impressive then

do you draw a basic layout design on paper first before you do anything?

Yeah, sure....here's the work sheet for this rig




It ain't much but it's all I need

wow, props to you man

but i guess when you've been at modding for as long as you have, you start to get the hang of what you need & what needs to be done to get there

Here we go again...

Already starting to look good, cant wait for more to come!

Some people (like my father) cant do anything without making a list, diagram, or sketch and some people (like you and I) can just go off of a whim or a mental picture.

I always enjoy your builds fueler, everything you build has a purpose and you build everything so precise so it fits the first time...

I think I. . . I may ha. . . yeah, I wet myself. I promised I wouldn't get so excited the next time one of these came around, too. Oh well, I guess I'll just sit here in eager anticipation like EVERYONE else (maybe I should shower first). Looks great so far Fueler!

Nice Job

Looks good hurry up so we can catch AnandTec!

just pointing it out guys, we added this worklog to Digg, so do OCC and Fueler a favor & be sure to click the digg link in the first post!

i want to live in your house man... i'll bring a sleeping bag and kip in yer workshop

Sounds like another interesting project.

Back again. Made pretty good progress on the case last nite so I'll try to catch you up real quick.

I picked up a nice piece of red oak at The Home Depot and cut the top and bottom end caps.



I don't have any room in my office to set the PC except on the floor so to make it easier to vacumn the carpet I'm going to put the PC on wheels. I already have two 1' x 1 1/2" x 1/4" steel bars to mount the wheels on from a previous rig, so I saved a little time not having to make them again. They are just ugly painted steel bars though so I don't want to have to look at them. To accomplish this I'm going to cut a recess into the bottom wood end cap so the bars will sit flush with the bottom and then make some aluminum caps to cover the ends of the bars that will stick out from the bottom of the case.

My benchtop mill has a 10" range of movement from left to right unfortunately the cut I needed to make was 10 1/4", so to finish the cut I had to unclamp everything and move it over a little just to cut that last little bit.



To make the end caps for the steel bars I had to cut a couple of pieces from some 3" 6061 aluminum bar stock. It takes the band saw about 45 minutes to make one cut through this stuff but if you have ever tried to make a straight cut by hand with a hack saw then you would know that you can't and even if you made it through then your arms would feel like rubber. As it is the band saw makes a nearly perfect cut and I kept busy with other things while it whacked away.



An hour and a half later I had two aluminum disks. Next I popped them onto the lathe, cleaned up the front and back surfaces and also cut them to the exact same width.



From here they went to the mill where I recessed the bottom so they would also fit flush with the bottom of the case, then back to the band saw to be cut into four half moons. This is what I ended up with.



Earlier, while the aluminum was getting cut, I made the mounting plate for the motherboards. (I used a piece of aluminum I had left over after cutting a window in my sons WaveMaster case) The boards will be centered in the middle of the case.



Next I fit up the motherboards, drilled the mounting plate and installed the studs that the boards will mount to (I'll use acorn nuts to fasten the boards down)

So this is how it looks so far.







This is what I ment when I said I wanted everything to be flush with the bottom of the case. If you look real close between the bottom of the case and the counter top you can see all the dirty dishes that have been piling up in my sink because I've been too busy working and trying to finish this case





I've gotten a little further on the case than this but the pics are still in my camera so I'll try to get some more posted later today

NICE, that looks like a really solid build!

lovin' the dishes

thats pretty cool that your building your own case for folding its looking pretty nice cant wait to see when its done good luck

Looks awesome so far...no surprise there though. When I read the first post, I was going to suggest/ask whether you'd be mounting the mobos back-to-back, but it looks like that's what you'll be doing . Looks cool, can't wait to see more!!

PS. I didn't see if you stated this, but what PSU will you be using? I know you'll probably be creating one of you own as you have in the past, but I'm more curious about wattage. I assume you'll be going for something in the range of a 1KW PSU?

I used an online wattage calculator (thanks for the link Roadrunner) and found out that at full load I would need just a tick under 500watts to run this thing. Now I wouldn't try this with just any power supply but I had a PC Power and Cooling 510 atx laying around and I'm hoping that it can do the trick. If not then I'll just have to get a bigger PS.

Wow, sounds risky, but then again, I guess you don't have any power-hungry videocards in there, and like you said, you're using a P&C.

yea, a PCP&C 510W should be able to power those bad boys with no big vid cards in them.

i'm really really liking the departure from the off-the-shelf hardware to custom fabricated parts

castor wheel bumpers... genius!

Well I'm glad you like the wheel covers...I was afraid people wouldn't like the shape I used. By the way you wouldn't have to sleep in the garage....I have a spare bedroom ....if you are ever on this side of the pond

I think the wheel covers are pretty neat too, though it does stand out, so the question I have, since you said you're matching your current furniture, is do those wheel covers follow that line of thinking? If you don't have anything else with wheel covers (or other extruding metallic rounded objects) protruding out, then it may look out of place, which it didn't sound like you wanted.

haha, if i ever come over, it won't be spare for long!

i'd never leave... i'd be in mod heaven

That looks like its coming along nice and smooth. Do you have any ideas on how the front bezel is going to look?

If nrg and Fueler got together they would bring jets down with their giant brainstorm of casemod ideas. The case would beat the pants off anything that ever lived.

oh c'mon... i haven't even finished my case mod yet lol...

yeah, hurry it up yer slacker!

just what I was thinking of clay!
Nrg, you still haven't finished the side panel with the burning stick man on it?! Man you're a slacker!

Ya you are lol

But back to topic...

Fueler its looking good i like the wheel covers! Cant wait for more to come!

Wow that is stunning you should get paid to do that!

i wish i had the tool so i could "try" to do any of that


keep up the great work i cant wait for an update

Well after this is completed....I think you're a lock to continue your reign of "#1 in Case Modding" and "Best Case Mod" in the 2007 OCC Awards.

http://www.overclockersclub.com/news/17499/

Well I have a lot of catching up to do here.

This next section is all about the power supply and associated wiring which is a pretty important part since one of the main features of this rig is running two PC's from one PSU. This is also probably the part where Hardnrg will finally decide that I have gone completely over the edge

A word of caution

Please....if you are the least bit uncomfortable with or your knowledge of electricity is limited to "all I know is you can't see it and that it will shock you" then don't try doing any of the things I do here. First once you even bust open the case you warranty is void and second I don't want to get any PM's from somebodies parents telling me that their kid blew his finger off when he touched a charged capacitor in a power supply trying to duplicate something I did

OK here we go.

On most of my cases I've spent a lot of time routing wires so that they are hidden but because of the way this case is designed none of the usual hidding places are available. Well if I can't hide them then I'm just going to hang them out in plain view and do the best I can to route them in an organized manner to provide the best airflow.

I will be using a PC P&C Turbo-Cool 510 atx power supply. This PSU has had a noisy fan since day one so that is going to get replaced. I am also going to remove the PSU from it's case and just let it hang out in the open with the rest of the wires connected to it.

The first thing I needed to do was make a mounting plate for the PSU. This was pretty easy .....a couple of brackets and a section of 1/4" thick acrylic is all it took. (keep in mind that this is just the fitting up part....once everything is built then it will all be disassembled, the parts cleaned and polished up then reassembled)



This is the power supply with the cover off....in order to pull it out of the case some wires need to be cut.

1. The blue and black wires needed to be cut from the 3 prong female plug recepticle (the other end of these wires are connected to the DPDT on/off switch mounted below).
2. The green/white wire was disconnected from the grounding post at the bottom of the case.
3. There were two sets of blue and black wires connected to the on/off switch...the two that go to the PSU board were cut from the switch.

Since I can hardly remember what I did yesterday I also made a little drawing of where each wire was cut from

Now the PSU could be pulled apart.



Since the PSU is going to be mounted back to an acrylic plate it was important to figure out the grounding scheme. In addition to the green/white wire that came from the plug to the ground post there was another green/white wire that went from the ground post to the PSU board. It would have been easy to assume that this was the only other ground but if you follow the wires path it only grounds the top circuit board....the bottom main circuit board was grounded to the case by two of the mounting posts (you can see where in the pic below...left top and bottom corners).




Now that I knew how everything was grounded I could mount the PSU to the acrylic. The only part of the case that I reused was the back panel which I cut from the rest of the case. In the next two pics you can follow the ground path. I attached a wire to each of the mounting posts and routed those wires under the new fan and bolted them to the rear case panel just below the on/off switch. There is a third wire that comes from the rear panel to another ground post where the two green/white wires are attached. This post bolts to the aluminum mounting bracket which is riveted to the aluminum case frame grounding the whole freaking thing.





Now is when things start to get a little hairy. For this build I need to have:

1. 2x24pin atx connector
2. 2x4pin aux board connector
3. 2x4pin molex connector (for the hard drives)

That's it....any other connectors are just a waste of space. Looking at the atx connector I noticed that of the 24 wires going to it only seven were not either a 12v, 5v, 3.3v or a ground.....so gritting my teeth I grabed a wire cutter and whacked all the wires off.



But I didn't stop there....deciding that there was way more wires than I needed I fliped the PSU over and proceeded to desolder wires.



After I was done there were still too many wires so I went at it again and this time I showed no mercy.



Much better.....Here's how it ended up....I bundled the wires up and attached them to a couple of six position bus bars. From left to right the first five positions are the 5v,gnd,gnd,12v and 3.3v.....the next seven are the other wires that go to the 24pin atx connector. I only have one board up and running right now but the important thing is that it is RUNNING



Well back to work....I'll have more before too long

I ... think Im in love!

Looking very nice so far - I cant wait to see the finished product!

Man, I wish I had the money and the tools to go around doing stuff like this...maybe after I graduate I'll do one of my own. Keep up the good work Fueler.

I'm out of amazed expressions that don't involve vulgarities, so instead, I'll simply beg for more pictures soon!

Keep it up, this is looking brilliant.

but i think this one sums it up the best:

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Fueler, you mentioned that you wouldn't be able to do any of your usual wire routing. It may be too late in the process now, but did you ever consider using two separate backplanes for your mobos with a "gap" in the center, of which you could use to route the wiring. Since you have the PSU directly above, and centered, it would be fairly easy to route them down into this gap/alley inbetween...and if you REALLY wanted to go overboard (which I know you love doing), you could even use your custom modular design on a "front panel" to close the gap. I don't know if I'm being entirely clear...my terminology isn't as advanced as your's. I can draw a picture if you don't understand but are interested to know more.

Well my first thought was to use two mounting plates (although not for the same reason as you mentioned) but I ended up going with one because it was less material (I had enough aluminum laying around to make one mount two would have required me buying more aluminum) and I could keep the width down to a minimum (as it is it's still 10" wide). I may not be able to hide the main wiring harness but I do have enough room behind the boards to hide the ribbon cables to the hard drives and those are the most obnoxious looking cables (at least in my opinion)

Haha. okay. I figured you thought it all out

Wow dude, I would be way too scared to just rip apart a PCP&C PSU like that! I have tried looking at the inside of a 300W LC-Power POS unit, and I was like "what the heck?" and left it Soldering is not my thing anyways, but this looks amazingly awesome

lol, yeah. I've taken apart a bunch of PSU's, but it's usually just to take out fans, not to cut wires and solder

Let's hope no one decides to stick there hand on top of that exposed PSU (

Ingenious work

Wow, it seems like your wiring schemes are always so elaborate. They come out looking awesome. I wish I had the skills for that.

Well it would be the last time they did that When it's finished though there will be a wooden end cap that covers the top