Project: custom oak case, work in progress
 

currently working on making a new case for my new computer i'm putting together.

first the computer specs:
CPU: Athlon 64 3000+ Venice
Motherboard: Asus A8N-SLI Premium
Memory: 2X Corsair XMS 512mb PC3200
Video card: BFG 7800GTX
HDD's: WD Raptor 74GB/WD Raptor 36.7GB/Maxtor 120GB SATA
PSU: Antec TruePower 2.0 TPII-550
Sound card: Audigy 2
Monitor: Dell FP2001
Radiator: Danger Den double heater core
CPU block: Swiftech Storm
GPU block: Maze 4 GPU
Pump: Eheim 1250

next here's some shots of the model when I designed it. most of the parts in the case are made out of oak except for the rear panel which will be aluminum and the motherboard tray which i'm gona cut out of another case.

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case_render1.JPG

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case_render2.JPG

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case_render3.JPG

now here's the pictures of my progress so far, first the bottom panel where the radiator is going, still need to cut the hole for the PSU to intake air from but waiting for that to come in the mail still.

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case1.jpg

here's the top panel with the danger den fill port installed, had to route out the bottom of the opening to make the wood thin enough to actualy get the nut on that holds in in place.

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case2.jpg

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case3.jpg

here's the front panel of the case, I still need to cut out the bottom opening which will hide a multifunction drive bay with USB / firewire / card reader / fan control / etc behind a hinged panel. for a while I was trying to decide what I wanted to do for the power button, mostly it's going to be the oak and i'm going to paint other components with one of those spray paints that make it look like antique brass and posibly a few things black but most of the buttons I saw were chrome or just cheapo plastic ones which would match so I decided to make my own.

for the button I took the switch mechinism from an old case then I designed the button to fit on it, the button is .125" thick oak with the power button symbol cut out all the way thru, then I cut a piece of acrylic and drilled a hole to put an LED in it and glued it to the oak piece and then I made the mating piece to mate it onto the switch mechinism, the LED will be the power on LED so the power symbol will glow blue when the computer is on.

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case4.jpg

and here's a close up on the actual button.

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case5.jpg

Looks good so far. I thought you would like to see this:

http://mountainmods.com/index.php?cPath=21_34

You might find some useful stuff there.

here's some more shots of my progress.

here's the front panel with the door to cover the front USB/firewire/memory car reader/etc, I am keeping the wooden button, just took it off while I was working on the panel.
http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case6.jpg

and here's a close up with the door open.
http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case7.jpg

here's the drive bay filler panels, i'll also be doing a stealth mod to the DVD with one of these panels as the front.
http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case8.jpg

and here's the top which I just finished glueing the drive brackets onto it.
http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case9.jpg

That heatercore looks insanely thin, were'd you get it?

I got it from dangerden.com, it's actualy pretty thick, it's just that about half of it is inside the panel, it actualy goes entirely thru that panel which is 3/4" thick and sticks out the bottom about 3/8".

edit: here's a picture of the heater core sitting on top of the panel instead of resting inside it.

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/heater_core.jpg

here's the latest, have the frame together and the baffle panel in and started on the panels, the panels are just resting in place atm, haven't decided on what to use to mount them yet, just know I want to mount them in a way that the only visable hardware on the face is the brass knob to pull the panels open.

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case10.jpg

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case11.jpg

that case looks very nice so far.

looks cool. now you just need one of these in oak to match
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zapwiza...s/476089/show/

I like the look of oak, just be sure to take good care in cooling it so that you dont get the "oven effect"

Oven effect?

there won't be any heat issues, both the CPU and GPU are water cooled, then there is going to be a 120mm fan to cool what's left for heat in the M/B compartment from the HDD's, memory, and M/B, plus the room it's in is never over 66F, most of the time I have the A/C set at 62F and in the winter the window is usual open when it's snowing out so it's even cooler.

what is that greenish looking thing in both of these pictures in the bottom right side. Is it a flow indicator?

no, that's my Eheim 1250 pump, had painted it flourescent green so it would glow under the UV light in the old design I had before this which was going to be green and orange UV, i've repainted it since that picture though to match this case since I never made the other one cause the material costs for it was getting way to high.

here's the latest update finishing up staining the case and painting what I needed to.

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case12.jpg

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case13.jpg

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case14.jpg

the side panels were completely done but I had used heavy duty double sided carpet tape to hold the acrylic panel on, it didn't hold though and when I went to epoxy it on I acidentaly got epoxy on the middle of the panel so have to get another one now.

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case15.jpg

here's the motherboard tray painted, as well as the pump. the pictures unfortunatly don't show the paint detail well, it looks like hammered metal.

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case16.jpg

and here's the back panel, I bought a cheapo case to cut up for it and the motherboard tray and I epoxyed it on and then bondoed it so it didn't look like two panels stuck together.

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case17.jpg

starting to put everything together now so here's a few more pictures. hopefully will have the computer in it and running this week, still need to sleeve the PSU and replace all the connectors on it with blue UV reactive sleeving and connectors and sleeve all the other various cables and wires as well plus a few other little things I haven't finished up yet.

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case18.jpg

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case19.jpg

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case20.jpg

That's coming together very nicely!

I've never been a big fan of oak, but that looks pretty well built reguardless!

Dark red cherry is the best wood tone :)

finaly got it all together and up and running now, have a few problems to fix though, the power LED doesn't work, have a feeling the MB doesn't put out enough voltage for it, that or it's a bad LED, also the CPU's temp is high for being on the water cooling loop, was 30C idle on the boxed heatsink, and only 28C on the water cooling, the MB is also measuring the case temp kind of high at 39C, though the seperate temp sensor I have in the MB area says it's only 24C, wondering if it measure the MB temp at the heatsink for the voltage regulators and chipset which now doesn't have the CPU's fan cooling it. also couldn't get the connectors off the PSU to put the blue UV reactive ones I got on. well anyways, here's the pictures.

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case21.jpg

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case22.jpg

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case23.jpg

unfortunatly my camera doesn't do good at all with pics without the flash so this one to show the UV lighting didn't come out all that good.

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case24.jpg

here's my stealth modded DVD drive

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case25.jpg

and here's my front I/O panel

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case26.jpg

and last in the middle of the PSU wiring there is a drain valve for the water cooling loop.

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case27.jpg

one more little update, had this planned to go in but I just got it the mail the day after I got the computer together and had to make the face plate for it, it's a musketeer 2 bay device, just to add a little more to the older looking style with the analog gauges, left and right ones are left and right audio and the center is HD activity :)

http://pages.prodigy.net/shiltz/case28.jpg

Very cool. The structure (not the finished product) reminds me of a wooden lian-li v2000.

Nice.

Your radiator airflow looks horribly restricted

My thoughts exactly. Try lifting the case up several inches and see if that improves temps.
Also, have you run grounding wires between the CDROM, motherboard, case etc?

it has pretty good airflow how it is currently, the bottom is 1" off the desk, if I open it up and put my hand over the fans it's definatly moving plenty of air thru, my water temps idle are 22C, under full load 25C. probably the biggest killer atm is the crummy fans I have in there, I need to order some better ones, those ones are only 65CFM I think, and only 25mm thick not 38mm.

na, didn't ground everything seperatly, honestly it's not really nesisary, everything is grounded adiquatly via the power cables already, even plexiglass cases they don't run ground wires and plexiglass generates a lot of static.

just try reversing the polarity of the LED

How much space is between the fans and the case's horizontal divider?