Are you going to make a unibody or a chassis/pannel design? If you're going with a unibody I'd say 20 gauge aluminum if you can handle the shaping. If not, I'd go with a chassis/pannel design and use preformed aluminum angle to build the chassis and 22-24 gauge aluminum for the pannels. The good thing about doing the chassis/pannel design is that it's easy to modify the design and very easy to change pannel medium. It's just as easy to screw wood or plexiglass to the aluminum angle as it is the aluminum paneling.
WoodButcher
Platinum Member
- Mar 10, 2001
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I agree with DA12, I used brass threaded inserts in the wood to attach the metal to the wood w/ machine screws and threaded the metal to attach to the steel or aluminum.
Good supplier for sheet metal. Aluminum and steel. Shipping (UPS ground) is not expensive to Georgia. 5052 sheet aluminum is cut to size.
http://www.allmetalsinc.com/
Plastics. Acrylic sheets.
http://www.professionalplastic...LASS-ACRYLICSHEET-CAST
Motherboard tray and drive bays.
http://www.mountainmods.com/co...ses-parts-c-21_34.html
Also a great place to get metal is the local recycle center. In most cases you will only pay what the recycle center resells it for. The only problem with that is you need to cut it to size.
If you are close to Lawrenceville give this guy a call for a used ATX case that you can gut to make a tray.
http://www.compatlanta.com/
To get a really clean cut on metal like a case is made out of. If you have one use an angle grinder and metal cutting weal. Also drill out all the rivets on the case first and it might come apart for easier cutting.
I would reccomend a plexiglass like crystalite over lexan, lexan is harder to shatter but scratches much easier.
Quite frankly I've purchased from mountain mods before and their product is good quality but, severely overpriced. $60 for a motherboard tray, $15 for two sides to a hard drive rack, $40 for a set of 5.25" bays. thats $115 and it still doesn't include a PSU mount, may as well buy any number of decent cases and canibalize the parts.
Very true. They do not do in house manufacturing so I think they get stiffed and have to pass it along to the consumer. The material they use 5052 aluminum is not cheap either at least compared to the flimsy steal in most cases. Would probably be easier to integrate the parts into a home made case. Mounting a power supply would just require drilling the proper holes in the back of the case. Maybe making a small flat mounting bracket would strengthen it but IMO it is not needed.
I would also recommend acrylic like plexiglass. It would probably be less expensive. Though I do not know the price of lexan.
lexan typically costs about the same in .093 as crystalite in .220 at which point the shatter resistance is almost identical, the crystalite is less likely to scratch though much less flexible. As far as materials go, I don't know the grade of aluminum that Lian Li uses but, it's very close to the same quality and thickness as the MM at 1/2-2/3 the price.
I agree that the MM cases are expensive.
I have seen LL cases and it typically only about 1/16" thick sheet aluminum. They also manufacture in their own facility and produce many more cases which reduces the cost. They stamp the parts and then rivet them together. That is a much less expensive process. Larger and more popular LL cases can cost upwards of $300-$400. MM uses 1/8" thick plate Aluminum and they are precision cut on CNC machines. I am not sure which method they use but it is either laser, plasma or water jet. They also produce less cases and with typically more material. The powder coating they use to paint them is also a more expensive process than the LL method of painting. Anodized parts should be the around the same cost. If MM had their own manufacturing facility they could reduce the cost. MM cases are made for water cooling and fan holes are cut to specific radiator designs.. From what I have seen a LL case of typical size is not much less expensive than a MM. U2-UFO range from $280-$360 depending on the model. I like both LL and MM cases but IMO the MM cases are of much higher quality. Now they are designed to be modular (and only $10 more) you can reconfigure them in many different ways. That is something no other case can offer.
Oh, I wasn't talking about the cases, even the Lian Li 343 can't compare with the MM in terms of pure function. I honestly didn't remember the MM parts I bought being full 1/8" aluminum as it's been a while, though I do remember noticing they were water-jet cut(can tell by the lack of edge coloring present in plasma and the very slight taper to the cuts) I have to say their style department is a bit lackluster though.
The site specs list the thickness as 1.65mm - 3.25mm I remember reading that a while ago so I guess the thickest stuck in my head. I thought plasma cutters have a water bath so there is no discoloring? Also the taper might be from deburring do to it being done on a CNC mill. I really don't know what process they use. Yeah the cube design is pretty plain. I have seen some good custom fan grills done on them though. that and window etching and a custom paint job are about as creative as you can get with the design.
I was bored so desided to read some stuff on the MM site. In the custom fabrication pdf is mentions laser cutting. So I guess that answers that question.
There is not discoloration of the part but, there is discoloration of the edge, even with de-burring there is more than likely going to be a much duller look on the edges than with a water jet, Laser is faster so the metal doesn't have a chance to heat-up. This is specific to aluminum, and only on pieces thicker than 3/32, depending on the torch-head they're using. It could be from de-burring but, why de-bur at an angle, especially if using a CNC mill? Laser cutting explains the price premium on the parts. Faster than water but, needs to be de-burred like plasma but is the most accurate and precise. I don't know if they're still using Yag lasers for stuff this small or if they've found a synthetic crystal now but, the main cost factors on yag lasers is power consumption and cooling. The military grade yag lasers I worked on a few decades ago were powered by a direct conduit from a coal power station a few blocks away and we overloaded it twice. I don't know what the rating on it was but, considering it was about 10" in diameter with shielding, I figure it was pretty stout. And we had to design and built custom Liquid nitrogen recycling for the cooling. You should see the kind of compressors we had to order to push 10gpm of nitrogen back into liquid after collecting it in a hood over the laser and passing it through electrified water to separate the air with separate hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and miscellaneous outputs right before the compressor we could either just vent it everything but the nitrogen or bottle it for use later. I figure between the compressor and the separator that was 3/4 of our power but, those weren't my projects so I don't know much about them, I just built the lasers.
I was bored again and emailed MM about the process they use to cut parts. this was the response I got.
"We use a high powered Qmada Laser for most of our case parts."
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