Custom Case Business - Gauging interest

[RenoirDK]

Hi folks!

I'm in the process of gauging interest and getting feedback regarding a custom case business I'm investigating the prospects of.

In brief the idea is to bridge the gap between the quite expensive and very high-end stuff (Mountain Mods, CaseLabs etc.) and the more mainstream market with cases that allow for significant customization at time of order.

I've set up a site to briefly explain the project and what I see such a business would do differently from those already established. If you have a few minutes to spare, I invite you to take a look at it. Feel free to post any comments in this thread or through the site. Thanks!

cratlecases.com

The early prototype...

 

[ClockHound]

Looks like a fun project!

Made my comments on your site. Won't mention them here. Not because they were innovative or shockingly controversial - other Ananderthals don't need to read my preconceptions about case design and materials. ;-)

Good Luck on your new venture!

 

[sandorski]

I suppose it could work, personally I would work from my garage evenings/weekends and not give up my Day Job. At first at least.

Some things to consider are:

1) Bottom mounted Power Supplies are generally preferred
2) Couldn't see a place for Hard Drives

 

[VirtualLarry]

Sounds possible. I think what might sell really well is custom cases with eg. Names inscribed. So parents could put their child's name on their custom PC, or enthusiasts (I'm look at you, Aigo) could even put the name of their PC on the case.

I don't think I would ever get one personally, though. For $40 FS I was able to get a RaidMax Cobra case at Newegg that contains significant engineering. Yeah, it doesn't have my name on it, but I'll live. It even came with two 120mm fans for that price.

 

[videogames101]

Would have little interest personally.

 

[ClockHound]

If Lian Li can sell $1000+ computing case/desks and CaseLabs can sell $500+ cases, there's a niche for custom cases with some exclusive features, exclusive marketing and word-of-mouth advertising. Don't expect much of the later from the Case Dept and Forum here tho. ;-)

 

[jji7skyline]

Sent you some questions via the website. This kind of thing interests me a lot.

 

[RenoirDK]

Thanks for your comments! Also to the ones sending them via the site.

I suppose it could work, personally I would work from my garage evenings/weekends and not give up my Day Job. At first at least.

Some things to consider are:

1) Bottom mounted Power Supplies are generally preferred
2) Couldn't see a place for Hard Drives

Luckily, I'm going to be a student for a while yet, so no day job to give up. ;-)

A layout change to having the PSU mounted at the bottom could easily be implemented. Perhaps I should include an example showing that.
I haven't considered hard drives for the prototype, which is why there is no place to mount them. Partly, this is because taking care of vibrations would likely take a few iterations, and also because I see a tendency to run SSD-only. But there is certainly a section of the potential audience for whom this doesn't pertain.

I don't think I would ever get one personally, though. For $40 FS I was able to get a RaidMax Cobra case at Newegg that contains significant engineering. Yeah, it doesn't have my name on it, but I'll live. It even came with two 120mm fans for that price.

Yes, there is a lot to be gotten for little money these days. It is hard to compete with large scale productions like that if the custom aspect is only slightly intriguing.

If Lian Li can sell $1000+ computing case/desks and CaseLabs can sell $500+ cases, there's a niche for custom cases with some exclusive features, exclusive marketing and word-of-mouth advertising. Don't expect much of the later from the Case Dept and Forum here tho. ;-)

There is a niche for most things these days. As you point to, it is all about getting to where the right people hang about.

Sent you some questions via the website. This kind of thing interests me a lot.

I'll get to that asap.

 

[aigomorla]

As this thread walks on a very thin line of personal advertisement, i will keep it under watch. Remember, its fine to ask for advice on a case you wish to build / design. Hashing ideas out with other people is good.

However Forum regulations and rules prohibit self advertisement, so try to separate the advertising part to this thread, and you should be OK.

Cases and Cooling Moderator
Aigomorla

 

[bonehead123]

Made my comments on your site

 

[DrMrLordX]

I will leave a more-detailed comment on your site. For the purposes of this thread, allow me to present some food for thought, in the hopes of providing some feedback that could be useful to any would-be custom case builder (and not just the OP):

When it comes to desktop-class hardware or better, you're going to see the most growth in the server room. Standard rackmount, blade, and microserver enclosures are going to sell in greater quantity than desktop enclosures by far. If one could provide a boutique product that would fit positively into that market somewhere, you'd probably get bought out by an ODM in short order. After that, the sky would be the limit.

Easier said than done, but if one examines rackmount enclosures (at least the ones the public gets to see, anyway), one may be able to find some deficiencies here or there that could allow a small player to sneak in.

All that aside, you may also wish to examine the possibility of ducting options for people who understand how to take advantage of such things. I for one am a heathen who has an old Centurion 5 with the side off for a desk fan and a grill in the back torn out sloppily so my HSF can exhaust directly out of the case, so ducting is not "my thing", at least not right now. BonzaiDuck, on the other hand . . .

 

[RenoirDK]

Made my comments on your site

Thanks!

All that aside, you may also wish to examine the possibility of ducting options for people who understand how to take advantage of such things. I for one am a heathen who has an old Centurion 5 with the side off for a desk fan and a grill in the back torn out sloppily so my HSF can exhaust directly out of the case, so ducting is not "my thing", at least not right now. BonzaiDuck, on the other hand . . .

Thanks for the suggestion. It actually fits quite well with the idea, as this aspect too could be customized to work with a particular fan and heat sink setup. I've so far been a bit skeptical about ducts, as they primarily appear to be a way to remedy lacking case design or poorly made compromises. If the airflow path is not unnecessarily extended or complicated, there probably won't be a need for the extra guiding that a duct (or vanes) adds. But these are of course still assumptions - perhaps I should experiment with it a bit.

 

[DrMrLordX]

The primary advantage of ductwork is in heatsink performance. Most tower-style HSFs lose a fair amount of air through the sides. A proper duct that is integrated into the fan mounting system will force all air movement across the fins, leading to less waste. The user can step down to a slower fan or gain more cooling from the same fans. Ducts also allow for sound-deadening material to be used, allowing whiny/noisy fans to be used while subjecting the user to less background noise.

Being able to draw air directly from outside of the case and exhaust heated air outside of the case also allows for relative thermal isolation. No matter how good is your case air flow, pulling air from directly outside will always provide a nice boost to both the ducted component and to non-ducted components in other parts of the case (notably dGPUs).

We have some duct-fanatics around here, and I'm sure they'd be willing to share their knowledge if you ask nicely.

 

[MongGrel]

You're ambitious at least.

And have a decent laser it looks.

I would make it a bottom PSU design, but looks you could change things on the fly a bit.

Something like Birch or Oak Finished designer Plywood/Real Wood with a good finish on it might make some people interested, but I'm happy with the ones out there.

Make cases like I used in my drum set post just for a base and finish em along those lines, you might generate some interest.

Of course would involve a bit of time making one.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2420013&page=4&highlight=

Your case design does need a refinement, I'd say, but it is a prototype.

Wood would be almost like hot boxing everything though I imagine, unless you put some really cooling in them like setting them up with a good water set up.

I imagine you could get ambitious and go with a high end custom case thing, I think the low end is covered pretty heavily all ready from major manufacturers butting heads in mass production.

 

[Tsavo]

The case in that picture is half a step above used pizza box in terms of quality. I know it's a prototype, but it's one that can't be taken seriously.

 

[PhIlLy ChEeSe]

Unless you have a lot of capital, and Very creative I don't see much potential. Plus you need to have a ton of ideals, be creative and compete with the BIG BOYZ.

A nice priced case goes for $100, you'll need to be able to compete at that level. A nice CNC machine, or similar is needed.

If there gonna be wood, I wouldn't even bother. Sorry to be a Debbie Downer, custom comes at a price so unless you got some very cool ideals and can make them work and still make a profit...................

I like the PSU on top as heat rises, but others don't.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Unless you have a lot of capital, and Very creative I don't see much potential. Plus you need to have a ton of ideals, be creative and compete with the BIG BOYZ.

A nice priced case goes for $100, you'll need to be able to compete at that level. A nice CNC machine, or similar is needed.

If there gonna be wood, I wouldn't even bother. Sorry to be a Debbie Downer, custom comes at a price so unless you got some very cool ideals and can make them work and still make a profit...................

I like the PSU on top as heat rises, but others don't.

I think that's honest. No doubt, his case design is "neat" and interesting. It shows "skill" and "craft." But in order to be profitable and worth the time, effort and capital, one has to anticipate future markets.

Even the mainstream case-makers are only beginning to offer compact options, but those don't address universal needs. If you were to come up with some sort of "case-kit" from which you could put together a compact, high-airflow case of variable size, that might offer something -- there might be "growing demand" -- I can't say. But that becomes complicated -- perhaps unfeasible in the "economics of production."

My dentist remarked today that OEMs are selling more laptops and desktops with i3 processors. Mainstreamers aren't being sold on over-powered OEM rigs for whatever "Mainstreamer purposes" are. Mainstreamers are also looking at "AiO" desktops, in addition to MS Surface Pro's and magical tablets and cell-phones.

The market of enthusiasts is indeed limited. There are enough of us to support CoolerMaster, Lian Li, Fractal and NZXT. But for the really custom extremes, you already have Mountain Mods, the 540 Carbide Air and some other entries. If you want to compete in that market, I'd say come up with a metal design, buy some of those "brake" machines for bending metal, define a mass-production process, and see if you can out-pace those established brands.

You want to come up with an entrepreneurial idea for something people haven't conceived yet to want, but for whom the idea compels jumping on an enthusiastic bandwagon -- and a growing market-share.

 

[RenoirDK]

The primary advantage of ductwork is in heatsink performance. Most tower-style HSFs lose a fair amount of air through the sides. A proper duct that is integrated into the fan mounting system will force all air movement across the fins, leading to less waste. The user can step down to a slower fan or gain more cooling from the same fans. Ducts also allow for sound-deadening material to be used, allowing whiny/noisy fans to be used while subjecting the user to less background noise.

Being able to draw air directly from outside of the case and exhaust heated air outside of the case also allows for relative thermal isolation. No matter how good is your case air flow, pulling air from directly outside will always provide a nice boost to both the ducted component and to non-ducted components in other parts of the case (notably dGPUs).

We have some duct-fanatics around here, and I'm sure they'd be willing to share their knowledge if you ask nicely.

It could certainly be interesting to see to what extent ducting improves performance in various circumstances, even though I doubt the effect is going to be large with the relative short front-to-back airflow path in the current layout.

I would make it a bottom PSU design, but looks you could change things on the fly a bit.

I've gotten the comment about the top-mounted PSU a few times now - seems like something people are rather keen on. It does of course also dominate current case layouts. It makes little difference to the design itself, so it would be easy to switch around. This particular arrangement happened to fit very well with the passive PSU I was using.

Wood would be almost like hot boxing everything though I imagine, unless you put some really cooling in them like setting them up with a good water set up.

So far I haven't seen many indications of that, although I have heard the concern before. Cases in general don't act like heat sinks from my experience, and the little a regular steel case absorbs from hardware and then radiates out it likely negligible. I don't have the resources to do a complete side by side comparison, although it would be interesting to quantify just how large a difference it makes.

The case in that picture is half a step above used pizza box in terms of quality. I know it's a prototype, but it's one that can't be taken seriously.

It is without a doubt a rough version, even for a prototype. Hopefully a feature incarnation will look a little less like a pizza box. ;-) It may be that I have just gotten used to the look by now, but I have to admit that I kind of like it. Crossing fingers for other tasteless weirdos out there like me. ;-)

The market of enthusiasts is indeed limited. There are enough of us to support CoolerMaster, Lian Li, Fractal and NZXT. But for the really custom extremes, you already have Mountain Mods, the 540 Carbide Air and some other entries. If you want to compete in that market, I'd say come up with a metal design, buy some of those "brake" machines for bending metal, define a mass-production process, and see if you can out-pace those established brands.

You want to come up with an entrepreneurial idea for something people haven't conceived yet to want, but for whom the idea compels jumping on an enthusiastic bandwagon -- and a growing market-share.

I have no expectations of being able to compete with the established businesses on their turf. The mass produced case segment is very well taken care of and there appears to be little room for a new entrant in that market. Setting up a full supply chain is also well out of my reach financially, and the idea of mimicking what others are doing instills no passion in me. For me it is very much about finding an entrepreneurial idea I can actually act on now. Until then all we are dealing with are hypotheticals, a bunch of what-ifs and a hope that a big investor comes by. A mediocre idea acted upon is worth more than a great one lying dormant - to me anyway. But entrepreneurial thinking and motivations is a whole different subject, and I probably shouldn't derail my own thread. ;-)

Thanks for all the comments. I really appreciate it.

 

[DrMrLordX]

It could certainly be interesting to see to what extent ducting improves performance in various circumstances, even though I doubt the effect is going to be large with the relative short front-to-back airflow path in the current layout.

Main thing to keep in mind is that, even if you have a tower HSF in an open-air test bed, you can still improve its performance by taping up the sides that normally allow leakage. Your case design is hardly deficient from an airflow pov, it's the HSFs themselves that suffer inefficiencies.

 

[Blain]

As this thread walks on a very thin line of personal advertisement, i will keep it under watch.

Sounds reasonable.

 

[RenoirDK]

Main thing to keep in mind is that, even if you have a tower HSF in an open-air test bed, you can still improve its performance by taping up the sides that normally allow leakage. Your case design is hardly deficient from an airflow pov, it's the HSFs themselves that suffer inefficiencies.

Interesting. This then begs the question of why Noctua, Thermalright, Scythe and the like do not add such a design feature. At least it's not standard. I'd assume it to be a rather cheap addition.

 

[Subyman]

I think the materials offered need some thought. MDF is obviously a good prototype material due to cost and workability, but you'd probably need to think about the insulating qualities of the material you are using. You mentioned bamboo and glass in your product description, but I did not see any metals. Metals are great because of their thermal conductivity. It may be interesting to examine the case temperatures of the same model case in bamboo and then in aluminum running the same gear. It may not be a big difference, but it is worth looking at.

For me, I probably wouldn't consider a case that wasn't metal, preferably aluminum.

 

[Blain]

I think the materials offered need some thought. MDF is obviously a good prototype material due to cost and workability, but you'd probably need to think about the insulating qualities of the material you are using. You mentioned bamboo and glass in your product description, but I did not see any metals. Metals are great because of their thermal conductivity. It may be interesting to examine the case temperatures of the same model case in bamboo and then in aluminum running the same gear. It may not be a big difference, but it is worth looking at.

For me, I probably wouldn't consider a case that wasn't metal, preferably aluminum.

The main benefit of metal, besides ease of mass production, durability, aesthetics and cost is the shielding qualities that only metal provides.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Interesting. This then begs the question of why Noctua, Thermalright, Scythe and the like do not add such a design feature. At least it's not standard. I'd assume it to be a rather cheap addition.

Not exactly sure. There are a few that do have optional duct attachments, and some HSFs actually have the sides enclosed (the one that comes to mind was that hybrid HSF/TEC unit from awhile back). It may have to do with the fact that some users actually rely on leakage from the HSF to help cool the rest of their system, notably board components near the CPU socket, though that is more of a factor with top-down HSFs than L-shaped towers.

Also, when you have fans blowing through a sealed space, push-pull configurations become more complicated. The first fan has to be weaker than the second, or you'll overload the motor on the second fan. Examine the dual-fan Delta setups that push over 220 cfm, and you'll see that the first of the two fans is always a bit weaker (usually the same fan at a lower voltage, or something like that).

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I think most of the people who would want such a case would, more than likely, want to build it themselves.

Just saying.