Ever thought about making your own case?

[PoonDaddy007]

What do you guys think? Think it could be done with some metal and plexiglass or something? I'm thinking about doing it and I'm just wondering if anyone else has thought about it or know someone who has.

 

[shiner]

I built one in college for my 486 DX66. It was made of high grade plywood, some miscellaneous buttons and switches from Radio Shack, the odd Christmas light or two, and a couple of hinges. I got the idea while building a carrying case for my remote control airplane stuff. Took me about a week &1/2 to finish since I was so anal retentive. After it was built I stained it, installed some metal strips so that I could mount the board & etc. I'll have to see if I can find a picture of it and post it here. In fact I think the case is still in my parent's attic somewhere.

 

[SilverBack]

My case project early design

 

[shiner]

What kind of wood are you planning on using? Back when I built mine I used a high grade plywood and it worked out great. Stay away from particle board or any kind of pressed wood since they tend to soak up humidity and will swell.

Like the design!! Good luck!!!

 

[PoonDaddy007]

I was thinking about getting some metal rails so I could hold the mobo and all the drives in place and make the outside case out of plexiglass and have either epoxy or rubber to attach the sheets of plexi together. But I heard that plexiglass or any type of plastic would have tons of static on it that could fry the comp.

Shiner: is there anyway you could get a pic of it? i'd really like to see. and how did the computer parts hold up? did any of them get affected by the case or die early? Thanks

 

[shiner]

I looked for a pic but didn't find any. That was a long time ago but I will keep looking. Like I said above I think the case is still in my parent's attic.

The parts worked normally and I never had a problem with them.

 

[randomlinh]

look at my sig... if we had more time, the internal frame would have been custom.

www.virtualhideout.net

go to the cases section.

 

Ive seen cases made out of wood, PVC piping, plexiglass, and bent aluminum with the holes cut out.
Do something totally off the wall.

 

[PoonDaddy007]

Another question... has anyone heard anything about EMI radiation or anything. I read that if the case is made out of plexiglass then there is nothing to stop the EMI. Is there enough to cause any harm?

lnguyen: thanks for the link... very helpful.

Shiner: the pics aren't absolutely neccesary. Thanks for the info though.

Looking at the pics on the link it looks like most if not all of them are regular cases stripped and some plexi was added. Does anybody know about making a case just from scratch? Like going to home depot and just buying the parts?

THanks, Poon

 

[joeyd]

i built one , kinda nice , but it shook apart (hey leave me alone so i can't build things). I made it so that i had 4 120mmm fans on the bottom of the case and 4 on top of the case , then a cpu heat sink and fan , i was able to get the mobo temp down to 23 c from 33 when it was in my normal full tower. I had my mother board on one side standing up like in a normal case and off to the side i had the floppy , hard drive and dvd drive. It worked like a charm , sorry i don't have any pictures , I'm going to build it again outta aluminum though i will try to post them when i can.

 

[TheOverlord]

i'm gonna build me one that looks like a cray super computer on a mini scale (haven't decided which type tho)...hehe

 

[Tetsuo316]

EMI would be very, very bad in a plexiglass case. i honestly can't believe all the people who've bought one from Clear-ViewTech.com. there's nothing to stop all the static from just bouncing around in there and frying all your components. I wanted one so badly too, but a friend pointed that out to me. I was crushed, but i realized that he was right.

 

[randomlinh]

custom case, build with whatever you want basically.

EMI does bother me a bit. Still trying to figure a good way to "absorb" the static. I have aluminum pieces lining my case... and there is an anti static spray you can buy to coat the plexi... it's just messy, and i don't know how well it works.

 

[Imaginer]

What bothers me about making my own case right now is the perfect layout as in cooling, cable reach, hard drive and cd drive placement and the fact that I would like to have the motherboard laying horizontal in a nice easy access layout as well....

That and keeping it space wise small as possible...

Sure it be cool. And customizable as well. I been running my computer in a wooden case for over months now and it runs with no problems. EMI is something to worry about to make sure nothing radiates from the components.

 

[tom3]

I built one, you can check it out in my sig. =)