Project: Server and Gaming Case

[Spotswood]

The hinge for the top was cut slightly undersized and centered with a some old business cards used as spacers.

Dimples of aluminum had to be removed from the frame in order to make room for the nuts holding the top sheet to the hinge.

With only a 2.5mm gap between the leaves of the hinge, button head cap screws were used to attach the hinge to the frame.

The hinge aligns perfectly with the top sheet, which in turn aligns with the back sheet.

 

[de.das.dude]

long time no see

 

[Thrackan]

Cool! Moar plz!

 

[Spotswood]

On the bottom of the case, a large slot was cutout which will allow fresh air to enter the front air duct. Following standard operating procedures, a router pattern/template was made at the same size as the desired opening.

The aluminum was removed with my trusty handheld router in two passes, once with a over-hanging pattern bit and another with a flush-cutting pattern bit.

 

[<<Onafets>>]

Any progress mate? Looking forward to more pics!

 

[Spotswood]

Up next is fabricating a duplicate of the 120mm back fan panel, but for 140mm fans. This time I had Lazerwerx cut me a custom 140mm fan hole router template out of 3/8-inch thick cast acrylic.

This template is a snap to use: mark center lines and lay the corresponding slits cutout from the template over them.

 

[Spotswood]

The latches for the top are these nice "lift and turn" ones:

The latches require a fairly small area to be cutout, with only about a 2mm "lip", so I built a very accurate router template from some leftover t-slot extrusion:

 

[Thrackan]

This, sir, is like watching HD pr0n on a 56k line...

I simply cannot imagine how nice this will be

 

[Spotswood]

Drilled two 19mm holes for the vandal resistant switches (power and reset/hard drive activity).

Using such a large bit (step drill) is a bit nerve racking for me, but with an extra large work surface and some clamps, I manged to get through it.

Switches!

 

[Spotswood]

During final assembly (before paint) some rework is inevitable. With this case, early on in the build, it was widened to accommodate the front radiators. But I never went back to see if the PSU mounting bracket worked/looked okay. Plus, I never tested the PSU cutout from the back sheet with the the actual PSUs used for the build. Well, the cutout in the backsheet for the PSUs had to be widened by 3mm in order to clear the fan grill on the PSU cooling fan. And the PSU mounting plate looked to dainty and needed to be widened.

And with the old PSU mounting bracket placed in front of the new one:

 

[Spotswood]

I finished fabricating the back of the case, which consisted of drilling mounting holes through the motherboard trays and PSU mounting plate, through the back sheet and into the case frame. Holes that went into frame were tapped to #6-32 and those in the middle of the sheeting had PEM nuts pressed-in.

 

[Spotswood]

Powder coated parts have come back from the painter and final assembly has begun.

 

[MT Alex]

Looks super

 

[Huddo93]

Looks amazing, cant wait to see what its like with some hardware inside

 

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

very excited to see this one get finished!

 

[Spotswood]

 

[phanbuey]

i love it and i want it.

 

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

I am jelly for sure!