GrogStache

Temps have actually been pretty good. The GPU has its own vent on the underside that it pulls air through. Both the cockpit and the dock hatch are pushing air out, and the vents on the top are for the CPU fan to pull air in through. There are also a couple small vents for the PSU fan on the underside as well. Turbulent, sure. Hot, not really

Yeah, that's why I stipulated about sticking to the 175mm length. I'm actually gaming out of a Millennium Falcon that I converted into my PC case. You can see the clearance I'm dealing with in the 2nd and 3rd pics here.

Yeah, but is that gonna be enough for Starfield? I know it's one of the best SFF cards out there right now for sure, but I'm still worried about it. Thank you both for the quick replies, BTW.

SO yeah, I have a pretty unique SFF PC that I built around 2018, and I'm worried about those Starfield recommended specs. I can upgrade my CPU (currently a Ryzen 2600 - no "x") but I'm not sure what the SFF upgrade path for my MSI 1070 Aero ITX would be, especially considering that I really do need to stick close to the 175mm card length. I also know we're not really "there yet" on what those Starfield requirements mean, but I thought now would be a good time to float the question to the hive mind. Anyone interested in giving advice?

That looks really good, dude! That little nugget of a PC looks amazing!

Updating again in an effort to catch up on the stuff I've done while incommunicado! Today's subject: Mounting hardware! So the thing about building a PC in a weird object, as many of you will attest to, is that there are no ready-made brackets for the stuff you're doing. For the Falcon, I needed a power supply bracket and a GPU bracket. I had a couple pieces of the aluminum robotics structural parts left over so I started with those. When those mostly didn't work, I turned to hacking up an old steel PC case and bending it to both my will and the shapes I needed. First let's check out the GPU bracket: Fancy-dancy, am I right? The hole in the steel piece to the left of the support strut actually lines up with a screw hole under one of the GPU's HDMI ports and the cutout to the right is for the DVI port, which sticks out and is not on my "to use" list. I can also use the screw hole next to the DVI port for a second point of contact with the bracket. If you look closely at the picture, you'll see that inside the Falcon there's a ledgethat juts out under where the engines are located on the outside. This forms the sunken area surrounding the gaming table when the toy is, you know, not acting as a PC case... which is really like 99 percent of the time with these things. For me though, that shelf represents a handy-dandy resting place for the top edge of the GPU. You'll see what I mean in the next picture. Also in the next picture, you'll see my PSU mounting bracket, which is just... janky AF. It's made of thin steel and it's the right shape, but it lacks a lot in the "professional grade" department. Here's what I mean: There the sucker is, crammed riiiight up against the bottom of the case. If you can believe it, the PSU will fit right in there and the power cable will trail out of the case through the support leg to the lower left of the pic. One bummer is that the PSU will partially block the "rear" case fan in the cockpit. There's still clearance above and below it, but it's not amazingly optimized. The little fan on the PSU will ideally also help push hot air out of the case toward the two cutouts to the right of this picture. Also, there's the GPU, held between the legs of the metal skeleton and its face-rest. Don't worry, it has air down there. Also, for you detail oriented folks out there: yep, that top pic is from later in the design process than the bottom one. You can see that I've added the intake fan in it and that the bottom one was taken before I knew I needed a cutout for the GPU. More details on the reasoning behind that in the future. Have a good day, all! Edit: Further fun fact: I added a tiny bit of steel to the GPU bracket so that the final magnet of the lighting strip could have a place to adhere to. Too detailed? Maybe, yeah.

Thanks, Horse. I'm really trying to do it in a quality way. I still have the Falcon toy I had as a kid, and I really want this to at least be my "forever case" so I'm trying to make sure I have done everything my new-to-PC builds brain can think up/research in order to get it right.

Ok, next update! Today's topic: Front I/O. My idea for this part of the build has for a long time been to split the signal for both the Power and HD Activity LEDs. That way, I could use the Power LED(s) as headlights for the ship. The HD Activity LED(s) could also approximate lase fire from the forward-facing guns. For the longest time I had no idea if this concept was possible, but after a lot of searching I found some front I/O splitter cables made by a small shop in Florida. I ordered a pair of the cables and two sets of Front I/O cables and here's What I've got thus far: As for the Power and Reset buttons, they actually fit really nicely in what was the sound effects panel on the original toy. The plastic of the toy's panel was actually soft enough to cut with a pen knife and finish with a bit of sand paper. Here's what it looks like: This thing will fit opposite the "Rear" I/O panel on the left side of the Falcon, which will ultimately be the downward-ish side of the ship as it hangs on the wall. ANYWAY, I actually have a few Qs for the community here. This is still my first build, and I want to make sure I'm doing everything correctly. Here go the questions: 1. If I'm using a front I/O extender cable, do i match up the positive wire on the end of the extender/splitter with the positive wire on the LED cables? I don't wanna mess that up. 2. I'm currently using one Power LED and one HD Activity LED for my Power LEDs. I assume this is fine since the cables are identical, but let me know if I'm stupid in this regard. Thanks, and have a good day all!

ok, legit update! I'll try and update this thread by project. Today's subject: the engines! If you look back through the pics, you'll see that this individual Falcon had some pretty uninspiringly applied engine decals. They were also kinda just a boring blue gradient, not the "jumble of junk" aesthetic I think of when I remember my own Falcon toy as a kid. So I did some digging and found a legit decal sheet from the original toy online. I printed it out on sticker paper and then got to designing the working engine lights. I'm using an RGB strip that is not addressable for this, not becuase addressable isn't cool, but because I wanted a more uniform lighting effect across the engines. Anyway, the process began with a bit of scraping and sanding to get the 20-year old decals off. I then Dremmeled out some of the fins between the engines in order to make room for threading the lighting strip through: Good. Looking suuuuper jankey now. Great. I was extremely full of confidence at this stage. The sweating and worry was all likely about something else. The next step was to give the magnetic bits of the lighting strip something to glom onto. I ended up using a few bits of metal from an old Mac case I have lying around. The poor thing fried years ago and I'm converting it into a wood-lined charging station in my "off time" from work, video games, and THIS side project. Here's what the plates looked like once implemented: Still looking pretty crap, but i started to feel hopeful at this point. Next I had to thread the lighting strip through the holes, cut a length of curved, frosted plastic I'd ordered as a cover for the strip, and scoot the m both through the openings I'd made. This took numerous attempts and lots of extra sanding to get it all juuuust right. Once it was all in the right spot, I did note that the frosted plastic enclosure pooched out a bit in places. To fix this, I clamped the plastic down with wooden blocks and C-clamps and then used some Gorilla Glue to permanently affix the enclosure. Once that was dry, all I had to do was cut my new decals to size and try not mess up their application. While not professional grade, I think I did a good enough job of it. Here's the final product: Anyway, that's the update for today. I know this build has taken FOREVER, but it is still my first one and fabricating a case has been a big thing for me. I'm trying to get all the details right, but if you see something that maybe looks bad or off feel free to mention it. Have a good day everyone!

So it's been forever since I updated this, but the build is still ongoing. Legitimate update coming soon!

This looks like a fantastic build. I'll definitely be checking in from time to time on it Also, from one case modder to another, do you have any painting tips? I might need to do a fair amount of that for the exterior of my own case.

Another baby step in the right direction today. I finished vinyl wrapping the I/O shield! It looks pretty dang good, too. I opted for a silver finish, which means I need to at least try out the silver mesh on the cockpit now. It might be that copper doesn't have as prominent a place in the case as I had thought. Either way, I think this little bit looks decent. Here it is in its final spot as well! It'll ultimately be screwed into the frame in the places, two of which you can see on the right of the faceplate. I know it's not centered, which will probably mess with some of you. I had built it to go in the other way around, but necessity demanded I flip it at the last moment, so off centered it will be. Ah well. If I'm feeling particularly OCD I might just try and fix it down the road.

Thanks for the votes of confidence, guys! Im gonna opt for silver for the I/O panel aaaand see how that looks. If I feel that the copper looks weird, I'll probably switch to the silver mesh. Also, I totally agree that the rust would be the chief part of the ship that's brown/coppery. I think the Falcon had had a fair bit of that in its time though, so we'll see

Ok, so here's part two of today's update, now that my working day is over. As I mentioned in the post above, the exhaust will be pushing air out of the cockpit of the ship. Right now I've mocked up a copper mesh, but I could also go with the more reflective steel mesh I used for the GPU fan intake. Here's what it looks like now: I'm not 100 percent sure I love it. What do you guys think?

Hi all, I've finally got an update worth sharing again! After a long bout of being physically limited, I'm working on the Falcon again. We left off with me adding a vent for the GPU intake, and I'm happy to say the results were great! There's the vent bottom right, all glued in place like a champ. To the left, you can see that I've added a couple fan mount holes where I'll be affixing the 60mm intake fan. I also cut away more of the D battery slots in order to make room for my rear I/O, which I've also been working on: I started with just a piece of wood, but unfortunately I accidentally drilled one of the screw holes meant for mounting the USB 3.0 "hub" too wide during the process of trying to make the screws sit flush. So I repeated the process in metal, sanded down the wood to make the whole thing thinner, and ended up with what I think is a pretty cool I/O shield: It's not done yet. I still have to remove that section outlined in purple and I'm planning on wrapping it in vinyl, either silver or copper colored. As a last update, I also created a soft mount for the exhaust fan (and took my Dremel to a Noctua in the process). That's the internal view facing the cockpit. The case screws, when they go in, will tighten up the cracks, but I will have to partially block the way to this fan with the power supply, so fingers crossed on its capabilities. Sadly, I'm up to my picture size limit for this post so I'll have to add the outside view as a separate update. Back in a while!