GrogStache

now, there may be other reasons not to go with it, but for pure performance, there is appearantly a Gainward Pegasus 4060ti.
https://www.gainward.com/main/vgapro.php?id=1188&lang=en

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, 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.

They’re not gonna release a game that won’t run well on last gens most popular gpu. 
 

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.

@GrogStache cheers man!

It's really getting to the finishing touches stage; Cable lengths, gpu mounting, mesh over the vents. When I reassembled it after making the power button, I could see better options for cabling in the front, not to mention I'll trimming the sata one down too.
 
Once it's cable managed a bit in there, I can see the controller ports being even more effective as ventilation. But I'm planning on taking one and making it a passthrough for all the front I/O that's currently hidden  

I still want to drop the motherboard down a little with low profile ram, for more gpu space... but that can come at a later date and probably not effect much of the above  

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

I wired the power button today. Simple job, no easy way to fit a bracket in there so I just whacked some epoxy on there to keep it in place. OH MY GAWD it's so satisfying, the cheap-ass switch I got even has the same long travel and audible click that the original one had...
 

 

video-1560457384.mp4  

New update coming tonight guys, just a small one; a few tweaks to the psu placement to give some room, and some mounting stuff for the ssd. 

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.

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.

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!

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!

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!

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!

no worries for taking so long, with my project and the corresponding build log I suddenly know how long things can take
Good to see some progress and keep up that detail driven work!

Thanks Grog, you are welcome !

For painting done well I always recommend to treat the surface well before this stage. Sanding, cleaning, primer and then paint.

Painting phase of our plague doctors.
 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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!
 

Okay, update part one...because i always run into the image limit even though I shrink the quality  
 
I got my new power supply! It's a Dynamo Mini, rated up to a peak of 200W and itty-bitty small  But, I'm not 100% how to hook it up yet, I need to ask some FURTHER advice on that front. It's supposed to plug directly into the 24-pin on the motherboard, but I only have a DC jack on the STX form factor. So for now, I can't actually boot the system, as I returned the previous power supply in exchange for this one. 
 

 
Don't worry, it comes with a range of cables  Anyway, it'll be sitting where the modem would have gone on the Dreamcast, the only significant area of space left in the case. I'll have to trim, and open it up a lot, but I'll try and leave a lip because a lot of the structural rigidity left in the case, comes from that box-section...
 

 
Next up, we have the first Noctua fan I've ever bought! And I have to say, opening the front cover was the most hilarious, anti-climactic thing i've ever seen  Yes my friends, it's a whopping 40mm fan...but damn, if the accessories and quality don't justify the price. Can't wait to get larger Noctua products for future builds. 
 

 

 
As you can see, it bolts neatly into the 3D-printed adapter. As I said before, this part was actually modelled for people who want to fit a more effective, quieter fan to their original Dreamcasts. Man, the internet is awesome. It barely fits, I swear it's touching the roof and lid button both at the same time...but it looks cool in there, and should definitely bring down my temps significantly.
 

 

 

 

 

 

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!