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Hi everyone! Maybe a short introduction from me: I'm Finn, I'm 26 and work as an engineer in composites (mostly carbon epoxy, mainly manufacturing and design). I finished my studies 1.5 years ago and got into computers during my studies, mostly getting my info from Linus and the crew, super thankful for you guys while I was building my first computer back in 2017! I would have been lost, going from knowing absolutely nothing! After leaving uni, I've been out of the game for a while but stumbled over the old pictures I made of when I was building my custom carbon computer case and thought I'd share these with you all! It is my first post here after a while of ghosting around but I thought you guys may be interested, so I joined up It started back in 2016 when I was still studying engineering and I was working on CPU and GPU heavy tasks (larger CAD models, analysis, 3D scanning etc) so I built my first computer with a dual socket server board with two Xeon E5 2680 (V1). That worked well but it was a pain in the space to have as it was absolutely huuuge. After moving from Germany to Sweden to do an internship at Koenigsegg, for which I dragged my huge pc along, I decided I needed something smaller but still powerful. I was looking for something with similar power, not break the bank, but also a case that would fit into a backpack and also look nice. Usually all of those points don't fit together... well... so I decided to make my own case. I wasn't that rich, so I thought I would try and get a second hand CPU and GPU and base the rest around those. After a while I found someone selling a Xeon E5 2680 V4 for quite cheap and a Quadro M4000. I based the following off of those and started making a design. The motherboard I chose was not the smallest, like the mini- ITX boards Linus used for his small builds but the Asus X99-M WS/SE. The micro-ATX does take a bit more space but it offers 4 full sized ram slots so ram is cheaper, proper I/Os and has 3 PCI-E slots as well. Going with a mini-ITX would have felt like an apple move... I got the cad models of the other parts (or dimensions and made space-holders) before buying and played tetris to see what parts worked best. These are the ones I chose at the end: PSU - ST350 Silverstone Cooler - R15 Dynatron Fan - 120mm Noctua This is how the rough CAD model looked like. The actual build did change a bit to make space for things I didn't consider enough at the beginning, like more space for cables, a 3D printed air channel to guide air from the fan over the cooler and bla bla bla things change I guess After getting the parts, I started with the base frame. This was going to be the back-bone of the case. Everything would bolt to it, so it was going to be nice and strong. It's hard to think of every detail (like the through-holes for cables, space for the nuts on the rear of the stand-offs, cable bend radii etc etc) when you build something for the first time, especially when you make it with carbon fiber, because once you mold it, there's little you can edit. I did end up making the back-bone twice because I wasn't happy with the first result. For the carbon guys, I'll just incorporate the details of how I made the case as well. The backbone was made using a wood mold. I just cut blocks of MDF to the right dimensions, stacked them together and fastened them with wood screws. I finished the surface with bog to make it nice and smooth. To make the part, I used dry fibers, placed these down on the mold Picture 1 below) and did an infusion (Picture 2). This is when you put the dry fiber and the mold into a bag, pull a vacuum from one side and let the resin run in form the other. The vacuum pulls the resin through the part. It's not the easiest way because you need a 110% perfect vacuum with no leaks in the bag but it does create a very good material quality if it goes right. The Back-bone carbon panel is roughly 4mm thick and super stiff. The back-bone was then cut, drilled and fitted out to hold all of the components. I didn't have access to any CNC equipment so all of this was done by hand and took ages. Here you can see the cut-outs for the PSU cooler, the fan, the PCI-E extension cable and the motherboard stand-offs. After making the back-bone, I made the visual panels that form the outside everyone will see. These are bonded and bolted to the back-bone. This approach de-couples the functional part that holds everything and has many attachments (back-bone), from the visual parts (which usually do quite little). This makes both much easier to make. Here I again did an infusion, using a glass panel as a mold. This creates very beautiful finishes. These panels were 1.5mm thick, also quite stiff and strong These panels were cut to size and bonded to the flanges of the back-bone. It was super difficult to get everything to line up nice and square. If anything was out by even 0.5 mm, you would see that immediately at the edges where to panels come together. After that I started making the I/O cut-outs. I didn't want to use the std I/O shield because it used too much vertical space. This process was also hard because you needed these holes to fit the GPU and motherboard but you need the GPU and motherboard mounted to be able to know where to put the holes... Chicken and the egg... This also took ages but didn't end up too bad. For the next version I would def. do this differently and make it look more OEM. I have access to CNC machines now so I would probably just copy the I/O shield and cut that directly into the back-panel and laser engrave the lettering around the ports. The pictures below are with all the parts fitted into the frame. Still no cables on the first image or side covers, but at least it looks like a computer You can see that everything is quite close and theirs not much space. See where the PSU cables should come out on the first picture below? Theirs maybe 25mm space. I actually had to re-wrap the cables to make the bend after the connector more compact to not impact the fan After some more work on the side panels, the cable management, GPU attachment points, air flow slots and dust covers, etc etc etc it finally looked like this. I'm still not sure about the panel finish. I kind of like the high-gloss but it's super sensitive to scratches so I might give it a light sand and polish. Koenigsegg does this to some of their parts. It removes the top layer of resin and exposes the bare carbon fibers. This makes it more scratch resistant and gives it a shiny, more metallic look as well One thing I had to consider was cooling and air flow. I chose a Xeon, because of their lowish TDP. The E5 2680 V4 has 120w, the M4000 has 120W as well. The idea was to de-couple both the GPU and CPU cooling exhausts. The Fan would pull air from an opening in the lower rear side of the case (image 3 above on the bottom right beside the GPU), through to the front side and push it through a 3D printed duct over the CPU and out the opening on image 2. The GPU would pull air from the same opening as the CPU and exhaust it out the back and side through the vent where you can see the Quadro logo in image 4. I trialed this with a prototype paper ducting and it didn't work that bad. This case would most likely not comfortably support a heavier CPU tho as it was running at 85°C at full load if I remember correctly. You could probably add a bit of height to the case and gain some cooling but I guess you're always smarter after you're done... I also added sound dampening material from bequiet to the inside of all panels. This and the fact that the fan is quite a far inside the case makes it pretty bearable to sit beside. The case is still not 100% complete. I still haven't made the 3D printed duct and some other small things. After I got to the state above, I finished uni and moved to New Zealand to work at Rocket Lab, a small company building rockets to send small-sats to low earth orbit. That work casually takes up 120% of my time so it hasn't progressed since 1.5 years, but it works ok so it's fine I guess One day our CEO Peter Beck walked by while I was showing one of my friend the case and he went balls to the walls telling me that I need to make this into a business (I guess thats in a CEOs genes...). I told him that I would honestly rather spend my time sending stuff to space than building over priced computer cases... I might make a V2 some time, build it for more modern parts, maybe for an AMD CPU and use a super small water cooling system to deal with the heat. We will seeeee! Hope you guys enjoyed this! Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions!! Cheers

I have an MSI Ghost Pro 4k laptop (here) and I want to put a carbon fiber vinyl skin on it, but I was wondering if, while using a heat gun (hair dryer), the heat could cause any issues. Thanks! Moosecoop

A long time since i´ve been here I started a new build, silver-carbon thematic. Hope you enjoyed Current specifications: MSI X99A XPOWER Titanium ✓ Intel i7 6800k ✓ AVEXIR Raiden Series 32gb 2666mhz ✓ GTX 1080Ti FE ✓ INWIN 909 Black ✓ Corsair AX1200i ✓ SSD Samsung 960 EVO 250GB ✓ SSD Samsung 850 EVO 500GB x2 ✓ Watercooling Parts: EK Supremacy EVO Elite Edition 2011v3 ✓ EK CoolStream XE 360 ✓ EK CoolStream PE 240 x2 ✓ EK D5 Pump ✓ EK XTOP Revo D5 Plexi ✓ EK FC-1080Ti GTX Waterblock Nickel ✓ EK FC-TITANX Pascal Backplate Nickel ✓ EK Pastel Blue ✓ Fittings Barrow: ✓ Reservoir Bitspower Water Tank Z-Multi 250 ✓ Carbon fiber tubes 3M Glossy finish ✓ Thermaltake Riing RGB Premium x8 ✓ Extension cables from Ensourced.net ✓ More Photos

Here is my scratch build. Also check out this 3D design tool I made for laying out custom scratch builds. PC Design Foundry You can select all sorts of components and move them around. You can plan out hard line water cooling and can download files as X3D. I wanted a medium tower size with good air flow bottom to top. I also wanted to have a distributor plate on the front so there are no vent openings to keep it quiet. I moved the power supply to the front of the enclosure and used an SFX form factor to get a good fit with the pump. Then I was able to fit two 360 rads along the whole length of the enclosure. I used a Micro ATX motherboard because I was not going to need 7 PCI slots. Looking back on the build I wish I had got a motherboard with built in RGB LED headers as I ended up having to get separate cables with built in controllers for the LED's in the Fans. I also should change the connection from the pump to the front distributor plate to be a soft line tube at some point to minimise the bump vibration noise. CPU. Intel i7 9700k GPU Palit RTX 2080Ti Samsung 970 EVO Polaris 500GB M.2 Kingston HyperX Predator RGB 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3200MHz Asus ROG Strix Z370-G Gaming (Wi-Fi AC) Micro-ATX 800W Silverstone Strider SFX Power Supply 2 x 360 Alphacool NexXxoS XT45 Radiators 6x EK Vardar 120 mm fans. EK Water Blocks EK-XRES 140 DDC 3.2 PWM Pump Bitspower Matte Black Fittings Custom sleved internal cabling Machined corner extrusions form 1" square stock Aluminum 6082 on my Stoney CNC JBEC 1259012 router Installed Tappex M4 inserts so that the other enclosure parts can be assembled. I tried M3 inserts but the installation toosl kept breaking. Machined the sheet metal parts form 2 mm 6082 T6 Aluminium Stoney CNC JBEC 1259012 router The bed size is 1.25 m by 0.9 m with a vacuum table installed. Folded using Baileigh Industrial, Magnetic Box and Pan Folder I have to machine a recess at the bend points to get really curate bends and avoid cracking. Press in PEM inserts using Baileigh Industrial, BENCH PRESS (BP-3) These are the main motherboard mounting standoffs. Start assembly test. Machine first part of front distributor plate from 10 mm Cast Acrylic Tap holes for G1/4 fittings Test assembly fit check. Some components Fit check. I really wanted to have both the radiators and pump mount directly to the distributor plate with adjustable fittings instead of any additional hard line tubing. Make some custom O rings. The top fans are exhaust fans so I had to make a trim part to cover the rear labels. Powder coated. I used an outside supplier for this. Hand sand a brushed aluminum finish on the corner extrusions. I tried using a sander but it gouged the metal too much. Bottom fans are intake. A bit of a shame as you cant see the logos. Build some custom cables. Since the power supply is up front I needed some really short ones. Also sleved the pump cables. Making some custom PCI power cables. Make some hard line tubing. PET 16 mm Machine a carbon fiber side panel and top fan trim. Machined in a water bath. First boot.

Hello. I brought this case a few weeks ago https://www.amazon.co.uk/Spigen®-Resilient-Protection-Ultimate-Black/dp/B00T6P05ZK/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1535798854&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=samsung+s6+spigen+case#immersive-view_1535798865041 and it has these carbon fiber like strips. Is it real or fake carbon fiber? It's slightly reflective. Two of my friends say it is real and another says it's not... I don't mind if it's real or fake. Would just like to know. Thanks

So, I want to vinyl wrap parts of my graphics card cooler with red carbon fiber. HERE Can I do this? Would it overheat? Would it melt the 3m adhesive? since it's made for car wrap can I do this? No i'm not putting it on the card itself just parts of the cooler.

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Hello. I have a PC I built during the summer on a low budget. It is a nice computer but I had to skimp out on everything but the CPU (I do graphics heavy work more than gaming) My cheap Asrock Z97 Pro3 ($130) motherboard is really quite nice looking in color scheme but I was thinking that it would look better if I put carbon fiber wrap over top of it. I would leave room for air of course. I am thinking about doing this because my motherboard (Except the heatsinks) is uglier than I would like. As you know christmas is coming up so I am preparing a list for my parents and siblings. I was thinking that I could do this to spice up my computer's aesthetics. I am also getting a H100I and cable extensions. Is carbon fiber wrap like the plastic covers seen on gaming motherboards (Marketing term) feasible? What would the pros/cons be?

Hey guys, So I'm planning on doing a carbon fiber desk with a cut-out in the center to build a flat water cooled PC. This is my first carbon fiber project, but I've built a few PCs before. Although this will be far be my most ambitious project with an ideal budget around 3k, but I have some experimenting to do with how I'm gonna build the desk and am gonna be saving some money so the beginning of the actual project is probably closer to 6 months out. So starting out with the top of the desk I am going to put 5 layers of 5.7 oz. carbon fiber (Top black layer picture below) Which will be followed by a 1/8" foam core the full size of the desk to give it strength and depth. The layer below that is the thickest part is going to be 2.5" insulation foam that I round out to have a sleek look under the desk. The lowest layer is going to be the bottom 5 layers of carbon. Which I'll vacuum bag all 4 layers to make one solid piece. From there I am going to cut out a 34"x19" hole that will go through the top three layers and will end at the lowest layer of carbon which will be the base inside the cutout. One question I do have is if I want the lowest layer of carbon to have a nice finish and NOT stick to the 2.5" insulation foam, will it work to just put a coat of mold release in between those two layers so that when I do do the cut out the bottom layer of carbon emerges with a nice finish still? The cutout for the PC will reveal the insulation foam inside the desk. I'll have to make thin panels and cut them to size to cover that up. Below you can also see I am going to have a compartment I shave out of the insulation foam for larger cables and connectors that wont fit in the 1/2" basement. I will be using aluminum stand-offs to split the layers inside the desk. To get them the right size I'll probably have to get them milled myself. So that way it'll split the basement from the main section inside the desk to the glass on top. I did a mock-up with what it'll look like with the glass and what it'll look like with the basement. (made the basement layer translucent for understanding.) All of the desk thickness dimensions aren't final, because I don't know how much the desk will compress under the vacuum bag. I need the open space inside the desk for the parts to be 2". But after realizing with all these layers that might not be possible I might have to have the depth of the desk be closer to 3" which isn't ideal, but it'll still be the thinnest desk PC by far. Now for a close-up and parts! 1. For water cooling pipes I'm going with copper and will nickel plate them to go with the black, red and chrome theme. I'm also going to get nickel plated water blocks and fittings. 2. The hardest thing to find was the damn power supply. But I actually found a 500W FlexATX PSU from Athena Power on NewEgg that will only be 1.59" high which is perfect: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817338120 3. For the mobo I'm gonna go with an ASUS Sabertooth that has the heat shield. I'm gonna nickel plate the heat shield to go with the rest of the theme. 4. The intake fans will be the dual Noctua 120mm grey fans on top. The exhaust is going to be the quad Scythe Slipstream 120mm x 12mm http://www.frozencpu.com/cat/l3/g36/c15/s972/list/p1/Fans-12_Volt_Fans-120mm_x_12mm_Fans-Page1.html The rad is going to be the Black Ice Nemesis 480GTS http://www.performance-pcs.com/black-ice-nemesis-480gts-ultra-stealth-u-flow-low-profile-radiator-primer.html#Features 5. The pump is an XSPC single bay dual pump/res that should be powerful enough for all the right angles. I'll get an SSD and maybe a 2nd one for storage. 6. The monitors are a 43" 4k TV and I'll use the 2 x 23" 1080p monitors I use now and put them vertial. As for how to mount them, I'm probably going to make a custom carbon fiber stand that will be able to hold them all which should be only about 35-40 lbs. total for all 3 monitors. I give more updates in the future on how I decide to do this. 7. GPU will be a 980 or 980 ti we'll see. Below the desk will be a cut-out for the fans with fan grills. Maybe chrome. Conclusion: This is still just a SketchUp to display the concept. I most likely will continue to refine it. This IS NOT A GAMING MACHINE. I am a day trader and will be using this machine mostly for work with some light gaming so thermally it shouldn't really be an issue, because there should be plenty of airflow anyway.

Hey guys. I'm probably going to get a 328i in a few years. I was thinking to get black wheels, a carbon fiber wrap, and tinted windows. I'll add in a custom exhaust after a little while. How much of a fuckhead would I look like if I do this? My sister has tinted windows and black wheels on her 335i. Is the carbon fiber over the top? Thanks.

So I had just about enough of the fingerprint glossyness of my blackwidow, so I figured vinyl wrapping "how hard could it be" Standard glossy (dirty) blackwidow: Removed keaycaps and (seriously) clean: Measured and cut a piece of vinyl to fit over the keyboard, with some to spare, started from one end pulling off the back paper protecting the adhesive. Lined it up and started removing trapped air with the rubber squeegee, pulling the back paper as I went along. Same process over the entire keyboard, when I was done I got out the heat gun gently warming and pushing down in all the grooves that would be cut later, razer logo, edges around keycaps and so on. Continued to heat and pull the vinyl around the back of the keyboard, looks messy, but it was my first time so what do you expect, we're gonna cut it off anyway Cutting off the excess vinyl on the back,heating and applying some preassure on the edges after I cut them so the adhesive sticks peoperly Back to the front, cutting out holes where the keycaps go, leaving a couple of millimeters to fold down later so it sticks properly and looks better when it's done Heating the vinyl at the edges and folding down the ecess material so it sticks to the walls, holding it there for a few seconds so it has time to cool and stick. All done, took a while but with a little patience it turned out all right for being a first encounter with vinyl :lol: Most boring part, putting back all the keycaps, and putting the rubber o-rings on some of the keaycaps that I didn't bother with when I bought the o-rings (haven't botered with keys I rarely use). All done here: All in all, if you have the patience this is a pretty fun, and not at all difficult project, I used cheap chineese vinyl, so you'd probably get even better results with proper 3M di noc, but i figured I'd learn with the cheap stuff, have other prjects coming up in the future where I will be useing some higher end stuff. Just a word of warning if you use a heat gun to keep your hand beside the vinyl when heating, so you don't ruin the vinyl with too much heat. If your not used to useing a heatgun, use a hairdryer instead, it's suppose to work too, or so I've heard Disclaimer: I'm a noob to this, so this is just what worked for me. Just wanted to make this to show everybody thinking about doing a vinyl mod that it's quite easy

Hey guys! Tomorrow, my new Corsair Obsidian 760t arctic white will arrive tomorrow, and i plan on wrapping the chassis with black and blue carbon fiber. Not TOO aggressively, but keeping it tasteful. My point here, is i would love your input and opinion as i continue along my project. I started last night with my PSU. I wrapped it almost fully with carbon fiber, and NO I did not cover the fan grill. The PSU will be oriented fan down to show the design i made. Here is the start of the PSU. Black carbon fiber. Simple. Clean. But im not done. Heres the final product of my PSU. I went for a kind of Tron/ Circuitry type look with the blue carbon fiber additions. I straightened the lines as much as possible, but I don't think it's too bad for my first project. Thanks for your opinion guys! I will update as soon as my case comes, and start my modding!