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Cerberus: The 18L, mATX, USA-made enclosure

Aibohphobia

Some people are wanting to fit more 3.5" drives. There's currently one 3.5" mount on the bottom of the case that can be used in place of the fifth slot.

 

A 2 x 3.5" cage should fit on the bottom-front of the case, but it would block the bottom 3 slots, leaving only room for a full-length card in the top 2 slots. I think short cards will still fit in the bottom 3 slots though.

 

So I made a poll to see if there's enough interest in more 3.5" mounts to see if it's something worth investigating. Please vote so I can see whether to spend time on it or not.

 

 

3.5" mounts vs useable slots poll

 

http://strawpoll.me/3313664

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I would definitely be interested in one of these cases.

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I would definitely be interested in one of these cases.

 

If anyone is interested in following developments surrounding Nova, we have a blog that we post updates to on our website, as well as a newsletter you can sign up for where we'll send out any big announcements. There's also a bunch of info and specs on (the current incarnation of) Nova, too. You can Google "Kimera Industries" or "Kimera Industries Nova", and we pretty reliably come up first.

 

Aiboh also has a thread on HardForum going about this, too, if you're there as well!

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With laser cutting you'll want to avoid vent patterns consisting of many small holes like I did. The laser takes a bit of time to punch through the metal, so a design with a bunch of holes (like the side and top panels of Nova) would require the laser to pause and pierce the sheet many times resulting in higher cost.

 

So I'd go with either a large cutout and fill it with mesh, or a slot pattern to minimize the number of cuts.

 

Also, you'll want to watch videos on YouTube of CNC press brakes to get an idea of how the metal is folded so you can better design the case to be easily manufacturable and hence, cheaper.

 

Inventor is a good program, though SketchUp is good for figuring out a rough layout since there are lots of pre-made computer components you can drop into the model.

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I got the NZXT X41 mounted and the hinged bracket is a huge help for working on the case. If you need access to the internals just undo those two screws and swing the rad out of the way  :)

 

Nova-prototype_X41.jpg

 

Nova-prototype_X41-open.jpg

 

 

Here's a pic showing the CPU power routed behind the motherboard tray:

 

Nova-prototype_tray-cutouts.jpg

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The amount of space efficiency in this build is insane. Great job on this.

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The amount of space efficiency in this build is insane. Great job on this.

 

Thanks. It's crazy how inefficient most ITX cases are.

 

 

Seriously, me wants.

 

I've been getting that a lot lately  :P

 

 

What CPU cooler is that? Your case looks incredible btw!

 

It's the Noctua NH-C12P heatsink with the NF-A15 PWM fan.

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That are some pretty short cables if they route that efficiently behind the motherboard, good job Silverstone! Are you gonna get some custom cables in the future?

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Yup, the CPU cable is just about perfect length for this. I'll cut and sleeve the cables at some point, not sure when.

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All aboard!  :P

 

 

 

I know I'm always excited to see a custom case design come to fruition.

 

 

 

$480 design/engineering services

$70 setup fee

$2048.52 manufacturing for one unit

 

Total: $2598.52

 

The look on people's faces when I tell them my rig is half the size of their Prodigy but twice as powerful: Priceless  :D

Wow that is a lot of money 8O.

Does not look like i will be doing anything like this any time soon even if this got me so hyped and i have always wanted to design a case from the ground up.

Kind of know the feeling though had a silverstone tj08-e with two gtx780 grapics cards in sli with a 4670k cpu all watercooled by a 180x45mm radiator and a 120x60mm radiator and at lan parties people never expected it to be so powerfull though it is 74mm higher, 40mm wider and 52mm deeper than yours =P.

Though it did actually ran cold (always below 65°c even in games) and did not make a lot of noise.

+The tj08-e costs like 120$ or something like that but i guess that is the price one have to pay to get exactly what one wants ;P

Also building in your case seems kind of nice and easy while building the system i had was a pain in the ars because it was difficult to fit your hands in there to get the fittings on and stuff.

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Does not look like i will be doing anything like this any time soon even if this got me so hyped and i have always wanted to design a case from the ground up.

Kind of know the feeling though had a silverstone tj08-e with two gtx780 grapics cards in sli with a 4670k cpu all watercooled by a 180x45mm radiator and a 120x60mm radiator and at lan parties people never expected it to be so powerfull though it is 74mm higher, 40mm wider and 52mm deeper than yours =P.

Though it did actually ran cold (always below 65°c even in games) and did not make a lot of noise.

+The tj08-e costs like 120$ or something like that but i guess that is the price one have to pay to get exactly what one wants ;P

 

That build sounds really interesting, do you have any pictures?

 

The TJ08 is pretty good for what it is (ATX power supply, multiple 5.5" and 3.5" bays - essentially a shrunk-down full size tower), and the build quality is decent, but it's ~80% larger by volume compared to Nova. Though, you needed that room to fit those radiators, to be sure! That's a heck of a lot of cooling for that box.

 

We're actually hopeful that a 240mm radiator will fit on the bottom of Nova, but we have to get our hands on one or two rads to confirm that, so we can't (and certainly aren't) promising anything. Plus, even if it does work, you'd still have to stick with a thin radiator if you had two graphics cards that populated the first three slots -- though, coupled with a 120/140mm radiator on the side panel, it should be enough cooling for 600W of parts.

 

Further, finding a place for a pump and reservoir would be challenging, since Nova isn't expressly buit to support robust watercooling (as that would add considerable volume). You'd likely want to use a CPU waterblock with an integrated pump and/or a radiator with an integrated reservoir, or perhaps an expandable AIO kit like Cooler Master's Glacer 240l.

 

But, you know, just imagine: A 6 or 8 core processor, and dual graphics, all watercooled, in a 17L case.

 

Also building in your case seems kind of nice and easy while building the system i had was a pain in the ars because it was difficult to fit your hands in there to get the fittings on and stuff.

 

The hinged side bracket contributes enormously to this, as it's perfect for AIOs. The PSU location, too, helps, as it keeps cable runs short and relatively neat.

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That build sounds really interesting, do you have any pictures?

 

The TJ08 is pretty good for what it is (ATX power supply, multiple 5.5" and 3.5" bays - essentially a shrunk-down full size tower), and the build quality is decent, but it's ~80% larger by volume compared to Nova. Though, you needed that room to fit those radiators, to be sure! That's a heck of a lot of cooling for that box.

 

We're actually hopeful that a 240mm radiator will fit on the bottom of Nova, but we have to get our hands on one or two rads to confirm that, so we can't (and certainly aren't) promising anything. Plus, even if it does work, you'd still have to stick with a thin radiator if you had two graphics cards that populated the first three slots -- though, coupled with a 120/140mm radiator on the side panel, it should be enough cooling for 600W of parts.

 

Further, finding a place for a pump and reservoir would be challenging, since Nova isn't expressly buit to support robust watercooling (as that would add considerable volume). You'd likely want to use a CPU waterblock with an integrated pump and/or a radiator with an integrated reservoir, or perhaps an expandable AIO kit like Cooler Master's Glacer 240l.

 

But, you know, just imagine: A 6 or 8 core processor, and dual graphics, all watercooled, in a 17L case.

 

 

The hinged side bracket contributes enormously to this, as it's perfect for AIOs. The PSU location, too, helps, as it keeps cable runs short and relatively neat.

 

Well thanks it actually was but it is scrapped now and was actually never finnished because of issues and plans changing but i am about to pic a new case up tomorrow and after that i will just have to order a few more water cooling stuff that will fit better in the new build but then i will be posting a build log including the tj08-e part of it.

I just do not personaly like build logs where it takes forever for them to be completed because you just forget about them+commenters will make it so that for someone to view the whole thing they will need to scroll so far so i just have not posted anything yet but here is a sneak peak

post-6077-0-05734700-1420567380_thumb.jp

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This build is bonkers! 

I had no idea you could order a custom one off case like that. I'm going to have to make use of that service! 

 

Thanks for sharing, and well done sir! 

 You should seriously consider ordering a small batch and selling a limited run of these. I bet you could easily sell a bunch of these. 

Core i7-2600k @ 4.65Ghz - Asus Maximus IV Gene Z - 2x4GB Corsair Vengeance LP Cerilian Blue - Samsung EVO 840 250GB - Seagate Barracuda 7200 1TB - 2x EVGA Geforce GTX 760 SC - Corsair AX850, custom sleaved and length - Silverstone Sugo heavily modified - Full loop with EK blocks and 360 rad, frozenq res. 

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This build is bonkers! 

I had no idea you could order a custom one off case like that. I'm going to have to make use of that service! 

 

Thanks for sharing, and well done sir! 

 You should seriously consider ordering a small batch and selling a limited run of these. I bet you could easily sell a bunch of these. 

 

A great idea! In fact, it's such a good idea that...

Yes, the intention is to use this first generation prototype to iterate on the design, and eventually run a crowdfunding campaign to do a production run.

The long answer: Google "Kimera Industries" and read more on the website!

 

 

You can check out all the current specifications of Nova, read up on our work so far, see lots of extra photos, and sign up for our newsletter on our website (which we'll use to share news on Nova) :)

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Hey everyone, a quick update and appeal for your thoughts: Aiboh is continuing to do testing on the case, but a topic that's come up on other forums (and has been of particular interest to us more recently) is that of possibly supporting dual 3.5" hard drives via a simple bracket/cage, which would be mounted to the bottom of Nova in the front or back of the case.

 

Since we don't want to chase after features that nobody is interested in, Aiboh made a straw poll to collect feedback from the community with regards to what configuration people would want if they had Nova: No HDD (retaining all five PCI slots), 1 HDD (retaining the motherboard's four PCI slots), or 2 HDD (retaining the motherboard's top three PCI slots). You can see the results of the straw poll, and toss your own opinion in, here: http://strawpoll.me/3313664

 

For the sake of experimentation and illustration, Aiboh used the NCASE M1's hard drive cage to see what a 2 HDD configuration could look like:

 

sOe5dnq.jpgQdsZ3LX.jpg

 

We'll also eventually explore the effect on thermal performance with the drives in place, if the feature has enough interest.

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Can you tell me what the estimate price will be?

I want this way more than a NCASE m1!

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Can you tell me what the estimate price will be?

I want this way more than a NCASE m1!

We're working on contacting manufacturers to get estimates for a production run, but we'd expect a price that's higher than the M1 ($185) and lower than the Compact Splash ($280) - both of which are ITX SFF cases.

Note that pricing will also depend on intended design changes and (especially) how many people want to purchase one.

minds will be blown when people realize that a x99 system + 980 in sli can be run with a 600Watt PSU.

In testing, with everything maxed out, the entire system drew a little over 500W, so you actually have room to spare on a 600W power supply. Maxwell's efficiency helps enormously here, but in general I think most people tend to overestimate power consumption.

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How much temp difference are you seeing between the air and water cooling? 

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How much temp difference are you seeing between the air and water cooling?

Aiboh hasn't recorded any hard data on this yet (via controlled methods), but he mentioned anecdotally on HF that it looked to be a 10C improvement when playing BF4, compared to the Noctua NH-C12.
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