Custom Carbon Fiber Case - Micro ATX Workstation

[kickthedonkey]

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
 

[KenTees]

Looks amazing!

 

It's much more elegant compared to a tower, imo. The pictures don't seem to do it justice.

[kickthedonkey]

Thanks mate!!
I think I put this into the wrong thread...  I'll move it to the build logs area

[TWZ Walker]

Wow this looks smooth. Great job.