Ammo Can PC

Raawmeat · October 2, 2021

Hello

So a little bit of background to how the project started.
I have always wanted to modify a Ammo can to be able to hold an "okay" gaming PC.
Which I had some problems doing in the past as I couldn't find a can that was big/small enough.
Also I didn't want too big holes for cooling that is way too visible, but wanted to hide it as good as possible.
So it had to be a few ATX builds before i stumbled across a site while I was looking for a more rugged backpack that aslo sold a lot of diffterent used Ammo cans.
So of pure intrest i started to look for one that might fit a PC inside without being too big.
Then I managed to find one with outer dimensions 30 x 22 x 18.5cm. I started then to take some diffrent measurments of SFF components to see if it was even possible, which to my suprise seemed to work with some really small marginals.

So I orded a can to be able to see the inner dimensions and started to be worried as the few millimeters I had over dissapeard fast and was left with something I didn't know if it would fit or not. But I wasn't ready to give up or order components worth 2-3k $ that might not fit.

So I bought a used SFF PC for less than 200USD which I could spare and use as a HTPC in worst cas just to make sure the parts would fit.

To my suprise the motherboard just bearly fit with a small modification to the IO shield.
So I stripped the whole floor of the can and glued (temporary) a honeycomb mesh for minimal airflow interference. And took a donor case and cut out the stand offs for the motherboard and glued in place. Also cut out a big hole in the mesh to be able to access the CPU cooler mounting.

After that I started marking up all the sides for cutting so I could get enough cooling for both GPU and CPU and also for the GPU to be able to fit and the power cable and some front USBs and a start button.
In the mean time I got my new PVC mesh that i was gonna use to "hide" the holes and use as a dust filter so smcashed on son feet to the case and started cutting out the mesh for the bottom.

Then it was time to cut the sides and grind the edges smooth and the weld the meshes in place so there is no possibility for one to get loose and short something.

Then it was time for cutting all PVC mesh for the sides as I said earlier I didn't want any big hole visible and works great as dust filters.

After some grinding it was directly to the paint booth to paint the case then the mesh, also choose to keep the Original table of conduct on the side to make it more authentic and the got a idea (is lower down) and started tested to see if the products still would fit. Also got a new cooler for the CPU and a power supply before I started to spend the big $ on the rest.

As I said, it aint much room to spare around the motherboard or between the motherboard and PSU.

So at this stage I had to start looking for what type of GPU I could even fit into this as the inner length would be exact 300mm and I still have to get it in place and the height clearence wasn't much either as I knew I wanted 2 Noctua fans to in front to not loose on preformance.

So was looking some and managed to find the Asus RTX 3080 TUF that should be 299mm in length and bearly be able to fit height wise. So now the issue was trying to find one at a reasonable price as to this summer the prices was all over the place.
At last I managed to find a PC with and 3080TUF and a Ryzen 5600X at a deacent price.

During this time I have also gotten som things 3d printed as a bracket to hold the Cooler and PSU in place with some goodies which i would like to thank kiim over at sweclockers .
Also at the last project he helped me to print a M18 smoke grenade in Violet to match the table of contents and to make it a bit more useful I put a Xbox 360 controller reciever into ti.

Specs:

Motherboard: Gigabyte B550I AORUS PRO AX WIFI
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5600x
RAM: G.Skill 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3600MHz CL16 Trident Z Neo C
SSD: 512gb Samsung evo 970 m2 ssd + 2tb sabrent m2 ssd
GPU: Asus RTX 3080 TUF
PSU: Corsair SFX series SF750W Platinum
Cooling: Corsair iCUE H100i RGB PRO XT

October 2, 2021

36 minutes ago, Raawmeat said:

Hello

So a little bit of background to how the project started.
I have always wanted to modify a Ammo can to be able to hold an "okay" gaming PC.
Which I had some problems doing in the past as I couldn't find a can that was big/small enough.
Also I didn't want too big holes for cooling that is way too visible, but wanted to hide it as good as possible.
So it had to be a few ATX builds before i stumbled across a site while I was looking for a more rugged backpack that aslo sold a lot of diffterent used Ammo cans.
So of pure intrest i started to look for one that might fit a PC inside without being too big.
Then I managed to find one with outer dimensions 30 x 22 x 18.5cm. I started then to take some diffrent measurments of SFF components to see if it was even possible, which to my suprise seemed to work with some really small marginals.

So I orded a can to be able to see the inner dimensions and started to be worried as the few millimeters I had over dissapeard fast and was left with something I didn't know if it would fit or not. But I wasn't ready to give up or order components worth 2-3k $ that might not fit.

So I bought a used SFF PC for less than 200USD which I could spare and use as a HTPC in worst cas just to make sure the parts would fit.

To my suprise the motherboard just bearly fit with a small modification to the IO shield.
So I stripped the whole floor of the can and glued (temporary) a honeycomb mesh for minimal airflow interference. And took a donor case and cut out the stand offs for the motherboard and glued in place. Also cut out a big hole in the mesh to be able to access the CPU cooler mounting.

After that I started marking up all the sides for cutting so I could get enough cooling for both GPU and CPU and also for the GPU to be able to fit and the power cable and some front USBs and a start button.
In the mean time I got my new PVC mesh that i was gonna use to "hide" the holes and use as a dust filter so smcashed on son feet to the case and started cutting out the mesh for the bottom.

Then it was time to cut the sides and grind the edges smooth and the weld the meshes in place so there is no possibility for one to get loose and short something.

Then it was time for cutting all PVC mesh for the sides as I said earlier I didn't want any big hole visible and works great as dust filters.

After some grinding it was directly to the paint booth to paint the case then the mesh, also choose to keep the Original table of conduct on the side to make it more authentic and the got a idea (is lower down) and started tested to see if the products still would fit. Also got a new cooler for the CPU and a power supply before I started to spend the big $ on the rest.

As I said, it aint much room to spare around the motherboard or between the motherboard and PSU.

So at this stage I had to start looking for what type of GPU I could even fit into this as the inner length would be exact 300mm and I still have to get it in place and the height clearence wasn't much either as I knew I wanted 2 Noctua fans to in front to not loose on preformance.

So was looking some and managed to find the Asus RTX 3080 TUF that should be 299mm in length and bearly be able to fit height wise. So now the issue was trying to find one at a reasonable price as to this summer the prices was all over the place.
At last I managed to find a PC with and 3080TUF and a Ryzen 5600X at a deacent price.

During this time I have also gotten som things 3d printed as a bracket to hold the Cooler and PSU in place with some goodies which i would like to thank kiim over at sweclockers .
Also at the last project he helped me to print a M18 smoke grenade in Violet to match the table of contents and to make it a bit more useful I put a Xbox 360 controller reciever into ti.

Specs:

Motherboard: Gigabyte B550I AORUS PRO AX WIFI
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5600x
RAM: G.Skill 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3600MHz CL16 Trident Z Neo C
SSD: 512gb Samsung evo 970 m2 ssd + 2tb sabrent m2 ssd
GPU: Asus RTX 3080 TUF
PSU: Corsair SFX series SF750W Platinum
Cooling: Corsair iCUE H100i RGB PRO XT