LS3 - The 6.2L Mini ITX Gaming Machine

[byalexandr]

2 hours ago, mr.squishy said:

I was thinking something stylized, maybe something along these lines, but more subtle:

I'll have something coming

[Bananasplit_00]

12 hours ago, mr.squishy said:

I was thinking something stylized, maybe something along these lines, but more subtle:

i was more thinking that but diagonals but something like that would look awesome with some red mesh

[byalexandr]

4 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

i was more thinking that but diagonals but something like that would look awesome with some red mesh

I'll give you guys a hint

 

Diagonal slots (rounded of course), with the metal being red and the mesh being a semi gloss black.

[derick90]

1 hour ago, byalexandr said:

I'll give you guys a hint

 

Diagonal slots (rounded of course), with the metal being red and the mesh being a semi gloss black.

Why not flip that color scheme, have that red glaring through the slots =]

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, derick90 said:

Why not flip that color scheme, have that red glaring through the slots =]

I do like me some hidden accents. 

[Bananasplit_00]

2 hours ago, byalexandr said:

I'll give you guys a hint

 

Diagonal slots (rounded of course), with the metal being red and the mesh being a semi gloss black.

id prefer fliped that but if thats what you are doing that would look pretty awesome too, do as you like it because its your case

[byalexandr]

41 minutes ago, derick90 said:

Why not flip that color scheme, have that red glaring through the slots =]

I'm liking that idea...

 

36 minutes ago, bear-in-the-air said:

I do like me some hidden accents. 

 

19 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

id prefer fliped that but if thats what you are doing that would look pretty awesome too, do as you like it because its your case

Message received

[byalexandr]

 

Update!

 

It's been a while but I finally had some time to do some work on the exterior. I ended up deciding to sort of sticking to the original exterior design (just a bit different), which I know some of you will enjoy

 

Anyhow, I got stuck at a part because I was out of epoxy glue, but for now this is how it looks:

 

 

Still needs to be finished and cleaned up and what not, but it's getting there (no idea why the right rear is distorted like that in the photo btw, it's not like that IRL). I thought I'd just update you guys since it's been a couple weeks or so.

 

And to add to this, I also made a drive bracket that sits in between the GPU and PSU, looks pretty sharp:

 

And here it is with the SSD installed:

 

Anyway, that's all for now. I'll try and get some more work done on it as I hate to see it sit there and rust like that...

 

Thanks in advance, @byalexandr

[Kobathor]

Cool looking exterior so far! I'm impressed. 

 

Also, the inside of that chassis looks really busy. I'm guessing that's cause it is. 

[Supercian411]

8 hours ago, byalexandr said:

 

Update!

 

It's been a while but I finally had some time to do some work on the exterior. I ended up deciding to sort of sticking to the original exterior design (just a bit different), which I know some of you will enjoy

 

Anyhow, I got stuck at a part because I was out of epoxy glue, but for now this is how it looks:

 

 

Still needs to be finished and cleaned up and what not, but it's getting there (no idea why the right rear is distorted like that in the photo btw, it's not like that IRL). I thought I'd just update you guys since it's been a couple weeks or so.

 

And to add to this, I also made a drive bracket that sits in between the GPU and PSU, looks pretty sharp:

 

And here it is with the SSD installed:

 

Anyway, that's all for now. I'll try and get some more work done on it as I hate to see it sit there and rust like that...

 

Thanks in advance, @byalexandr

awsome keep up the good work

[AlienALX]

I don't like the top, it looks like a cheese grater

 

Great work though man, loving the rest.

[byalexandr]

13 hours ago, AlienALX said:

I don't like the top, it looks like a cheese grater

 

Great work though man, loving the rest.

Well it needs as much ventilation as possible

 

Remember though, it's not painted yet and that's bare steel. It'll end up a powder coat like finish probably, maybe just black to keep it simple. It's still too far to tell though.

[mr.squishy]

You still need to let the Power supply breathe, otherwise you will kill it.

[byalexandr]

6 hours ago, mr.squishy said:

You still need to let the Power supply breathe, otherwise you will kill it.

It can be flipped around, I just have the fan facing out right now since I don't have the exterior put on.

 

Edit: And there is around 15mm of space between the top of the CPU cooler and the PSU, and with both drawing air in from the same space I made sure to use a relatively good front fan.

[gamingowiz]

23 hours ago, AlienALX said:

I don't like the top, it looks like a cheese grater

 

Great work though man, loving the rest.

A real pretty cheese grater though!

I love DIYs. Looking forward to seeing how it finishes up

[byalexandr]

 

Small update, I went and got some paint at Home Depot today, as well as some epoxy to finish up the exterior. I didn't have enough time to get anything done today, but I figured I would share that the color scheme will be kind of like the original design. That is, semi-gloss black ventilation and matte gray everything else (but the power button and screws are still black as well). So that's that, hopefully you guys will like the color scheme, as it seemed you all enjoyed the original look I had in mind.

 

I'll try and maybe get some stuff done during the week, but it will most definitely get done this coming weekend if anything. I have to study for my SAT and AP tests coming up and all so it's gonna get slow, although luckily it's nearing completion. That's all for now, leave your thoughts if you have any. Thanks, @byalexandr

[blnswamy]

thats a awesome build .. nice custom case

[byalexandr]

2 minutes ago, blnswamy said:

thats a awesome build .. nice custom case

Thank you!

 

[Bananasplit_00]

thank you for not doing the red thing, i really didnt like that, red and black is way over done anyway

[byalexandr]

18 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

thank you for not doing the red thing, i really didnt like that, red and black is way over done anyway

I wasn't feeling it either I think this color scheme will look nice.

[byalexandr]

 

Ladies and gentlemen, LS3 is now near completion.

 

 

So uh, I guess I'll start with what I did today. First I painted the mesh a semi gloss black, and the 'shell' a satin granite gray:

 

Then I glued in the front mesh using epoxy, which will hold it quite well for a long long time (excuse the blurry photo here):

 

 

And in this photo I showed how the exterior is basically a cover over the frame:

 

 

The top mesh is held in through two screws in the rear that attach to the frame, and a friction fit with the rest of the shell in the front (which holds very well, you can't pull the front part of the mesh out with your fingers or anything, I did it this way to minimize the amount of screws you can see, or at least in the right places).

 

And here you can see that is just slides on and screws into place. The screws aren't really even necessary, I had such tight tolerances that it hold on it's own, but the screws keep it in place:

 

 

And that's it for the exterior I suppose. Looks pretty good to me, let me know what you think.

 

And! If you're worried about temperatures, here are my idle temps:

 

The GPU is at 41C because the memory constantly runs at 1400MHz for some reason, I think it has to do with either OneDrive or my dual monitors. But I can assure you it's getting airflow

 

I'll do some testing in various games and record the temps, but that's all for now. Up next on the to do list is:

-Get rid of that horrid looking fan sticker so you don't see a silver disc through the front mesh.

-Work out a better system for the power button, as it's near impossible to plug it in. Something I should have thought of more thoroughly, but something I will fix.

-And get an R9 Nano, but that will be in a couple of months.

 

Oh and I upgraded the i3 4170 to an i5 4570! Yay! No more bottlenecking or anything

 

Thanks in advance, 

 

@byalexandr

[Dark_Fuzzy]

Looks amazing, i still liked the red idea better but this is a close second. You should have some vinyl cut for the side(like a logo or something), i think it would add a little more flare. Maybe a stripe.

[byalexandr]

17 minutes ago, Dark_Fuzzy said:

Looks amazing, i still liked the red idea better but this is a close second. You should have some vinyl cut for the side(like a logo or something), i think it would add a little more flare. Maybe a stripe.

I'm liking the vinyl logo, probably black too, maybe like Sapphire or something.

[byalexandr]

Back with some temperature results!

 

I played BF4 for about a half hour, and once it reached equilibrium I hit PrntScrn.

 

Still very respectable temps, more than fine for me, especially since the machine is still quiet even like this:

 

 

I was surprised that the GPU would struggle a bit more than the CPU, I thought the CPU would be starving for air or something, but I guess the 4570 is a pretty cool running chip. Granted, it was only running at 80% usage, but I have a fan curve set up to start ramping up after 60C. The GPU did it's own thing, and I guess it wanted to stay at 74C so it did, again not very loud at all.

[Dark_Fuzzy]

22 minutes ago, byalexandr said:

I'm liking the vinyl logo, probably black too, maybe like Sapphire or something.

If you have any sponsors it would look nice.