3D printed computer case

[hhamama66]

I was brainstorming ideas for a custom pc case and was wondering if I could get some feedback on my drawing. A few disclaimers so you folks know what you're looking at. This design is heavily inspired by the Phanteks evolv shift and the Silverstone Fortress 3 both are cases with rotated motherboard IO and expansion slots. The aim of this was to be able to have a mini ITX build with a custom loop in as convenient a form factor as possible without being to impractical to work in. Below will be a screenshot of my drawing.

[HOOTSMON]

Download "Sketch up" where you can do a technical drawing for free and load up PC components to aid in your design. It will help for your own conception and for others to conceive said conception. 

[hhamama66]

27 minutes ago, HOOTSMON said:

Download "Sketch up" where you can do a technical drawing for free and load up PC components to aid in your design. It will help for your own conception and for others to conceive said conception. 

I'm not the biggest fan of Sketch up. I personally prefer using inventor as I'm more familiar with the controls and have used it in high school. Do you know if it's possible to import the same parts into inventor?

[bowrilla]

*.obj files should be compatible with most 3D design software. Maybe it's just me but your sketches don't make any sense to me.

Despite that: printing a whole case while use a lot (!) of material and will therefore be quite expensive. And then there are potential rigidity issues. Seriously – it's not a good idea. You're better off with steel or aluminium – construction wise and cost wise.

[hhamama66]

28 minutes ago, bowrilla said:

*.obj files should be compatible with most 3D design software. Maybe it's just me but your sketches don't make any sense to me.

Despite that: printing a whole case while use a lot (!) of material and will therefore be quite expensive. And then there are potential rigidity issues. Seriously – it's not a good idea. You're better off with steel or aluminium – construction wise and cost wise.

I don't have access to aluminum or steel and having a company make it for me is prohibitively expensive. But as a I mentioned in the sketch, this is just a rough draft of the frame and doesn't take into account any external glass or aluminum panels

[HOOTSMON]

My friend, basically to grab attention you have to up your game. A doodle make s people just leave. Download said app, learn to use it and you will be happy. Its fun seriously. An example and it using limited XP.

[hhamama66]

16 minutes ago, HOOTSMON said:

My friend, basically to grab attention you have to up your game. A doodle make s people just leave. Download said app, learn to use it and you will be happy. Its fun seriously. An example and it using limited XP.

Alright, I'll be patient and give it some time. Not a big fan of the layout though.

[bowrilla]

23 hours ago, hhamama66 said:

I don't have access to aluminum or steel and having a company make it for me is prohibitively expensive.

Don't expect it to be cheaper to print a case that offers some rigidity. Filament isn't cheap and you'll need a lot of it. Go and have a chat with a local small shop. If you're clever and are not using any fancy profiles (no complex bends, keep it simple) or too many cuts that need (expensive) CNC routing you're probably better off with metal. 

But sure, it will come at a price. Don't expect a custom case to be cheap.

You've mentioned 5-10mm thick material. that's a heckload of filament you'll need – not to mention the time it will take. And then there's surface quality so there's quite some work going into it to make it look decent – which means either having quite some Ammonium fumes around (pricey, stinky, hazardous) or a lot of sanding which means you'll need even more material in order to not weaken it. 
 

Have you done some research for boutique small batch cases? They'll probably be cheaper even at their steap prices. Dan Cases A4 SFX? NCase M1? The latter one is designed to support watercooling. You could even go for the Silverstone Raven series. The RVZ01 officially supports custom loops to some extent.

 

If you don't have the tools yourself it will be in the couple of hundres of dollars/euros no matter if it's 3d printed, bend and welded by hand or cnc routed. And don't expect to have your case anytime soon if you really want to nail it. All those boutique cases took months if not years in order to make it to their final version that got manufactured and shipped to backers. There's quite some r&d that goes into those cases even though they might not look like it. Don't expect the first prototype to just turn out the way you wanted it. 

I'm sorry if this is too negative and I'm sorry if you were aware of it all. It's just people often think "heck, I'll just do it myself" and then people are shocked how much time, effort and money their project requires and a lot of people just abandon it. I had those kind of projects myself and nowadays I'm pretty strict on the reality check.

[brob]

Perhaps you can find a simple enclosure of some sort that can be easily modified. If the basic structure is already made, adding various printed parts should be relatively straightforward. Certainly should use less material.

[hhamama66]

4 hours ago, bowrilla said:

Don't expect it to be cheaper to print a case that offers some rigidity. Filament isn't cheap and you'll need a lot of it. Go and have a chat with a local small shop. If you're clever and are not using any fancy profiles (no complex bends, keep it simple) or too many cuts that need (expensive) CNC routing you're probably better off with metal. 

But sure, it will come at a price. Don't expect a custom case to be cheap.

You've mentioned 5-10mm thick material. that's a heckload of filament you'll need – not to mention the time it will take. And then there's surface quality so there's quite some work going into it to make it look decent – which means either having quite some Ammonium fumes around (pricey, stinky, hazardous) or a lot of sanding which means you'll need even more material in order to not weaken it. 
 

Have you done some research for boutique small batch cases? They'll probably be cheaper even at their steap prices. Dan Cases A4 SFX? NCase M1? The latter one is designed to support watercooling. You could even go for the Silverstone Raven series. The RVZ01 officially supports custom loops to some extent.

 

If you don't have the tools yourself it will be in the couple of hundres of dollars/euros no matter if it's 3d printed, bend and welded by hand or cnc routed. And don't expect to have your case anytime soon if you really want to nail it. All those boutique cases took months if not years in order to make it to their final version that got manufactured and shipped to backers. There's quite some r&d that goes into those cases even though they might not look like it. Don't expect the first prototype to just turn out the way you wanted it. 

I'm sorry if this is too negative and I'm sorry if you were aware of it all. It's just people often think "heck, I'll just do it myself" and then people are shocked how much time, effort and money their project requires and a lot of people just abandon it. I had those kind of projects myself and nowadays I'm pretty strict on the reality check.

I'm not angry or upset. Thanks for giving me a reality check. I figured if it was 3D printed I would save some money over going to say Protocase and having them make it out of steel or a comparable metal. What if I made it out of wood instead? Just cut the panels myself and maybe glued and nailed them together? Linus did the same thing with his custom built desk PC and it seemed to hold up pretty nicely. All I'm really trying to make to be honest is a frame to hold everything together. I could probably recycle some parts of the frame from my current rig in order to make a motherboard tray as well. Same goes for external paneling.