Ammo Can PC

[Ωhmbreon]

More progress has been made and I have gotten standoffs on for the motherboard and hard drive trays. 

 

 

However, there is a big problem:

I cannot find a PCIe extension cable that will fit. I need it to be right angle, but the ones I find, I have to bend around so part of the PCB on the end which the GPU connects to interferes with the side of the case.

 

If anyone could help me find one, that would be great. It has to be 15-20cm.

[MEC-777]

4 minutes ago, Ωhmbreon said:

 

If anyone could help me find one, that would be great. It has to be 15-20cm.

Check "moddiy.com" for PCIe x16 extensions. I've purchased a couple from them in recent years and they are pretty good quality. They have quite a few options and lengths to choose from, so they might have what you need.  

[Ωhmbreon]

4 hours ago, MEC-777 said:

Check "moddiy.com" for PCIe x16 extensions. I've purchased a couple from them in recent years and they are pretty good quality. They have quite a few options and lengths to choose from, so they might have what you need.  

There are some that will fit, but will not work since they have no way to secure themselves to the motherboard or graphics card.

[MEC-777]

1 hour ago, Ωhmbreon said:

There are some that will fit, but will not work since they have no way to secure themselves to the motherboard or graphics card.

You may have to fabricate some way to mount them They usually have slots or holes for screws for mounting, it's just a matter of making something work. 

 

I had to be kind of creative with the extension riser in the SNES build I did a while back. The end that connects to the motherboard doesn't have any clip to hold it in, but it fits snug enough that it won't just fall out. 

 

 

[Ωhmbreon]

Okay, I found a PCIe extension that would work. I have been working on the internal structure more, and the support system for the weakened panel is welder together.

 

I have also received the fans, which can move a considerable amount of air for being so small. (17CFM) they are 50mm. They are pretty loud though.

 

I have also cut out the hole for the GPU and finished the top and bottom brackets. The entire weight of the GPU will be held by the brackets, which may not be the best, but it works.

Two more screws go in the bottom and there's a top mount (not completed at the time the image was taken) with three more screws.

 

All that is left to do is to cut the air channel roof to connect the motherboard and power supply portions and weld it in place. Then cut out the hold for the motherboard I/o and drill holes for the fans. I'll paint the inside black as well, but I'm not sure when.

[GDRRiley]

looks good so far.

[UncleMax]

Should have used a 20 mil can, so much more room for activities lol

[Ωhmbreon]

My, oh my have I been lazy with this build log... but not with the build. It is done! I'll try to go through what I did.

 

I test fitted the internal structure with some of the parts in, and after some adjustments with the motherboard I/O, power supply support/brace thing and part of an air duct, I coated everything black with a nice layer of Plastidip.

 

Then I pretty much fit everything in right away, these are the specs:

CPU: Pentium G4400

Cooler: Stock

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H110N

RAM: 1x8GB Corsair Vengeance 2400MHz

GPU: EVGA GTX 750 Ti SC 2GB

        +163 Core

        +553 Memory

PSU: Apevia SFX Power Series 300W

SSD: Inland Basic Professional 128GB M.2

HDD: Toshiba 500GB 5400RPM

Fans: 3x 50mmx15mm fans i forget the name of that are really loud and spin at 6500RPM

 

 

I was so happy with the result, despite being a bit rough around the edges. I was less happy with the performance, despite expecting it. The bottleneck was the processor, leaving the GPU only 80% utilized, which was surprising. I thought the G4400 would be better. It made me want something more powerful, maybe with four cores instead of just two. I also wanted a blower-style gpu, as that is what the case was designed to use.

 

Cheapness was thrown out the window....

 

I found an RX 570 4GB reference and an i5-6600T. I got the 6600T because I wanted something that used as little power as possible and left a lot for the gpu. I don't really want to test the limits of the power supply more than I am. Looking for a heatsink, I found the Arctic Alpine 12 Passive, which was not what I was looking for, but I decided to give it a try.

 

The graphics card was a huge problem at first. I had to flash the bios since it was refusing to accept the drivers and said it was a "Microsoft Basic Display Adapter" Comically, it also said it was always at 100% load at 0 degrees C, and that the VRM efficiency was 185% while is was using upwards of 15,000,000 watts. Even after flashing the bios, it refused the drivers for quite some time until I went back to 18.7.1 drivers. After that, it refused to run at stock speeds. It was running around 1050MHz instead of 1264. This could be fixed by pushing the power limit to +50%, but it increased power consumption farther than I wanted, 170 watts instead of 120 watts. I settled for +25% power, where it seems to sit around 1150MHz. I also got an easy overclock of +250MHz on the memory, which made up for the losses from the underperforming core.

 

The passive heatsink works reasonably well on the processor at full synthetic load, reading a max temperature of 84 degrees, but it only sits at 50 degrees in games. The GPU is louder than a jet if it gets to 80 degrees due to my fan curve, but sits at 73 normally and the noise is bearable.

 

 

And there we go. The Ammo Can PC. Not the prettiest but it's good enough.

 

It needs a name so I called it Bunker Box.

 

Yea never mind, I and everyone else I know just calls it the Ammo Can.

[GDRRiley]

looks good, great work.

[MEC-777]

Very cool.  Always enjoy seeing different ways of fitting lots of hardware into tiny spaces.   

[Cyberspirit]

Pretty damn good! Nice job.

[Ωhmbreon]

If you guys want more, I'm building a second revision. Same size ammo can but it's gonna have a liquid cooling loop in it and room for a triple slot graphics card.