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Loading ...Case Cooling and Acrylic Optical and HHD Caddy
syrillian
Drilling holes in acrylic can be tricky if one does not use the acrylic-specific bits. Standard bits will get the job done, but chipping on the entrance, and cracking on the exit of the hole is common. To assist in drilling holes that are chip, and crack-free I use a small drilling block that I made from a raw stair-tread. As you can see… my aim is terrible…
When I drill holes for mounting components, I generally use the component itself (or one that is exactly the same) as a template. I also use an angle to ensure that the fan will be aligned correctly with the panel that it is mounting to.
Here are the fans and the filters (I use the term “filter” loosely) that I will use on this project. I am a hibitual cleaner of my cases, each week the entire crew gets a dust-off/out. That being the case, I am not too worried about filters, I am more concerned about airflow. These filters strike a nice balance between restriction and filtering.
Installed:
Running with the lights out:
As you can see the lighting in this case will be minimal.
Drive caddy:
This can be one of the trickier portions of custom building, especially when working without plans. The very first thing that I do is to determine which corners on the panels that I am going to use are indeed 90-degrees. I mark these with a box so that when I am handling and turning the piece over and around, I do not lose track of which of the corners is the leading corner (facing front, and on the bottom).
Using the angle and a steel ruler I mark the lines that need to be cut:
There are any number of ways to mount the drive caddy so that it is removable. In this instance I went with the simplest one: sliding on rails. I use “J-rod”. Often-times I will use a set of T-nuts and matching (threaded) thumbscrews to secure the caddies.
For what it is worth, I acknowledge that this is somewhat of a low-brow solution, but it is simple and straightforward; a good way to start.
This holds the drive caddy in place, and when combined with some hardware the caddy can be fully locked into place.
When I flying by the seat of my pants, I build around the components; but I ensure that the components can be swapped or replaced without having to break any part of the case. In this situation the HDD cooler becomes the mainstay of the two vertical panels that will ride on the rails.
First off I needed to do a little mod to the Zalman HDD cooler. The HDD is going to sit outside of the airflow inside the case; I was concerned about heat. In the end I decided to use an old fan that I pulled off of a CPU cooler.
That should do the trick.
Again, I use the component itself to measure out and verify the mounting holes to be drilled.
The caddy is a simple affair that mounts the HDD vertically, and the optical drive in its normal horizontal position. Both drives are mounted using the stock mounting holes, and some black allen-head bolts that have the same thread size and pitch.
For anti-vibration, I use rubber washers on the drives themselves, and I use dense self-adhesive foam for the bottom of the cage panels.
Again, very basic in design with no room for upgrades such as added internal storage space…lol.
Dense foam for the panels that comprise the walls of the caddy.
Rubber washers for the drives
And to control the fans:
Since I generally do not twiddle too much with the fan controls once I have the systems performance to my expectations, I decided to keep this simple and install the controller on the inside wall with some generic aluminium stand-offs.
Thanks for reading, and next/last post will be in a few days time.
Looks good, where did you get those fan filters from??
Greetings, Viper.
If memory serves I purchased thoes from MNPC Tech…..
Thanks for taking a peek……
