Electronics > Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff

Building a compact (full) ATX case

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Renate:

--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on August 16, 2020, 12:59:49 pm ---How difficult was it to get the foil panel rectangular hole placed exactly right?
--- End quote ---
It was pretty easy.
The MB was already mounted, I figured out roughly where the hole would be.
I cut it out just enough to clear all the connectors.
Then I placed the back cover in position temporarily and laid the connector panel over that (on the outside).
I lined it up so that each connector was centered exactly in its own hole, then outlined it with a Sharpie (fine marker).
I then offset those lines 0.1" inside and filed it flat. (Actually, just measured 1.75" centered between the two lines.)
I feel that this worked out a lot better than trying to measure things.

Renate:
I'll just add that I hate those stupid screws.
You know the ones that I mean, those plastic threading screws with small heads that they use on fans.
If you want/need to use normal machine screws (in imperial) 8-32 is the size of the hole, but the normal flat/oval head at 0.306" is too big for the countersink.
Does anyone know a source for machine screws with tiny head size (without dropping down to 6-32 or 4-40 or something).

Nominal Animal:

--- Quote from: Renate on August 16, 2020, 07:02:03 pm ---You know the ones that I mean, those plastic threading screws with small heads that they use on fans.
--- End quote ---
No :-[ as I use rubber stakes and rubber grommets for fans and housing wherever I can, and other than the two imperial standard chassis screw sizes, metric screws (because they're all I can get locally.) I don't even know the exact imperial sizes, as I just had a habit of buying them in replacement sets when found a good set on sale, and keeping the extra ones after building a machine, and now have enough probably for two or three enclosures...)

(Also, I still have a few, uhm, "experimental" fan mods around.  One of them has all the flanges cut off, so I could glue it to a cylindrical hole in a foam block.  Turns out the foam I had was idunnowhatplastic, smelling awful when trying to cut with a hot wire, and dulled my scalpels faster than anything else.  Meaning, I'm fond of modifying parts that don't seem to fit well, until they either fit well, or I need a new part.)

Renate:
Let's all get horizontal! (and no silly L tail).

Renate:
Well, all done.
The left front 120 mm bezel/filter is a fan, the other is the CPU stack.

Of course if I had had a complete concept when I first started it would have turned out better, but, hey.
I had considered making this just a prototype, but it's good enough for my taste.
If I had had access to a sheet metal shear and brake (and thicker aluminum) I could have made this much better and not have to use angle for every joint.
I do love the concept of the layout but I would knock 1/2" off the height and an inch or two off the depth.

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