Building a custom PC cupboard? Enclosure?

[Thilina247]

So I opened up my PC case & what I saw in the inside absolutely disgusted me, so much dust. I am from a "developing" country and I live next to a main road, my house isn't air conditioned so the the dust can't be helped but this gave me a thought.

I've seen how lots of people in the PC community has closed off their PC in a closet or something similar in pursuit of absolute silence, I was thinking of doing the same thing but to combat my dust problem.

what I thought was to build, simply put a wooden box... that matches my table and have it completely sealed off except for spaces for 4 fans (2 for air intake 2 for blowout) with some meshed dust filters covering them.

but this has given me a few problems

1. How to turn on the computer with a button
- due to random power outages in my country 'sleep' is not a good option
- I would also love to incorporate something like THIS, Feeling like a fighter pilot XD

2. USB connectivity
- I was thinking of getting a 1 : 4 usb hub, but most of the hubs I've seen don't have a cable long enough. My idea is to have the usb ports facing the front of the desk/cupboard and and case's front usb 3.0 ports are shot (from what I assume is also dust damage)
- I have a Asus Strix Z270F MB and all the usb ports in the back are taken up by my peripherals, but it does have a usb C port back there and a hub with a long usb C cable would be ideal.

3. Charging my phone
- When I make this thing it will cover up the only outlet that lets me keep the phone on my table while it's charging and after I move my PC into it the PC's power cable will take that outlet anyway.
- Now I realise a simple multi-plug would easily solve this problem and I'd only have to find a way to get a cable out of the cupboard without compromising the dust proofing, but since my phone has wireless charging I wanted to go for broke and incorporate a wireless charging pad onto the top of this cupboard (what are humans if not ambitious eh? 😀)

Full disclosure: this is the first time I've tried something like this and I'm only a college kid so I have no experience in this matter. So for anyone out there who bothered to read this far into the bottom of this post from a nobody from nowhere, your input would mean a huge deal to me

(Fun fact : You can eat all 3 meals for a day for $5 in my country, so there's that 😛)

So singular Items costing over $50 wouldn't be the best, I'm hoping to do the entire project for at least under $100, $150 at the most.

 

[Ztdutxjgxgtu]

You really have to think and design before hand.
All you need is cable extensions, usb, power botton etc. And cable managment
For a closed area, you also need to consider cooling.

I would rather build a pc in open case or test bench setup, add a net or dust filter on each fan, dust cleaning is very easy this way

 

[smorizio]

what you want to do is make a air box stand. can be platics or wood. this is air to be pulled into your power supply on the bottom of the case. in the airbox stand set it up for removable or disposable air filter. you have outside air pulled into a airbox throught a dust filter that catch dirt. then on bottom of the case where the power supply is use some high end filters. ones thta can be washed. pick up two sets. one can be drying as the other on the power supply. the fans on top of the case have them blow out. as long as you change the filters you should be able to keep the dust out. think of car cabin air fliter.

 

[Thilina247]

You really have to think and design before hand.
All you need is cable extensions, usb, power botton etc. And cable managment
For a closed area, you also need to consider cooling.

I would rather build a pc in open case or test bench setup, add a net or dust filter on each fan, dust cleaning is very easy this way

Yea I agree this would be easier when just addressing dust but I'm also a bit of a setup geek and I want everything to look a certain way as well, I've set up my entire room as sorta ROG themed with red and black walls and I'm getting a back-lit ROG logo shipped that's gonna go up as a wall deco, So as your solution is definitely the most practical it isn't what I'm looking for, I certainly have thought about the design maybe I could add 6 fans instead of 4 just to be extra safe. Thank you for taking the time to reply though I appreciate it 😀

 

[Thilina247]

what you want to do is make a air box stand. can be platics or wood. this is air to be pulled into your power supply on the bottom of the case. in the airbox stand set it up for removable or disposable air filter. you have outside air pulled into a airbox throught a dust filter that catch dirt. then on bottom of the case where the power supply is use some high end filters. ones thta can be washed. pick up two sets. one can be drying as the other on the power supply. the fans on top of the case have them blow out. as long as you change the filters you should be able to keep the dust out. think of car cabin air fliter.

Like I said I'm a relative newbie at this and to be honest what you're saying isn't exactly clear to me but I do have a friend who has more experience than me and I will ask him to give me a visual representation of what this will look like. I sort of visualise my carpentry projects and go from there, I'm not so good at turning words into visuals. Thank you so much for the reply, It definitely helps 😀