Walkthrough Wooden mATX case project

[CRITICALThinker]

Recently started a thread asking for advice on a project I have had in mind for a while, and since i'm in the middle of waiting for glue to dry for it, I figured i'd start a project thread of sorts.

I finally finished modelling the case in sketchup (after using some references from the warehouse) that took into account a lot of advice from other users. It ended up having an external volume of 21.5 L (14x7.5x12.5)

I then grabbed two sheets of 1/2 inch scrap plywood that juuust managed to fit all the pieces of the frame onto it (1 shown)

Once the pieces were all cut out with a table saw, a dry fit looked promising

After gluing and nailing the case together sans the top, I measured out where the I/O and GPU fit in, and cut them out with a jigsaw. A rasp was used to widen the I/O plate hole until it fit and that too was glued in place. A fan was used to trace the holes out for that and they too fell to the jigsaw. The PSU cutout was fun to trace but not everything ends up being simple.

Started mounting my hardware, an e5-2630 V2 on a very chinese motherboard that I couldn't bios mod the overclocking options back into, and a GTX 950. the 16gb kit of ram was left over from before I upgraded my PC, and the RM 650 was from an RMA that I replaced while waiting for the replacement to ship in since the power supply I wanted to use was stuck in another build (OCZ modxstream 600W). Overall the tech parts have a current value of around ~250 USD from aliexpress and the used market. (not including spare 120mm fans). For those wondering the motherboard tray is from an old HP prebuilt.

Some minor issues with the design so far:

• Due to tolerances, the motherboard cannot come out without removing the power supply, and I am unsure if a properly sized mATX board would fit in the current config. Depends on PSU mounting(i'll get back to this)
• Because of where the board is mounted in the case, and the motherboard layout, it is extremely hard to plug anything at the bottom of the board in. Another 1/2 inch would have made a difference here.
• Due to the cutout for the GPU being sized as it is, the GPU has to be installed and removed with the motherboard
• The power supply design makes it so that I cannot have the fan pointed inwards, and since I wasn't anticipating this, I didn't model in a 1/2 inch there between the fan for the connectors, so I will have to flip it.
• Cable management is going to be hella fun

I should finish painting this and mounting the PSU tomorrow if all goes well (need to leave the nest to go find paint of some sort) I didn't want to make more holes in the case but the PSU fan might turn on at some point (who knows with less than a 50% load)

 

[kanewolf]

You may want some vibration damping materials on the inside of the wooden panels to ensure they aren't resonant. Dynamat is a common sound deadening material used in automotive.

 

[Karadjgne]

It's dry plywood. So unless you spend an excessive amount of time in sanding and prepping, when you apply the paint, it's going to look like cheap junk. I'd suggest 2 things. Either use a textured paint like Flex Stone, which is very good at hiding imperfections or stain/polyurethane the case and keep it looking like furniture. You'd just need to make any cuts look like factory, not a garage jigsaw cut.

The only potential issues I see is with the gpu and airflow . It's very tight on the board, there's not much room at all for air intake there, so gpu temps could be an issue. Most cases have a hundred places air can leak/enter from, your wooden box has 0. So it's natural inclination to be an oven is high, putting a premium on airflow. A single 120mm intake may not be enough to cover the exhausts from both gpu and cpu.

 

[CRITICALThinker]

Update: I have mounted the power supply, and cable management is currently worse than I could have ever thought.

I do plan on adding another intake in front of the other bottom intake on the side panel when I make that. After I finish the case I will use screen door screen for dust filters (it won't stop it all but something is better than nothing) in plastic frames. Temperatures never hit 60 on the 950 when running firestrike, time spy and superposition back to back. The ACX cooler is way overbuilt for that card. The 212 evo is also far too much for the 2630, as I haven't seen it pass 45 in any of the 3dmark tests. I will stress test it at some point but I have to fight with cables before I get there.

As for finishing, I had planned to use a high durability spray paint, but stain and polyurethane is definitely an option. If that is the case I will just clear coat the inside. If aesthetics were the biggest factor for the project, I probably would have designed it for an SFX power supply to give more room for the cables (they also tend to have shorter cables.

Not sure about the sound dampening material, hoping to find a decent polycarbonate piece for the open side panel, I couldn't hear anything off when I used it for a bit the other day before mounting the PSU.