Mobo's and Motherboard Plates

[modaholic]

Does anyone have any reccomended styles, materials, or tools for making mobos and or motherboard plates?

[The boy 4rm oz]

I assume your talking about the panel the motherboard sits on? You can basically screw the motherboard onto anything. Most commonly used materials are sheet metal (aluminium), acrylic (plexi whatever you want to call it) and thin woods (MDF, plywood). As long as the mother board sits on the copper or plastic risers it should be fine. If you are making the tray from scratch I know there is a database on the net somewhere which has print out ATX mobo hole patterns which you can use as a template while drilling.

Hope that helped.

EDIT: Oops, I miss read your actual question. I have no idea how to make a mobo. It can be done though, a worklog on this forum some time back included a home made mobo.

[modaholic]

I assume your talking about the panel the motherboard sits on? You can basically screw the motherboard onto anything. Most commonly used materials are sheet metal (aluminium), acrylic (plexi whatever you want to call it) and thin woods (MDF, plywood). As long as the mother board sits on the copper or plastic risers it should be fine. If you are making the tray from scratch I know there is a database on the net somewhere which has print out ATX mobo hole patterns which you can use as a template while drilling.

Hope that helped.

EDIT: Oops, I miss read your actual question. I have no idea how to make a mobo. It can be done though, a worklog on this forum some time back included a home made mobo.

cool ^_^, thanks for your help. Yeah, I call the plate a Mobo. I don't abbreviate motherboard.

[rendermandan]

Um, why did you make this a poll?

[modaholic]

Um, why did you make this a poll?

one, I thought it would be good to ask ^_^. Reason two, I like polls xD

[The boy 4rm oz]

No worries, glad I could help.

[crazybillybob]

For Specs and Drawings of motherboard mounting hole you can go here Form Factors . ORG (http://www.formfactors.org/formfactor.asp)
They have info on Motherboards, PSU's, and other parts.
For the spec for just the ATX motherboard download the spec PDF here (http://www.formfactors.org/developer%5Cspecs%5Catx2_2.pdf) Check pages 10-12 for hole layout.

Now Remember that These will show you the places that A Motherboard may use as mounting holes. Not every motherboard uses all the holes, and some manufactures use some of the holes marked for other board types as well (like on an over sizes ATX they may also use the hole for a Mini ATX, to give it more support in places).
You can Mark and drill them all and your board is going to fit... but I'd mark just the one's you need for a given board.

Also I'll give you this helpful advice (It was hard for me to find!!) Motherboard mounting posts (the little brass ones) are a #6-32 (in usa) (ok if you don't know the first # is the size of the screw in this case a 6 the second # is the thread pitch number of turns per inch in this case 32.) This is also the same screw sized used to mount HDD :) .



As for what to make the motherboard tray out of?
You can make it out of well anything, I've seen wood, Steel, Aluminum, Plastics (Acrylic, Lexan, PVC, Polystyrene,etc) cardboard, heck anything that's ridged can be used. You want to give some thought to how much your going to move the rig, weight of CPU Cooler, etc. I put a mother board on some 1/16" aluminum Thought it would be fine... but my rig moved allot (ok it was motorized and we liked to Drive it around) and the vibrations cracked the motherboard tray 2.0 was made out of 16 Gauge Aluminum (thicker then 1/8") and was a box (it makes the tray more ridged) no more cracking motherboard :)

To make the tray best tools are a Drill (or Drill press),marker, a center punch (for marking the holes this makes the drill bit "walk" less so the holes stay where you want them), a 6-32 tap and tap handle, a variable speed Jig saw or scroll saw to cut out the shape of the plate from your chosen material.


Now that you've waded through my monster post I hope it helped and that you'll be able to use some of this in your mod.... Good Luck!

CrazyBillyBob