Case Idea: Perspex/Acrylic

[-[lnl]-]

Hi everyone,

I've been watching these forums for a couple of days now and was thinking up a case idea... I know it's been done before but this one will be different.

I want to make a custom perspex case for my old PC. (I currently use my laptop for everything)

The case will be around 95mm x 210mm x 300 mm.

The only optical drive it will have is the hard drive as the other drives will be networked from my laptop via the network card.

So... Things going into this case:

- Motherboard (+processor and other obvious things)
- PSU
- Network card
- Hard drive
- LED's for colour

And to finish the case off i was thinking about painting it from the inside to give it that Mac look.

And that's about it... Please comment!

*And have a merry Christmas*

[tybrenis]

Sounds cool. To really give it a mac look, you could get one large piece of acrylic and bend it three ways for the top "shell". Then, add a bottom panel and side panels and your done. If painted properly, acrylic can give a pretty sweet look when painted from the inside. Let us know how it goes, I myself have built an acrylic case and know the challenges etc. so feel free to ask me!

[-[lnl]-]

Thanks for the reply,

Can I ask, How did you fix each panel together?

Like this type of bracket?

Or did you use something else?

Thanks for the help! Its nice to know there are people that can help.

[isunktheship]

Are you sure those are the right dimensions, or is this a laptop mod?

95mm I would assume is the width for the mobo's PCI slots? (This is a little shy, you have to account for the whole size of the card, + mobo + the ffront and back acrylic pieces for the case.)

L * W * H
= 300mm * 90mm * 210mm
= 11.811" * 3.74" * 8.268"

I like to assume. So I will also assume that this is not for an ATX mobo. And that the power supply is... micro? Not sure, lol, just give a little more detail. Your idea is great!

[GT40_GearHead]

Thanks for the reply,

Can I ask, How did you fix each panel together?

Like this type of bracket?

Or did you use something else?

Thanks for the help! Its nice to know there are people that can help.

you could use those, but you may also glue it ,

[tybrenis]

In my mod, I had the side panels completely bent around the bottom frame, and then they were solvent glued down.

I can access my case from the top, and the drive cage has tabs on it that screw down to the bottom. Around the edges of the side panels, I glued small, tapped tabs down. Then, I drilled holes through the top panel. So, you just fasten a bolt through the top panel that screws into the tab below it.

It was pretty simple. However, you can also use acrylic cubes with threaded insert for the corners, they'll hold down three pieces (a bottom and two sides). I was originally going to use these, but in the end decided I didn't need them ion my design. I still have a big bag of them that I bought if you want some.