Project: JR (wooden ITX build)

InTheFade · 16th May 2012, 10:35 PM

I've been in need of a basic HTPC/server thing for a while and I've got a bit of spare time, so I decided to make one from scratch

. I figured since I got an A for manual arts back in high school, making a case from wood wouldn't be so hard... right?

First up, the hardware. I didn't need anything fancy, just low-power and small.

Motherboard: Intel DH61DL
CPU: Intel Celeron G530
RAM: 2GB stick I found laying around
Storage: Samsung 1TB + OCZ Core V2 30GB
PSU: picoPSU 90W + 60W AC adapter

The motherboard+CPU cost me ~$130 from Umart, and the picoPSU+adapter was $65 from eBay. Everything else was spare parts. At full load, system power usage is around 45-50W so the picoPSU should hold up fine.

Once I had all the bits together, I made a quick mockup of where I wanted everything:

- 92mm fan at the front
- vertically mounted SSD
- raised motherboard to fit 3.5" drive underneath

The one thing I found after looking at lots of ITX cases is that full-sized PSUs take up heeeaaapps of room. Using a picoPSU pretty much halves the size of the case!

After taking measurements, I spent a few days drawing it up in Sketchup. Behold my 3D modelling skills!

Ok, so I borrowed a lot of computer component models from the Sketchup public gallery thing... but look at that authentic pine wood texture! Beautiful!

Turns out there's room for a 2nd 92mm fan at the front, so that's a bonus. The final dimensions were 242x254x111mm. I originally planned to use 3mm acrylic for the top that would slide in (similarly to the bottom), but I might use mesh instead and mount some magnets to hold it in place.

Here are the materials and tools!

That's about $60 of 12mm hoop pine (93mm wide for the sides and 19mm for the edging, I bought way too much of the 93mm stuff... but too much is better than not enough) and $50 of woodworking tools from the hardware store.

The only thing I had to cut with was a small backsaw, so the cuts weren't too precise. I'd kill for a table sander to finish it... or a handplane... Oh well, more practice with the chisel.

Don't worry, I'm gunna clean it up a bit more later on.

And because I neglected to take the camera with me into the garage, we now skip forward 2 weeks of working on-and-off to a set of finished dovetails:

Probably not the cleanest dovetails you'll find, but since it's the rear you don't really see it. I'm happy with it considering I haven't handled a chisel and mallet in 7 years or so.

Everything fits, yay! The length from left-to-right should be 242mm from the Sketchup model; I ended up with 245mm, which won't be a problem.

The next thing for me to do is the front... grill... thing. Not as complicated as dovetails, so it shouldn't take very long.

Thanks for looking, there'll be more soon!

Renza · 16th May 2012, 11:30 PM

not sure if im missing something, but you seem to have two intake fans, but theres no exhaust at all... i know you said you may put mesh at the top, but if your going with acrylic then you might want to check that

InTheFade · 16th May 2012, 11:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Renza

not sure if im missing something, but you seem to have two intake fans, but theres no exhaust at all... i know you said you may put mesh at the top, but if your going with acrylic then you might want to check that

Yep, precisely why I'm probably going to use mesh. If I used acrylic I'd have to cut a hole out or something, and that would be both time-consuming and ugly.

jezza323 · 16th May 2012, 11:50 PM

Nice work going straight for the dovetails

How tight a fit did they end up?

The design looks pretty nice too

InTheFade · 17th May 2012, 12:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jezza323

Nice work going straight for the dovetails

How tight a fit did they end up?

The design looks pretty nice too

Thanks. It's moderately tight, takes a bit of force to put together and take apart by hand (I'll try and get some better pictures of it tomorrow). Should be quite a strong joint once I've glued it.

jezza323 · 17th May 2012, 1:06 AM

Maybe put some mesh behind the front slats too to hide the fans a bit

InTheFade · 19th May 2012, 5:30 PM

Here are some better pics of the dovetails that I said I'd show:

I also finished the front slats today.

The pieces that run down the sides and along the top/bottom will be attached to the mesh/acrylic, so I can't do much until I get those materials.

Until then I can occupy myself with cutting a section for the IO plate. I thought about cutting an inside rectangle (similar to a through mortise) but I don't feel like doing that much work. Instead, I'll saw out a section from the edge (like in the Sketchup pic in the 1st post), then maybe fill in what's left after the IO plate goes in with some of the offcut.

slobber · 19th May 2012, 5:59 PM

I'm more than impressed with your woodworking skills considering the limited tools your using

Much better than most of the 'carpenters' in the building industry here in the wild west ATM

Oh and I like your build too

InTheFade · 20th May 2012, 3:30 PM

Finished the IO cutout.

...unfortunately, it was rather catastrophic to the dovetails

The cutout was just way too big for the piece to handle. Both sides snapped clean off

I think I'll be using epoxy instead of PVA...

Madengineer · 20th May 2012, 4:00 PM

Nice Build

I swear i have to attempt something like this some day!

slobber · 20th May 2012, 6:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by InTheFade

Finished the IO cutout.

...unfortunately, it was rather catastrophic to the dovetails

A bit of glue and a good sandpaper and no one will ever know

Dammit I have 3 itx cases not being used in the house ATM but now I'm thinking about building a Jarrah itx case

InTheFade · 24th May 2012, 9:08 AM

I got some materials delivered yesterday: Dark blue acrylic, cut to size by GAMMODS

(support the OCAU sponsors!)

Luckily, my dad has a small drill press which made drilling really easy. Just set it on a low speed and apply gentle even pressure, and it leaves a nice clean hole.

The holes were marked pretty much by eye. Imagine my surprise when, after drilling, everything fit almost straight away! (although one of the 3.5" drive holes needed to be filed wider by a little bit). Even though the acrylic is 3mm thick, all the standard screws are long enough to still work. I connected all the cables to make sure everything would fit; I thought I might need washers or standoffs for the 3.5" drive, but the cables are fine when it sits flush on a surface.

I'm still waiting on the long spacers for the motherboard. I'm using M4x40 bolts and nuts with 35mm spacers. Hopefully I didn't muck up the measurements for that; time will tell!

16th May 2012, 10:35 PM	#1
InTheFade Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Brisbaniavillestown, 4014 Posts: 226	Project: JR (wooden ITX build) I've been in need of a basic HTPC/server thing for a while and I've got a bit of spare time, so I decided to make one from scratch . I figured since I got an A for manual arts back in high school, making a case from wood wouldn't be so hard... right? First up, the hardware. I didn't need anything fancy, just low-power and small. Motherboard: Intel DH61DL CPU: Intel Celeron G530 RAM: 2GB stick I found laying around Storage: Samsung 1TB + OCZ Core V2 30GB PSU: picoPSU 90W + 60W AC adapter The motherboard+CPU cost me ~$130 from Umart, and the picoPSU+adapter was $65 from eBay. Everything else was spare parts. At full load, system power usage is around 45-50W so the picoPSU should hold up fine. Once I had all the bits together, I made a quick mockup of where I wanted everything: - 92mm fan at the front - vertically mounted SSD - raised motherboard to fit 3.5" drive underneath The one thing I found after looking at lots of ITX cases is that full-sized PSUs take up heeeaaapps of room. Using a picoPSU pretty much halves the size of the case! After taking measurements, I spent a few days drawing it up in Sketchup. Behold my 3D modelling skills! Ok, so I borrowed a lot of computer component models from the Sketchup public gallery thing... but look at that authentic pine wood texture! Beautiful! Turns out there's room for a 2nd 92mm fan at the front, so that's a bonus. The final dimensions were 242x254x111mm. I originally planned to use 3mm acrylic for the top that would slide in (similarly to the bottom), but I might use mesh instead and mount some magnets to hold it in place. Here are the materials and tools! That's about $60 of 12mm hoop pine (93mm wide for the sides and 19mm for the edging, I bought way too much of the 93mm stuff... but too much is better than not enough) and $50 of woodworking tools from the hardware store. The only thing I had to cut with was a small backsaw, so the cuts weren't too precise. I'd kill for a table sander to finish it... or a handplane... Oh well, more practice with the chisel. Don't worry, I'm gunna clean it up a bit more later on. And because I neglected to take the camera with me into the garage, we now skip forward 2 weeks of working on-and-off to a set of finished dovetails: Probably not the cleanest dovetails you'll find, but since it's the rear you don't really see it. I'm happy with it considering I haven't handled a chisel and mallet in 7 years or so. Everything fits, yay! The length from left-to-right should be 242mm from the Sketchup model; I ended up with 245mm, which won't be a problem. The next thing for me to do is the front... grill... thing. Not as complicated as dovetails, so it shouldn't take very long. Thanks for looking, there'll be more soon!

16th May 2012, 11:30 PM	#2
Renza Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Adelaide, 5051 Posts: 2,981	not sure if im missing something, but you seem to have two intake fans, but theres no exhaust at all... i know you said you may put mesh at the top, but if your going with acrylic then you might want to check that __________________ i7 3770K @ 4.5ghz \| AsRock Z77 Professional \| 16gb Corsair Vengence 1600mhz \| Gigabyte GTX580 \| Seasonic X750 \| Silverstone TJ07 \| Crucial M4 256GB \| 2x Dell 2407WFP Canon 5D Mark II \| Canon EF 24-70 f/2.8L \| Canon EF 17-40 f/4L \| Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS \| Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 \| Canon EX-580II \| Manfrotto 190 Pro B Traded over $22,000 on OCAU! - PM for recent traders

16th May 2012, 11:50 PM	#4
jezza323 Member Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Brisbane Posts: 1,314	Nice work going straight for the dovetails How tight a fit did they end up? The design looks pretty nice too __________________ Notebook ASUS K55A\|i7\|16gb RAM\|256gb SSD\|Win 8 Storage HP N40L\|6.5TB Media WDTV Live+\|Samsung 40" LED SmartTV Phone Nokia Lumia 820 Cars 98 Toyota Starlet\|80 Mazda 323-12abp Bikes 2009 Avanti Vivace\|2010 SE Lager\|2001 Norco Charger Mtb flickr \| blog \| photo gear \| redbubble

17th May 2012, 1:06 AM	#6
jezza323 Member Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Brisbane Posts: 1,314	Maybe put some mesh behind the front slats too to hide the fans a bit __________________ Notebook ASUS K55A\|i7\|16gb RAM\|256gb SSD\|Win 8 Storage HP N40L\|6.5TB Media WDTV Live+\|Samsung 40" LED SmartTV Phone Nokia Lumia 820 Cars 98 Toyota Starlet\|80 Mazda 323-12abp Bikes 2009 Avanti Vivace\|2010 SE Lager\|2001 Norco Charger Mtb flickr \| blog \| photo gear \| redbubble

19th May 2012, 5:30 PM	#7
InTheFade Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Brisbaniavillestown, 4014 Posts: 226	Here are some better pics of the dovetails that I said I'd show: I also finished the front slats today. The pieces that run down the sides and along the top/bottom will be attached to the mesh/acrylic, so I can't do much until I get those materials. Until then I can occupy myself with cutting a section for the IO plate. I thought about cutting an inside rectangle (similar to a through mortise) but I don't feel like doing that much work. Instead, I'll saw out a section from the edge (like in the Sketchup pic in the 1st post), then maybe fill in what's left after the IO plate goes in with some of the offcut.

20th May 2012, 3:30 PM	#9
InTheFade Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Brisbaniavillestown, 4014 Posts: 226	Finished the IO cutout. ...unfortunately, it was rather catastrophic to the dovetails The cutout was just way too big for the piece to handle. Both sides snapped clean off I think I'll be using epoxy instead of PVA...

24th May 2012, 9:08 AM	#12
InTheFade Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Brisbaniavillestown, 4014 Posts: 226	I got some materials delivered yesterday: Dark blue acrylic, cut to size by GAMMODS (support the OCAU sponsors!) Luckily, my dad has a small drill press which made drilling really easy. Just set it on a low speed and apply gentle even pressure, and it leaves a nice clean hole. The holes were marked pretty much by eye. Imagine my surprise when, after drilling, everything fit almost straight away! (although one of the 3.5" drive holes needed to be filed wider by a little bit). Even though the acrylic is 3mm thick, all the standard screws are long enough to still work. I connected all the cables to make sure everything would fit; I thought I might need washers or standoffs for the 3.5" drive, but the cables are fine when it sits flush on a surface. I'm still waiting on the long spacers for the motherboard. I'm using M4x40 bolts and nuts with 35mm spacers. Hopefully I didn't muck up the measurements for that; time will tell!