- Joined
- May 23, 2001
- Location
- Asteroid B-612
In this guide I will be describing the steps is used to build my custom computer case. I needed a computer that fit in the allotted space and serves a specific purpose. Many people have specific computer needs (like mine) which can’t be filled by brand-name manufacturers.
Keep in mind that completing this project requires considerable planning and a moderate amount of skill with power tools. The materials were fairly inexpensive and highly specialized tools are not required. Here is a list of essential materials and tools I used to complete this project.
Here are the standard ATX stand-off hole locations.
Parts
1. Computer parts to enclose
(Motherboard, CPU, HSF, RAM, Video card, Ethernet Card, motherboard tray, Hard Drive, CD-ROM drive, and cables)
2. Lexan (clear polycarbonate plastic)
3. Three different sizes of screws hex nuts
4. Cooling fans
Optional Parts
5. One 5 inch cabinet handle
6. Rubber stick-on feet
7. Foam padding (noise cancellation)
8. Two rubber bands
Tools
1. Power drill and drill bits
2. Dremel rotary tool
3. Table saw with OBS plastic cutting blade
4. Screwdriver
5. Jigsaw with plastic cutting blade
6. Sandpaper
Optional Tools
7. CAD software to design the case layout
8. Tap & Die set (highly recommend but not essential)
9. Copier (or the use of one)
10. Spray paint
11. Glass/display case cleaner
12. Cleaning rag
13. Cotton drop-cloth (to use when you need to fix the machine and don't want to pickup all of the dust off the carpet)
Step One: Shopping for or selecting computer parts.
When you are trying to build a small computer, keep in mind that you want to use the smallest parts possible. Every part will effect the size of the finished product. I recommend using a slim laptop HDD and CD-ROM. These will save you valuable space and are even quieter than regular sized components. However, if you are on a budget and already have suitable drives you can still use them.
There are dozens of places to shop for computer parts but I recommend starting at pricewatch.com. There you can find the lowest price on almost any computer part you’re looking for.
NewEgg.com and Directron.com also have really low prices and are very reputable.
Step One-and-a-half: Benchtesting and troubleshooting
Since this is a custom built machine it may be tightly built with very little room to maneuver your fingers. This is why I HIGHLY RECOMMEND bench testing and installing all of the software on your machine BEFORE you build a case for all of the parts. This saves alot of time because having your machine out in the open will allow easy access to jumpers and will give you the oppurtunity to replace (we can hope not) defective parts without tearing your lovely new case apart to do so.
I do this quite frequently and prefer to bench test the machine sans the case (i.e. naked).
Step Two: Measuring your parts for placement
All the parts you need to operate your computer will presumably be going into this case. So you need to measure all of them and plot out where they are all going to go. While you are doing this you can find out what the best way to mount each part is and jot down your methods for later use. After you are content with your placements you need to mark down what the outer dimensions of all the parts together. Use these dimensions in the next step. Remember to account for the thicknesses of the materials you are working with.
TIP: I found it helpful to use a copier to make the templates I needed for marking and drilling the screw holes for various parts. All I did was place the CD-ROM, HDD, or motherboard on the copier, hit the button, and SHAZAM! Instant drilling/measuring template.
Step Three: Selecting materials
There are plenty of materials you can use to build a computer case, but plastic based products will be the safest. Custom building a case out of aluminum or steel would take a lot more effort and machining skill.
Polycarbonate is the most durable materials in the plastic family and will work best for this type of project. Some people opt for Acrylic. But, from my experience it’s not well suited as a structural material. It’s also very unreceptive to tool work because it melts so quickly if you use the wrong type of blade or tool. If you accidentally purchase Lucite instead of Acrylic you’ll be in for an extra headache because you’ll have to worry about cracking it while you’re working on it. If at all possible, AVOID using Acrylic. It's too hard to shop for effectively and too easily to mess up. The only circumstance in which I would consider using acrylic is when I need some sort of structural frame. In which case I will usually opt for arcylic square rod that I trim to length with a table saw, then drill and tap for screw mount applications.
Polycarbonate (also known as Lexan or Perspex) is a clear impact resistant and non-conductive plastic. It has good heat resistance up to 200 degrees and with the right tools can be heat-warped into curved shapes. It’s very easy to cut if you use lower cutting speeds to prevent melting. It does scratch easily so this shouldn’t be the material of choice if you’re handling or moving your case around a lot.
ABS EDIT: ABS is extremely soft and hard to work with due to it's low melting temperature. It's even more tempermental than acrylic. It is however SO soft that you can cut thin (1/8th inch or something close) sheets of it with a pair of tin snips. This makes ABS a decent choice for drive mounts and other limited applications.
Polycarbonate is now available with a scratch resistant coating, but it costs significantly more. Mcmaster.com carries all of these materials at low prices in a wide selection of thicknesses. Lastly, I wouldn’t suggest using sheets any thinner than 1/8th of an inch. Your case needs to stand up unaided once you’ve built it. I recommend using 3/8s to 1/2 of an inch in thickness for any parts of the case where you plan on screwing into the edges of that sheet.
Step Four: Marking the cuts
Remember to leave the contact paper on the material until ALL CUTTING\DRILLING has been completed.
From your dimensions mark out what pieces need to be cut by using a T-Square and a permanent marker. Make sure you account for the thickness of the blade you will be cutting the pieces out with. Most blades will be shaving off between 1/16th and 1/8th of an inch. So if you plan on cutting out two six-inch pieces, don’t mark them onto a twelve-inch sheet. For each piece mark the dimensions that the final piece should end up being.
Step Five: Cut out the sheets
Simple as that. Just do it safely and don’t forget to use your safety goggles. For all 90 degree straight cuts that I needed I used the able saw. The rest were done with the Jigsaw. Really small edges were smoothed off with the Dremel or sandpaper.
Step Six: Marking the holes needed for assembly
You will need to make a mark an X and the size of the hole anywhere you’ll need one. It Use the markings you just made to low out the parts onto the sheet they will be attaching to. The fewer trips you have to make to-and-from the tools the better.
Step Seven: Proto Assembly
Assemble together as many of the cut pieces as possible without the actual computer hardware. This will help you make sure that all of your holes are aligned properly and that you didn’t miss any.
Step Eight: Test Assembly
After you have checked and recheck all your assembly holes, reassemble the case with the case parts. You shouldn’t have the contact paper removed yet because here is where you are making sure EVERYTHING fits together.
Step Nine: Final Assembly
Now that everything fits you can finally see this finished product by removing the contact paper. You may want some Glass or polycarbonate cleaner on hand to clean off all the fingerprints you may (and will) end up putting on the case
Custom computer cases are a rare sight in the world today. They are truly unique because no two people make them the same way. The same can’t be said about the average PC which is boring and beige. So appreciate and exemplify your uniqueness by attempting this project yourself in the near future. It’s challenging rewarding and well worth the effort. Despite popular belief they can be quite simple and fun to build, provided you know how to safely use the tools involved. The more time you spend planning the actual case, the less daunting and difficult the actual work of building your case will be.
Addendum On Proper Solvent Usage
If you need to fuse ABS, Acrylic, or Polycarbonate (any combination of the three) together I highly recommend using Weld-on Acrylic solvent. If applied to finely sanded surfaces and held for 10 or 15 second, you will get a permanent and solid bond. It comes in two different set-times and consistencies and can be applied with a dropper or a cheap watercolor paintbrush.
DO NOT USE SUPERGLUE, or anything similar on plastic sheets. The infiltrants will leech off corrosive fumes that will eat the surface of your sheets and will ruin the look of your project. If you want to try a glue you have never worked with before, test it on scrap pieces first.
Addendum On Heat-Warping
WARNING: Heat-Warping is extremely dangerous if proper safety equipment is not used. The following are NOT OPTIONAL
+ Leather work gloves
DO NOT USE ANY OTHER KIND. Synthetic, rubber, or cotton gloves are too flammable for use around heat guns
+ Tongs
Especially when working with acrylic
+ Proper ventilation or exterior use
It's safest to do this in an open garage or in the driveway)
Heat guns come in many different sizes, but almost any will do. I've been successfully using a small embossing heat gun for a while now that I bought on sale from a craft store for only $10USD. Anything that can reach 300f will be fine.
Acrylic melts faster and is more receptive to heat-warping, but can be tricky to work with. It's much tackier when heated and won't bubble as readily as polycarbonate.
Polycarbonate is safer in that it has a much more of a taffy (toffee for non-americans) feel too it when heated. You can however overheat it easily and will start to get unwated bubbling, and eventually carmelization (brown tint or charring). It takes a much higher temp to soften polycarbonate and it cools more rapidly, so in that sense and can be a little tricky.
DO NOT TRY TO HEAT-WARP ABS OR POLYETHYLENE. You'll just end up with dangerously hot and sticky goo. Don't assume any plastic will do this.
And aside from being able to make funky curved shapes out of sheets of polycarbonate and acrylic, your new heat gun also becomes invaluable for evenly and quickly applying heatshrink.
Keep in mind that completing this project requires considerable planning and a moderate amount of skill with power tools. The materials were fairly inexpensive and highly specialized tools are not required. Here is a list of essential materials and tools I used to complete this project.
Here are the standard ATX stand-off hole locations.
Parts
1. Computer parts to enclose
(Motherboard, CPU, HSF, RAM, Video card, Ethernet Card, motherboard tray, Hard Drive, CD-ROM drive, and cables)
2. Lexan (clear polycarbonate plastic)
3. Three different sizes of screws hex nuts
4. Cooling fans
Optional Parts
5. One 5 inch cabinet handle
6. Rubber stick-on feet
7. Foam padding (noise cancellation)
8. Two rubber bands
Tools
1. Power drill and drill bits
2. Dremel rotary tool
3. Table saw with OBS plastic cutting blade
4. Screwdriver
5. Jigsaw with plastic cutting blade
6. Sandpaper
Optional Tools
7. CAD software to design the case layout
8. Tap & Die set (highly recommend but not essential)
9. Copier (or the use of one)
10. Spray paint
11. Glass/display case cleaner
12. Cleaning rag
13. Cotton drop-cloth (to use when you need to fix the machine and don't want to pickup all of the dust off the carpet)
Step One: Shopping for or selecting computer parts.
When you are trying to build a small computer, keep in mind that you want to use the smallest parts possible. Every part will effect the size of the finished product. I recommend using a slim laptop HDD and CD-ROM. These will save you valuable space and are even quieter than regular sized components. However, if you are on a budget and already have suitable drives you can still use them.
There are dozens of places to shop for computer parts but I recommend starting at pricewatch.com. There you can find the lowest price on almost any computer part you’re looking for.
NewEgg.com and Directron.com also have really low prices and are very reputable.
Step One-and-a-half: Benchtesting and troubleshooting
Since this is a custom built machine it may be tightly built with very little room to maneuver your fingers. This is why I HIGHLY RECOMMEND bench testing and installing all of the software on your machine BEFORE you build a case for all of the parts. This saves alot of time because having your machine out in the open will allow easy access to jumpers and will give you the oppurtunity to replace (we can hope not) defective parts without tearing your lovely new case apart to do so.
I do this quite frequently and prefer to bench test the machine sans the case (i.e. naked).
Step Two: Measuring your parts for placement
All the parts you need to operate your computer will presumably be going into this case. So you need to measure all of them and plot out where they are all going to go. While you are doing this you can find out what the best way to mount each part is and jot down your methods for later use. After you are content with your placements you need to mark down what the outer dimensions of all the parts together. Use these dimensions in the next step. Remember to account for the thicknesses of the materials you are working with.
TIP: I found it helpful to use a copier to make the templates I needed for marking and drilling the screw holes for various parts. All I did was place the CD-ROM, HDD, or motherboard on the copier, hit the button, and SHAZAM! Instant drilling/measuring template.
Step Three: Selecting materials
There are plenty of materials you can use to build a computer case, but plastic based products will be the safest. Custom building a case out of aluminum or steel would take a lot more effort and machining skill.
Polycarbonate is the most durable materials in the plastic family and will work best for this type of project. Some people opt for Acrylic. But, from my experience it’s not well suited as a structural material. It’s also very unreceptive to tool work because it melts so quickly if you use the wrong type of blade or tool. If you accidentally purchase Lucite instead of Acrylic you’ll be in for an extra headache because you’ll have to worry about cracking it while you’re working on it. If at all possible, AVOID using Acrylic. It's too hard to shop for effectively and too easily to mess up. The only circumstance in which I would consider using acrylic is when I need some sort of structural frame. In which case I will usually opt for arcylic square rod that I trim to length with a table saw, then drill and tap for screw mount applications.
Polycarbonate (also known as Lexan or Perspex) is a clear impact resistant and non-conductive plastic. It has good heat resistance up to 200 degrees and with the right tools can be heat-warped into curved shapes. It’s very easy to cut if you use lower cutting speeds to prevent melting. It does scratch easily so this shouldn’t be the material of choice if you’re handling or moving your case around a lot.
ABS EDIT: ABS is extremely soft and hard to work with due to it's low melting temperature. It's even more tempermental than acrylic. It is however SO soft that you can cut thin (1/8th inch or something close) sheets of it with a pair of tin snips. This makes ABS a decent choice for drive mounts and other limited applications.
Polycarbonate is now available with a scratch resistant coating, but it costs significantly more. Mcmaster.com carries all of these materials at low prices in a wide selection of thicknesses. Lastly, I wouldn’t suggest using sheets any thinner than 1/8th of an inch. Your case needs to stand up unaided once you’ve built it. I recommend using 3/8s to 1/2 of an inch in thickness for any parts of the case where you plan on screwing into the edges of that sheet.
Step Four: Marking the cuts
Remember to leave the contact paper on the material until ALL CUTTING\DRILLING has been completed.
From your dimensions mark out what pieces need to be cut by using a T-Square and a permanent marker. Make sure you account for the thickness of the blade you will be cutting the pieces out with. Most blades will be shaving off between 1/16th and 1/8th of an inch. So if you plan on cutting out two six-inch pieces, don’t mark them onto a twelve-inch sheet. For each piece mark the dimensions that the final piece should end up being.
Step Five: Cut out the sheets
Simple as that. Just do it safely and don’t forget to use your safety goggles. For all 90 degree straight cuts that I needed I used the able saw. The rest were done with the Jigsaw. Really small edges were smoothed off with the Dremel or sandpaper.
Step Six: Marking the holes needed for assembly
You will need to make a mark an X and the size of the hole anywhere you’ll need one. It Use the markings you just made to low out the parts onto the sheet they will be attaching to. The fewer trips you have to make to-and-from the tools the better.
Step Seven: Proto Assembly
Assemble together as many of the cut pieces as possible without the actual computer hardware. This will help you make sure that all of your holes are aligned properly and that you didn’t miss any.
Step Eight: Test Assembly
After you have checked and recheck all your assembly holes, reassemble the case with the case parts. You shouldn’t have the contact paper removed yet because here is where you are making sure EVERYTHING fits together.
Step Nine: Final Assembly
Now that everything fits you can finally see this finished product by removing the contact paper. You may want some Glass or polycarbonate cleaner on hand to clean off all the fingerprints you may (and will) end up putting on the case
Custom computer cases are a rare sight in the world today. They are truly unique because no two people make them the same way. The same can’t be said about the average PC which is boring and beige. So appreciate and exemplify your uniqueness by attempting this project yourself in the near future. It’s challenging rewarding and well worth the effort. Despite popular belief they can be quite simple and fun to build, provided you know how to safely use the tools involved. The more time you spend planning the actual case, the less daunting and difficult the actual work of building your case will be.
Addendum On Proper Solvent Usage
If you need to fuse ABS, Acrylic, or Polycarbonate (any combination of the three) together I highly recommend using Weld-on Acrylic solvent. If applied to finely sanded surfaces and held for 10 or 15 second, you will get a permanent and solid bond. It comes in two different set-times and consistencies and can be applied with a dropper or a cheap watercolor paintbrush.
DO NOT USE SUPERGLUE, or anything similar on plastic sheets. The infiltrants will leech off corrosive fumes that will eat the surface of your sheets and will ruin the look of your project. If you want to try a glue you have never worked with before, test it on scrap pieces first.
Addendum On Heat-Warping
WARNING: Heat-Warping is extremely dangerous if proper safety equipment is not used. The following are NOT OPTIONAL
+ Leather work gloves
DO NOT USE ANY OTHER KIND. Synthetic, rubber, or cotton gloves are too flammable for use around heat guns
+ Tongs
Especially when working with acrylic
+ Proper ventilation or exterior use
It's safest to do this in an open garage or in the driveway)
Heat guns come in many different sizes, but almost any will do. I've been successfully using a small embossing heat gun for a while now that I bought on sale from a craft store for only $10USD. Anything that can reach 300f will be fine.
Acrylic melts faster and is more receptive to heat-warping, but can be tricky to work with. It's much tackier when heated and won't bubble as readily as polycarbonate.
Polycarbonate is safer in that it has a much more of a taffy (toffee for non-americans) feel too it when heated. You can however overheat it easily and will start to get unwated bubbling, and eventually carmelization (brown tint or charring). It takes a much higher temp to soften polycarbonate and it cools more rapidly, so in that sense and can be a little tricky.
DO NOT TRY TO HEAT-WARP ABS OR POLYETHYLENE. You'll just end up with dangerously hot and sticky goo. Don't assume any plastic will do this.
And aside from being able to make funky curved shapes out of sheets of polycarbonate and acrylic, your new heat gun also becomes invaluable for evenly and quickly applying heatshrink.
Last edited:
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