make a wooden pc case?

[shovenose]

i will be getting a wierd-form-factor board i bought off of billy66 here. i need to make a case for it. im thinking wood. any possible design ideas?

[Dgtech]

Re: make a wooden pc case?

The case should be earth grounded. Wood is an insulator and has properties that would allow static buildup. Also this would not help venting heat. Bad idea, all the way.

[shovenose]

Re: make a wooden pc case?

well of course i would put fans in
is it true i could just run wires all the way from the mouting holes of the mobo (i believe those are grounded) to the ground inside the psu???

but simpy telling me it's a bad idea isn't very helpful. i am deterined to do it. i want help on how to do it

[Dgtech]

Re: make a wooden pc case?

The typical earth grounded case is needed to shield against any static. ESD (electro-static discharge) will damage expensive computer components such as RAM, etc...

It's your call of course. Try anything you want. You can make it out of hemp leaves if you wanna.

We BS about electronics stuff on this site but it is a science. It has its advantages and it's limitations. Rules apply to doing stuff. If you go outside those rules, you will damage your project and have no clue of what happened.

[shovenose]

Re: make a wooden pc case?

ok. can i line the inside of the wooden case with tinfoil?

[c_hegge]

Re: make a wooden pc case?

Don't worry. I screwed all the components directly to the wood with no grounding on both of my briefcase mods. It works fine, but only time will tell whether it was really a good idea.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: make a wooden pc case?

Here's some ideas..
http://www.floorstoyourhome.com/blog...oden-pc-cases/
http://www.techfresh.net/wood-computer-case/

Smooth wood has few [if any real] static issues.
Certainly no more and probably less than those popular [and ugly IMHO] clear plastic cases would, or for that matter, the plastic front panel on a regular case or the plastics used in laptops. - Those plastics are all insulators too.

I would not however trust using a rough sawn wood because of all the loose fibers on the surface. Air blowing across those fibers might be enough to stir up static.

Cooling is easy enough to work out.

Grounding however is important.
You can work around that using jumpers run back to the PSU chassis.
[The metal box itself, not taping into a ground wire or something.]
Personally I'd make a mobo pan out of sheet metal, run a ground wire [or three] to that, and then mount the pan to the wood.
Also don't forget to ground all the drive frames.
I would ground drives to both the mobo and the PSU with different wires.

Mod tip.
If you use a dremel or drill type wire brush to remove the zinc plating to the bare steel then you can attach [weld - kinda] steel to steel using regular plumbing solder supplies.
[You will at least need a propane torch, the flux, the solder and SOME GLOVES.]
I've altered a few PSU's that way to make them fit where they weren't supposed to.
- Soldering steel. - Not a new idea.
In the days before bondo the bodies on custom cars were often soldered together.
That is where the term 'lead sled' actually came from.

One other good thing to be said for using a metal case is that it acts as a Faraday Cage. [Shields EMI out. Same idea as shielded speakers.]

A way to go might be to find a big ugly metal case.
Mod as necessary.
Then attach the wood to it to pretty it up.
.

[pfrcom]

Re: make a wooden pc case?

In the days before bondo the bodies on custom cars were often soldered together.
That is where the term 'lead sled' actually came from.

I thought "lead sled" came from lead being used as a filler to cover welded seams, before plastic fillers were available, and was also used on production lines, because it could be worked as soon as it cooled - no curing time

Once cut up with oxy-acetylene an MG Magnette sedan for disposal - and at one point a stream of molten lead came pouring out while cutting the roof

I guess in those days the British didn't have big enough presses to stamp the roof in one piece, so it was made from smaller pieces, welded together then lead filled

[PCBONEZ]

Re: make a wooden pc case?

I used to be a serious custom car nut and I taught myself how to do lead body work because I thought it was cool at the time to know all the old ways.
My 'learning' project was to boat-tail the hatch [needed some room there] and add '64 caddy tail-fins w/lights to a '76 Plymouth Arrow.
- Because: anything called an Arrow should have fins..
It came out well.

I have misc. Hot Rod and similar magazines I've collected that go back to the 40's.
With occasional arthritis and back pain issues I don't actually work on cars much anymore but I'm still into old cars.

"Lead Sled" wasn't a term used for factory made cars.
It was originally a pun about all the solder used to build highly customized cars making them 'heavy as lead'.

Factory cars did use 'lead' [aka solder] to fill seams at least from 30's into the 70's.
It was used here to attach roofs until spot-welding came of age and it continued to be used as the filler in that joint at least into the 70's.

A properly done solder joint can be stronger over-all than a welded joint because the temp doesn't go high enough to melt the steel.
The weld itself will be stronger than a soldered joint but the metal surrounding the weld [that -almost- melted] will be weaker.

The usual solder for auto work was 50/50 that came in 1 pound bars. [Roughly 1" wide and 1/4" thick as I recall.]
Usually an oxy-acetylene torch was used.

For small projects and joints like a case mod the stuff they use to solder copper pipe works fine, and it's easier to get..

.

[shovenose]

Re: make a wooden pc case?

hmmmm-well i wass going to use unfinished wood, then maybe put a veneer on the inside? or is that a no-no?
also: i am planning to remoe te metal casing of the psu and just mount the circuit board piece. so let me draw up a quick doodle but this may be far from what it will be like, since i havent meaaured the mobo r anything yet...

[shovenose]

Re: make a wooden pc case?

note that in the icture its suppose to say "approximate area where psu board would be, internal,not visible"

[PCBONEZ]

Re: make a wooden pc case?

Sounds fine to me.

I think the board's hole pattern is regular EATX which is basically just ATX with an extra row of holes added on one side.
Full ATX is 12 x 9.6 in - EATX is 12 x 13 in.
A full tower full ATX case [or mobo pan from one] should work by adding the other row of holes.

I've done EATX into full ATX case before.
The drive mounts at mobo height have to go away leaving only the drive bays above mobo height available.
The odd placement of ports on that one would be the tough thing to work around.

.

[ratdude747]

Re: make a wooden pc case?

^ i've done that before to and old proteva case. i used to have a dual PIII cumine slot one Am. meg. eatx board in it... it got scrapped 6 months ago...

[digge]

Re: make a wooden pc case?

One idea if you want a groundplane for the board would be to simply salvage the part from under the board in a scraped case and put the whole thing in the wooden box. Ive done it on a few occasions, much simpler then measuring out all the holes and stuff.

[shovenose]

Re: make a wooden pc case?

I may do that. But i dont know how to cut metal. I hink i will simply screw the motherboard to the wood. With a few washers so the board isnt up against the wood. Does that sound ok? But i dont know how to mount the drives?

[PCBONEZ]

Re: make a wooden pc case?

The two best 'entry level' tools for cutting metal are probably a hack saw and a jig saw.

For thin metal you want blades with lots of small teeth.

You will go through a lot of jig saw blades [especially when you are learning the tool] so you should probably get at least 10 metal cutting blades before you start anything.

For some smaller things a cutting wheel on a dremel is enough but you will go through those like carzy too.
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Yank a drive cage out of an old case and find a way to mount it.
Alternately you can make a drive cage out of sheet metal.
Drill. bend and cut as required to get it done.
- Sides of dead cases are sheet metal.
- Some times a visit to the joist hanger section at the lumber store turns up something useful for a home made bracket.
http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1...atalogId=10053

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