Hey guys, so lately I’ve been trying to expand my PC building skills a bit further
by jumping into AutoCAD and 3D modeling.
I have been designing my own PC cases and getting them made exclusively for myself.
… At least that’s how it started.
I showed a small group of people that caught interest, so I ordered a small prototype batch
with potentially more.
In this video, I’ll share and go over what I’ve created with goals for gathering constructive
feedback to make it better or just thoughts about the product in general, so let’s just
jump right in.
This is a mini-ITX open air case that focuses solely on air-cooling only.
Keeping it as simple and minimal as possible.
Now currently, all my rigs at home are water-cooled, but I have found myself wanting an air-cooled
rig in certain situations.
But mostly because as a creative, I just wanted to see if I could design something from scratch
and actually make it work.
Real quick the dimensions and specs are 240mm in width side to side, 285mm in length of
front to back, and 325mm in height top to bottom.
The current prototypes are made out of 304 stainless steel and I’m experimenting to
see what thickness is most preferrable.
Starting off with key features.
The first thing I wanted was most definitely an open-air case, if you’ve seen my content,
I am all about it.
It’s just easier to clean, easier to build, easier to access parts when things need to
be swapped compared to closed-cases.
This video is not about open vs closed cases, but I am open to discussing that in the comments
below for those who are curious.
It’s also a topic I’ve talked about many times before as well.
Second feature is I wanted it to be an ambidextrous or flexible case that is able to be used in
different orientations and both sides of a desk setup.
For example, whether you set it on the right or left side of the desk, the motherboard
and graphics card will be facing towards the user.
I will also note that the left sided desk setup will make the motherboard and GPU flipped
upside down.
The case can also be mounted on its front panel as such where the back I/O ports are
facing up.
In addition, the case can also lay down on it’s right side with the graphics card facing
up in a testbench like orientation.
The third feature is the case’s ability to slide the motherboard tray or “core”
as I call it, back and forth to accommodate difference size graphics cards.
The core is locked and secured in place of the main frame via a total of four screws,
two on top and two on the bottom.
Now in this example, I designed the case to be able to hold physically the longest graphics
card on the market which currently is the ASUS Strix 4090.
There is just enough space to fit a finger in between the GPU and the front panel.
But the sliding core is really there to allow the user to adjust the size of their entire
build to fit the components they’re using more comfortably.
Fourth feature is the case’s ability to mount both an ATX and SFX size power supply,
I’ve made both PSU brackets to have the same mounting holes and positions.
As you can imagine, right side desk setup will put the PSU up top, but left side desk
setup will put it closer to the bottom.
In terms of the case’s overall build width, the SFX PSU bracket will sit within the case’s
width whereas the ATX PSU bracket will come out a bit wider.
This is important to know because if users choose to use it in a testbench orientation,
the SFX bracket is the only option that allows the case to lay completely flat.
The 16mm power button is going to be mounted at the top center of the case like so and
the cutout is available on both top and bottom panels so that it can be used in the left
and right sided desk setup orientations.
I did not include a front IO panel for my case because as I’ve been more involved
in custom PC modding, I am starting to see less and less front IO ports being used and
omitted in builds.
For one, there’s less cables and wires to connect or running across your case, and two,
you get a better connection anyways when your peripherals are connected directly to the
back of your motherboard.
If you need more USB ports and connectivity, get a hub that connects to the fastest and
biggest bandwidth port on the back of your motherboard, usually it would be something
like a thunderbolt USB-C port.
This is the way.
And like I mentioned, my design is intentionally open-air and as minimalistic as possible.
If I was looking for a case with front IO ports and more cables to work with, there
are already a ton of cases on the market that do that, like literally any other case.
But that’s not my style and I don’t want that.
I also had four holes cut on both top and bottom panels of the case to allow rubber
feet installation.
And the last piece I included is an optional tray that can hold up to two 2.5-inch SSD
drives for those who are still using 2.5-inch SSD drives.
I do have another revision coming in where the same tray I’ve realized can actually
hold up to three SSDs.
The GPU arm or bracket is also another piece that is installed on the backside of the motherboard
tray like so.
In terms of mounting hardware, all the screws I’ve used are either 10-32 or 6-32.
With a couple prototypes on hand, I’m currently making some changes to my design already as
I can now physically see what needs to be improved.
Revision pieces are already on the way.
For example, I’ve redesigned the GPU arm to have four screws instead of three as well
as adjusting the flange lengths based on the motherboard tray’s material thickness.
Another one is having only two screws to secure the PSU brackets onto the core rather than
the three that I currently have because I’ve come to realize it only needs two to be stable,
especially when they are 10-32 screws.
Another idea I have is completely taking out the vanity cover on the ATX PSU bracket so
that ATX power supplies can also sit flush on the case and have it be used laying down
in the testbench orientation.
But another question it brings up is how many people care to use it that way and how many
people prefer the brackets on both SFX and ATX with or without the vanity cover?
So there are still some things I’m trying to refine on this design, and I’m mainly
working with a small group of people to hash these out.
And I’ll also be reading comments and feedbacks from this video as well.
You can also join my Discord server if you want to get early updates on my projects and
participate in them as well before it goes on YouTube.
I’m also pretty active on Instagram and Twitter as well and will frequently give behind
the scenes on my stories if you want to follow.
Last thing, I also made an ATX version of this case.
The dilemma I currently have is whether I should completely forego the ITX version because
they are actually very close in size.
ITX version is within 25mm smaller in terms of the height and length.
The width is the same.
The ATX version is also ambidextrous and can be used the same ways as the ITX, except the
power supply unit can be mounted on top or bottom of the core.
I could also do this on the ITX core as well, but I would have to remove the SSD tray in
place of it.
So from an efficiency and manufacturing standpoint, the ATX version is the way to go.
But I personally think the ITX core looks cooler than the ATX one and mounting a little
ITX motherboard onto an ATX tray just looks unfulfilling and weird.
I could also just redesign the ITX motherboard tray to be vertically longer to fit into the
ATX main frame, this would give options to pick which core to use while everything else
remains the same.
Anyways, there are still some questions I need to figure out for this project and I
do have plans on doing “group buys” and small batches for those who are interested.
But before I can do that, I need to land the final design first which I feel like I’m
pretty close to doing anyways.
But yeah, if you want to join the conversation more closely with me, and see what happens
to this project, feel free to join my Discord server linked down below and also follow me
on Instagram and Twitter as well if you like.
So as always, thanks for watching.
Peace!