# my first well second homebuilt case



## metalguitarman (Apr 8, 2009)

ok im one of those guys who like to think outside the box. i bought a case for my wife, a cheapy, drilled holes in the bottom and top put some glass on the side and top and painted the whole case black. went over well. got a 120 on the bottom and a 14x14 in the side with two 80s and on the top there is a 11x4 with a 120 as well. after doing all of this and sleeving a psu i feel invensible... anyways sorry for all that. what im thinking about doing is buying like a 99 dollar mini fridge and taking the door off and the plastic inside and mounting a pice of plexiglass on the outside and building a case with the mini fridge. wanna know what you guys think about that. has it been done is the motherboard going to sweat? as in condensation... which i dont think it would since you can buy acs to put in the computer cases. just thought this would be a nice cheap and innovative way to get high end computer cooling for cheap. let me know what you guys think cause im going to buy the fridge on the 15th and then the mayham starts. :grin:


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## derek_jones_36 (Nov 9, 2008)

Sounds Pretty innovative. I would say that it would work but a minifridge seems a bit cramped for my liking. You plan on removing quite a bit of the interior of this thing so you should have plenty of room and I have to say it's genious for the cooling benefit. You might run into some problems with venting the cool air so you don't actually condensate some of the interior components but it would be the coolest temp case I've ever seen. How will you mount the I/O panel and PSU around the compressor coils at the rear? Making a motherboard mount with some raised points might be a challenge as well unless you get a peice of an old case and rip out the mounting bracket. Everything else should be pretty easy except for perhaps creating an interior mounting system for the Hard Drives, Optical Drives and Interior Peripherals. The benefit to doing this from your end is that you can actually see the item as you are working on it which is different than trying to invision what you have planned for it from our end. We're going to need lots of pics to see how this project works out.... It would certainly be quite the challenge and might perhaps be the most remarkable one to date that I have seen on this forum....Best of Luck. Glad to be of any help you might need.

Jones


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## WereBo (Apr 5, 2008)

Mmmmm.... It definitely seems a novel idea :grin:

As well as the points mentioned above, by Derek, an extra 2 considerations to think about:

1} - Placing the hole in the fridge, for the mobo connectors to reach the outside world (monitor, mouse/k'board, modem etc.

2} - Leaving enough room for your canned drinks to chill in the fridge :grin:


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## metalguitarman (Apr 8, 2009)

ok you guys are right... ive been thinking for a while and i think i have some plausable answers to some of the question. 

1. I do have a old junker case that im going to part for the motherboard mount. just going to screw the mobo tray in straight to the bottom of the fridge after all the interior plastic is gone.

2. as much as I hate dell and I really do mean hate... im going to use some of there hard drive brackets for mounting the hdds on the of the minifridge. the cd rom im just going to mount outside the case (maby) or on the top of the of the inside of the case. oh i could use some of the plexiglass left over from the doors to make a case for the dvd burner to sit in then just cut a hole on the pice of plexiglass replacing the door and have it sit compleaty in its own little compartment. so that way im not loosing major cool air out of the case. besides who wants a cool dvd burner anyways?

3. as for connection and the psu im thinking about mounting the psu either on the top lefthand side of the box out of the way of the ac system or... mounting it on the bottom left hand side outside the fridge and just taking a 3 in hole saw and cutting a hole in the back for the psu and monotor wiring and all the good stuff that needs to go into the case, or minifridge in this case. the only problem with cutting a 3" hole in the case is that well.... air loss. dont know really how to cover that. I was thinking something like the little black things that come on the back of the newer mid to high end cases that are for the liquid cooling but I cant find anything like that in a 3 in diameter... sucks.

so any suggestions or ways you guys would change it im open minded willing to learn. cause im still new to modding cases and ill take all the help i can get.

one thing i didnt think about is a power and reset switch and where those are going to go... and also front audo and usb ports... damn, i hate cutting plastic glass... any ideas guys?


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## WereBo (Apr 5, 2008)

The one thing that may prove hard to overcome is that, as you remove the fridge-interior, usually moulded plastic sheets with a thick layer of expanded polystyrene as an insulator to hold the cold in, the cold will 'leak' out, placing more load on the cooling system.

You'll need to keep the amounts removed to a bare minimum, for it to work efficiently. Try taking a trip to a local plumber's/builders supplier and ask what sizes of 'piping grommets' they sell. That's the rubber-ring 'seals' that stop wires, pipes etc. from rubbing against sharp edges and seals the hole where things go through.

Keeping the DVD drive outside the case is a good idea, it will keep it at a constant temperature, preventing condensation as the tray opens/closes. I think the same applies to the PSU, too. They do get hot and, having mains-voltages around condensation is not recommended for continued happiness :grin:.


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## metalguitarman (Apr 8, 2009)

thats true and my wife of all people made some pertty good sugestions... who would have thought. because i was just going to screw in plexi glass for the front she said. well why dont you just buy some hendges and put the glass on hendges? i said to myslef thats stupid, mainly because my wife knows nothing about computers and well... shes my wife. but after thinking about it perhaps shes right? actually i really do agree with her what do you guys think? put the plexiglass on hendges and then taking the weather proofing strips from the door and just putting that on the plexiglass? also this is the fridge I think that im going to buy. http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs...3&productId=100349968&N=10000003+90040+501020

should be big enough for me to put everything into the "case" without taking the plastic out unless I want to. which is the only reason I was going to in the first place is because I thought that I was going to have to. so I am just going to take it out to mount the mobo and pre drill the hole to the outside (gonna do that in reverse order...) then its going back in.

ok got the psu thing solved at least im going to buy some L brackets and mout the psu on the bottom outside of the case. im going to feed all of the cords into the case through a 2-3 inch hole that im going to make right on top of where the psu is going to be mounted. the dvd burner is going in the case but encased in plexiglass to hopfully avoid the problem of condensation. I also think that im going to do the same thing with the hdds as the psu since thats basically all the dell hdd mounts are. and because I dont wanna spend my money on dell parts unless I have to.


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## grimx133 (Jan 15, 2008)

Have you read anything on the fridge idea? 

Old blog here yoiu might want to read. Well written and amusing too, that's always a bonus. 
http://totaldrek.blogspot.com/2005/09/return-of-icebox.html

There's a link to the Tom's Hardware forum buried in the comments.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/page-248785_10_0.html


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## WereBo (Apr 5, 2008)

I think that, in general, you've got everything covered now - It's all gonna be down to the details, as you go along.

As for the Power and Reset switches, any good electronics shop (Tandy/Radio Shack?) should have 'Push to Momentarily Make' switches, they're interchangeable for Power and Reset.


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## metalguitarman (Apr 8, 2009)

ok been doing a lot more thinking and ive come to some defenate conclusions. other people have tried this and failed. thank you grimex133 for those articles helped me see some major flaws that even i didnt see. cases work off of air flow, which keeps out hot things cool. fridges work by cooling things from the inside out, kinda the reverse of how a microwave heats things up... anyways other people fail because the fridge isnt really blowing on anything. so major redesgin is in the final phase of thought process. im thinking about 6 80 mm fans in the fridge. and now there is going to be a pice of plexiglass in the middle of the fridge. 4 80s are going on the new pice of plexiglass that im putting in the middle and they are going to blow directly over the motherboard and 2 80's are going to push the air out. by only blowing air out that should keep the condensation to a minimum right? was also thinking about some liquid cooling too... just putting the liquid reservore and pump in the freezer part of the fridge as well as the fans. what do you guys think about that? too much over the top? btw im donig this so I can overclock the hell out of the computer. Im talking about the cpu, ram, video card...


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## grimx133 (Jan 15, 2008)

I too think airflow is a big problem. Often a solution creates new problems though, bringing in warm, moisture laden air from the outside will cause condensation methinks. 
You're better off with water, or something that incorporates a TEC. I'd like to get one like the CoolIT Boreas, but don't have 600CAD lying around eh. http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=33291&vpn=BOR1C&manufacture=CoolIT Systems
Review on it - http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...s/9731-coolit-boreas-mtec-chassis-review.html 

And then there's phase change.


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## metalguitarman (Apr 8, 2009)

well technally speaking im not going to be letting hot air into the case just going to be pushing cold air down onto the motherboard and then that hot air will in turn be pushed out of the case. im thinking i might get a small pump and reservore and put them in the area where the "freezer" area is in the box as well then just drill the holes in the plexiglass as well for the tubing to go through the pice of plexiglass that im going to be mounting in the middle of the fridge. dear lord its L bracket time. you know im really beginning to think this might just be more trouble than its worth. oh well still going to do it because I just cant let this go till ive either failed or made it. im starting on the 15th let you guys know how everything is going and will post pics when all the anger and screaming starts. lol


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## grimx133 (Jan 15, 2008)

Definitely post pics. Any air pushed out of the case (fridge) will be replaced with air from outside the case. As they say, "Nature abhors a vacuum." Fans can create a slight imbalance, but don't have the static pressure for anything more than slight. 

No doubt it will be interesting.


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