Superdense mITX build - 3d printed chassis

Hi all!

I accidentally found this forum while looking for info on the new 2011v3 mITX boards, and decided to post my build progress thread here :)

The Background
I am a big fan of the mITX factor for a very long time, and was planning this build for at least two years now.
What prompted me to start it was the fact that FINALLY someone started supporting the 2011 socket in the mITX factor! :D I thought this would't happen for years, but here we have ASRock (whose earlier board I own) delivering TWO boards in a very short timeline! WOHOO!

You guys rock :D

However, when reading reviews, I was surprised to read a lot of sceptical and negative comments on those boards. It seems that a lot of people cannot see the awesome potential of these, and, unfortunately, are extremely vocal about this.

So I decided to gather my toys and start drafting a build I've been planning for quite a while now, to prove a few things to all those naysayers :)

Since I am using an oldish board I'm not (very) afraid to risk damaging, I don't want to put max available time+money+effort into the build, so I will take a lot of shortcuts from the original idea. So, no custom PCBs, no port desoldering - i'll keep the mods of the actual components to a necessary minumum.

The Plan
The plan is to take an ordinary ATX PSU, a mITX board (Z77 with i7 2600k, 16GB RAM) + a GPU and try to push it to the density limit, while still maintaining decent OC abilities.

I want to maintain as much portability as possible, and build a rough, tough machine that can be carried in a backpack.

There are going to be surprises and bonuses, but you'll see that later :)

Now, onwards to the build!

I'll remove the heatsink now, to check for the heatsink holes alignment measures. I'm making a holes for these in the chassis as well, it will let me do interesting things with it later :)



I actually broke off the original Intel pins when I mounted and dismantled the heatsink several times prior, so I mounted it with inox screws instead. Made me feel safer, cause I could screw the heatsink to the processor really tightly, while maintaining even force. Anyway, this heatsink will soon be a thing of the past. i2600K can run stable at over 4GHz, and I want exactly that, to get a lot of single-thread performance for 3d graphics. So I'm gonna make a... something. You'll see later ;)


Here is the board, naked as the manufacturer intended it to be.  You can see hole misalignments clearly. I measured these, and made a proper version later.


In perspective. Kinda blurry, but you get the idea.

NOW LET'S MERGE THESE TOGETHER!
Here is the ready plate to mount the mobo and PSU next to one another.
It's a 3 piece print glued together. Good thing about 3d prints is that you can glue them without losing structural parameters. Still, I wanted to avoid having to glue these together on the line between components.
The elements are pretty thin for now, because there's gonna be a structure for HDDs below that will stiffen the whole thing significantly, and at the same time allow for a nice RAID setup using 2.5" HDDs.




Beauty shot above :P

And this is how both components look together:


In perspective. I hope you like picture floods? ;D


Below is a comparison with a 12" Thinkpad x201s. This thing is getting pretty darn small without even trying too  hard!
Do keep in mind that there are better and more compact PSU solutions (like PicoPSU. I had concerns about the future GPU power drain though, would have to build a full custom PSU, and that would take a lot of time. And moneys. That's the reason I decided to go with stock PSU for now. Done is better than perfect!)


Time to screw it all together and see if the 3d print can hold it together for now:


I bought longer screws on purpose, so I can start working on the other side of the chassis and mount other components into the build more easily. Will replace them with properly measured screws later.


That's how it looks from the other side:


Aaand we're done assembling both boards!


Backside view. One screw is missing from PSU, since the hole was slightly misaligned still. Later I punched it through with a hot wire, will have to correct the 3d model too.



PSU connected to the mobo.


The connectors are extremely close, just as I wanted them to be:


Mmmmaybe slightly too close? -_- But I'm not gonna give it more space, it has to fit, and if it won't, I'll make it :)


I trimmed off the protective net from the PSu cable to see what I can do to remove the excess of wires.
There is a lot.
Also, those protective nets are awful, they get everywhere if you're not careful and are a hell of a hassle to remove.


CHOP CHOP?
Have some space here, and I really don't want to desolder the cables from the PSU... There are, like, oceans of solder and copper there. No way am I going to touch that with a solder iron. Nor pay an exorbitant amount of money for an ATX connector clamp tool.
Sooo... I think I'll go with these. Though I'm not really happy about it, it's not an elegant solution, and will put strain on PSU cables...


That's where I will leave it off for now. Will probably get some more work on that during the weekend, will trim the cables and plan out the work for other components.

Nice Work sinusoid!

very cool build..never seen anyone modding a psu before like this...I like it..will be following along, keep the pics coming

Edited by Illegalseagull - 25 May 2015 at 2:54pm