Project: EVGA Classified SR-2 Case

[Spotswood]

I've been commissioned to build a very large wooden case to house his upcoming watercooled EVGA Classified SR-2 rig. This case is designed and built to run cool, quiet and be ultra-flexible for future upgrades.

Note how the side panels are constructed as air ducts for supplying cool fresh air to the front and sides of the case:

The walls will be constructed of 1.5-inch solid oak face frames with 5.2mm oak veneer plywood "panels" bolted to the inside of the frames and with aluminum "adapters" bolted to the front of the panels. The openings in the panels are sized to the largest pieces of hardware envisioned to be mounted in a particular location. The adapters could be exchanged with different adapters depending on what particular hardware is to be mounted in a panel opening.

Here are the specifications and some of the features of this case.

Physical Characteristics:

• External dimensions (HxWxD - inches): 44 x 26.5 x 35.5

Materials:

• 3/4-inch solid red oak, 3/4-inch and 5.2mm oak veneer plywood.
• .100-inch aluminum sheet and 1/8-inch aluminum angle, channel and rectangular tube.
• 1/8-inch clear acrylic.

Features:

• The side doors act as air ducts to supply fresh air from the bottom, top and back of the case to the front/sides.
• Unique modular panel construction provides flexibility for the placement of drive bays, fans, power supplies, etc.
• Mounting locations for two power supplies.
• Air flow is: fresh air enters from the side/front and exhausts out the back.
• The bottom case has two custom radiator holders for mounting up to four 140x4 radiators.
• The case is actually two separate cases bolted together.
• Removable ten slot motherboard tray.
• Motherboard tray can be mounted in a horizontal or vertical position.
• Powder coated aluminum.
• Wood finished with black water-based stain and polyurethane.

The bracket to hold the two Black Ice GTX 560 radiators is a simple affair, consisting of some aluminum 1x2-inch square tubing and channel.

All of the pieces are held together with two long 1/4-inch threaded rods which act as clamps to hold everything together. The ~4mm tall acrylic bumpers get compressed down to ~2mm to keep the radiators in place:

All of the aluminum bits will eventually be powder coated gloss black.

 

[Burn]

I heard about this over at XS when you announced you'd be building it, really looking forward to seeing the final result.

 

[synergy]

Looks very cool! Keep us updated

 

[SirCyber]

I'm ULTRA jealous! wish I could afford to play with that mobo!

 

[S0ULphIRE]

Mmmmm, dual 1366 sockets....tasty

 

[Spotswood]

Some serious real life events have kept me out of the shop most of the week. However, I did manage to create a couple of patterns which I'll use to router out the holes for the 5.25-inch drive bays:

And I built a jig to guide my plunge router to router out the 3/16-inch slots in the 5.25-inch drive bay rails.

A full size drawing is taped to the .10-inch thick aluminum to guide the placement of the jig.

Two sets of stops are used to accurately position the router at the beginning and ending of each slot.

 

[Spotswood]

Fabrication of the 5.25-inch drive bay rails continues. After breaking all 3 of my 3/16-inch woodworking router bits I ordered some standard end mills and they have performed awesomely. Because they are run without any lubrication I needed to keep the feed rate really slow.

After many hours I managed to complete 28 out of the total 35 rails for this case.

 

[S0ULphIRE]

woah, nice work!

 

[baron5]

thats a lot of rails, do you plan on filling them all

 

[Spotswood]

Tired of routing all of the 5.25-inch drive rails, I switched to fabricating the PSU(s) mounting plate:

I made a router pattern for 5.25-inch drive cage.

And routered out the .10-inch thick aluminum.

The round corners were filed square.

Another pattern was made for the two PSU mounting holes:

Here's the plate (it still needs to be trimmed to its final width):