Aluminium thickness

Guardsmon

Guardsmon

Guardsmon

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Hi, I'm designing my own case, and just realised I got the aluminium dimensions wrong. Anyone know the thickness of the aluminium used in Lian Li cases? 1.0mm, 1.5mm?

Any help would be great or suggests as to which to use. Would steal be a better choice? Either way, still need a dimension so I can correct my drawings

Thanks
 
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Edit: whoops, had this thread open before you made the edit.

Steel is probably a better choice, at least noise and strength wise. Will be a lot heavier though.
 
I'm designing a case which is 310x260x280 designed to fit matx board and gaming rig. Will have a top compartment for the motherboard and the power supply, hard drives and optical will be located below it in a separate space. Not too worried about weight, more about it being affordable, working and pref quiet :)

I'll bang some pictures up when i get these designs drawn up
 
Steel is appreciably cheaper to buy but more expensive to work. I've had a play with some 1.6mm steel, and that would make for a ridiculously strong side panel. In case you haven;t found it yet form factors.

Aluminium wins strength to weight, and is beautiful to work with. It's worth the extra money I think. I've been looking into making my own case, and sadly it isn't as cheap as I'd hoped it would be. I'm still going to do it, just not while unemployed. I'll be following this attentively, as the most likely form factor I'll go with is matx.

What have you got so far? Steel frame cube with aluminium panels screwed to each side? Particularly fun parts are joints in the corners, pci slots and trying to hide the screws. The outline you're going with sounds solid, its certainly tried and tested. I'd suggest the psu below, as then the top part can be just motherboard. Drill appropriate cable holes in the middle horizontal panel. installing the psu will take longer, but working on the motherboard will be a dream.

How long do you have for the design project, and how capable are you with computer aided design? If not particularly comfortable, I'd like to work with you on this project. Finite element analysis remains beyond me, but I should do quite well modelling things.

That's far from your initial question, so I suppose I should say that I'd use aluminium sheet in as thick as I could afford, with a steel frame underlying it.

Cheers :)
 
1mm in top panel, 1,15mm in sides, 1,5mm in door/internal frame, 2mm in PSU attaching plate.
(from A71)


D D Danneh said:
Steel is probably... Will be a lot heavier though.
Click to expand...
Steel is three times as heavy per volume.
Strength of aluminium again varies widely between alloys so there it gets more complicated.
 
stainless steel will way a ton, but if you're designing your own case... you could design the panels you want on AutoCAD... nest them all together, take the disc to a laser cutter and get the whole lot done in one go... any custom design you want.....a laser will cut it accurately in about 5 mins..... i used to be a laser profile cutter.

best material 2mm ALLY... but be careful of highly polished/ mirrored S.S/ALLY, because the laser bed might scratch it....it's far too easy to scratch anyway.. go for a brushed/ sandblasted type of finish.

the laser will cut all your screw holes/ fan holes/ window in side panel etc...any crazy design you want as easy as pie....it'll be expensive though

you'll only need 6 panels, and some kind of internal frame, all of this can be nested up on one sheet and cut out of 2mm ally..to save cost, do not choose different mat'l thickness.... whack it out in one go.

http://www.yorkshirelaser.co.uk/

i've just had a thought..... you can custom build a better version of the Antec Skeleton by laser profiling, it'll look flipping fantastic.............you can get the top fan from them too!

you could design a retro ``bird's nest style``.. or just copy theirs and increase the dimensions by 2'' in every direction... no problems with cooling whatsoever ...the laser will cut out any fancy pants design easily.... this way, you can fit any size of CPU cooler you like

just design good slide out trays for your mobo and below, another similar tray for everything else..... you'll need a couple of 120 mm fans at one end for cooling this lower tray..... but flipping heck... it's dead easy.

right, i've got the Autocad disc; i'm going to reupload it.... this needs a new thread...Mal's Skeleton :D:D
 
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Cheaper aluminium cases are 1mm Al for the PC-7, and 2mm for the front clip-on fascia. More expensive aluminium cases (V-series etc) use 2mm+ throughout afaik.

I'd recommend 2mm thick aluminium, possibly more if you want it to be very sturdy and weight's not an issue.
 
It may be the pessimist in me, and I definately see the up-side of building your own case and the satisfaction that may come from it... But wouldnt it save so much money, time and effort to buy a well constructed case rather than make a well constructed case that may not look as good nor have the same features such as tool-less installation etc?
 
it would be cheaper to buy a case, but the whole idea of making your own is to be unique..... the trouble is, thinking of an open plan design that's not a direct copy of the Skeleton... yet is cheap to laser cut.

a standard box case would be harder, simply because you'd have to make sure there's no unsightly gaps, when it all assembles
 
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What you really want is Beryllium, 10x stronger than titanium, 10x lighter, and cools 10x faster.

You can heat it up to 900degC, drop it 10 feet and catch it in your hands and it would be cold to touch.

There are only two problems -

1. its poisonous (deadly) but can be treated to cure this.

2. its ultra expensive. Im suprised its not used for brake discs or pads really but im guessing 1. is the problem here.
 
Its not just about being unique, it is about making a case to your own idea of how a pc case should be, there are no retail cases available in retail I personally like 100% in function, looks yes but function no, learning a good cad programe would be best, then design it like others are saying, then take the design to a fabricator and they should be able to do the parts for you, I don't know how much it would cost thou, pretty expensive I expect but so is buying tools, I would do it this way but I actually enjoy making it all myself from using the easy to learn google sketchup straight through to the end product, I started off with a dremel and gradually got more tools and at a state now where I can do better cases than when I started, but for some things a machine can do better than what a human with weak tools can not like the pci slot io area of a motherboard tray.

Using a combination of flat bars and angle bars can really strengthen a case whilst using as thin as 1mm sheet, like what I'm doing in my new case but I'm using 1.5mm sheets for that extra kick of strength, it is 5251H22 Medium Strength Grade aluminium and its pretty sturdy.

Beryllium, never heard of it before, sounds good thou except for the poisonous bit :D.
 
3MM steel is way too heavy/strong..go for 1.6mm, either ALLY or S.S...because you will not be able to lift a 3mm pc case..once finished! :eek:

http://www.nemetschek.net/edispatch/vol41/DB_lg.jpg

there you go, that's what a laser will do.........easily!..i used to cut shapes like this every day, you could use a Plasma cutter too.

the only problem is, it'll be more expensive than my Lian , so therefore i cant afford it
 
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The aluminium used in the zalman gt cases is 4-5mm, you can definitely use thick aluminium in a case design, it's expensive but the extra weight does reduce vibrations. The cheaper (still over 100) lian li's use 1mm Al, the more expensive ones use 2mm on their side panels.
 
jak731 said:
The aluminium used in the zalman gt cases is 4-5mm, you can definitely use thick aluminium in a case design, it's expensive but the extra weight does reduce vibrations. The cheaper (still over 100) lian li's use 1mm Al, the more expensive ones use 2mm on their side panels.
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yes and a 3mm Ally sheet is far cheaper to laser cut than S.S ...a sheet of Ally will cost you about 100 quid plus another 120 for cutting, depending upon the design.....the software tells you the time required to cut out all the components..and this is what the price is based upon...so keep it simple!

a pc case will take about 5 mins to cut out, but because it has a large surface area when nested out, they'll charge you for a whole sheet.........i'm toying with the idea of getting an internal panel laser cut and then polished afterwards..this will be much cheaper, because they'll use a bit of off- cut
 
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