Jeffrey Stephenson Posted April 11, 2016 Share Posted April 11, 2016 Project SkyVue is a water-cooled mini-ITX mid-range gaming tower finished in African Sapele wood with polished aluminum trim. Major features include a GTX 960 video card, a blower-based low-profile water-cooling system and an M.2 PCIe SSD. The project consists of two main components; the interior chassis and the external enclosure. The decorative enclosure slides down to cover the chassis and is not connected in any other way. The internal chassis can operate autonomously. SkyVue took 240 hours to design and build over an eight week period in 2016. All of the work was done by myself using various hand tools, a Dremel rotary tool and a cordless drill. Specs: Intel Core i5-6600K Gigabyte GA-Z170N-WIFI Mini-ITX Motherboard Gigabyte 4GB GTX 960 Video Card Corsair H5 SF Low-Profile Liquid Cooler Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB DDR4 System Memory Kingston HyperX Predator 240GB M.2 SSD Corsair Neutron XT 2.5" 480GB SSD Silverstone SFX ST30SF 300W Power Supply Project Log: An aluminum case is modified to provide for the water-cooler exhaust vent. The mounting system for the Corsair H5 SF water-cooler shares three of the four motherboard mounting screws. Thanks for looking! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffrey Stephenson Posted April 11, 2016 Author Share Posted April 11, 2016 Taping up the case for Dremel work. Removed paint down to bare aluminum. Cut a piece of 1/8" aircraft grade 7-ply birch plywood Glued it up using polyethylene adhesive. Made two back panels out of 1/16" aircraft grade 5-ply birch plywood. Note difference in cooler vent hole size. The two back panels glued together with wood glue creates pocket for vent mesh. Cut vent mesh to size. Some dry fitting to check the progress. I'm calling this a bikini chassis because it's only just enough to get the job done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffrey Stephenson Posted April 11, 2016 Author Share Posted April 11, 2016 Trimmed up a bit more of the case around the video card. Glued up the wood to the aluminum again using the polyethylene adhesive. I made this collar/spacer that shifts the mounting point downward 3/8" to a place with more surrounding metal. The collar also defines the interior space that will be enclosed later. Assembled to check for progress. Cut a notch and modified my spacer/collar to help reduce the overall size. Drilled out holes and attached a piece of 1/2" x 1/16" aluminum angle with #6-32 screws and nuts. This is not only to add strength but also provide a place to hide a portion of the PCIe cable that will stretch to the top of the case. A custom PSU surround will be bonded to the original work to provide a solid metal attachment point for the power supply. Thanks for looking! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffrey Stephenson Posted April 11, 2016 Author Share Posted April 11, 2016 To attach a base to the aluminum structure I built these collars. Built up the power supply box. Added more 1/2" aluminum angle to help support the graphics card. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffrey Stephenson Posted April 11, 2016 Author Share Posted April 11, 2016 1/2" wood angle. The clearance between the cover and chassis is paper thin. Literally. I use pieces of paper to separate the two during construction. What I'm constructing here is the PSU box section of the cover. The cover will slide up and down. Building a top for the sliding box. Checking the fit. Paper spacers and wood angle for the next cover section...the motherboard/cooler box. Painted the internal chassis flat black and continued the motherboard/cooler cover construction. T6511 aluminum bar stock for the decorative trim. Thanks for looking! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffrey Stephenson Posted April 11, 2016 Author Share Posted April 11, 2016 Cut a PSU access hole in the bottom of the base. The power supply will be installed/dropped out from the bottom. Construction of the center-line decorative element. This creates a cradle for the aluminum barstock. Beveling the barstock ends using a Dremell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffrey Stephenson Posted April 11, 2016 Author Share Posted April 11, 2016 More center-line decorative element work. I designed and built a friction-fit fan mount in the top section just in case it was needed for additional cooling. This is the vent structure for the video card. Started veneering the vent "interiors". Mesh scavenged from an Office Depot desktop in/out tray. A transition piece. Finished the 90 degree bevels. Polished the barstock using 100, 220, 600, 1000 grit sandpaper finished with Mother's Aluminum Polish. Test fitting the trim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffrey Stephenson Posted April 11, 2016 Author Share Posted April 11, 2016 Completing the enclosure. Started veneering the main section of the cover. The entire project is covered in 96 pieces of Sapele veneer. The video card vent section alone is made up of 41 pieces The interior is brush painted in flat black. Gluing the top section together. Test fitting the trim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffrey Stephenson Posted April 11, 2016 Author Share Posted April 11, 2016 Finished building out the base. Used some industrial-grade epoxy to glue the trim angles together. Not strong but not structural either. Veneered the back including the inside edges. Drilled out holes for the storage SSD. Veneering technique. Evened up the trim ends with a metal file. Equipment test fit. The two raw unfinished project components. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffrey Stephenson Posted April 11, 2016 Author Share Posted April 11, 2016 Finished chassis including video card backplate. Size comparison Mini-ITX sized nVidia GTX 960 w/ 4GB memory. PCIe riser and extension usage. Corsair AIO low-profile water-cooler featuring a 120mm blower. Gigabyte Z170 mini-ITX motherboard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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