So my first/current project is a Small Form Factor PC Case, specifically this BeamCase SFF SW that has a bunch of different profiles you can print for different sizes, and has you print parts that get bolted to aluminium extrusions as a core.
People on the Printables project seem pretty confident that PETG should be sufficient but I’m planning to eventually upgrade this thing with the RTX 4090 from my gaming PC (when the RAMPocalypse has been over long enough for an upgrade to be actually feasible), which is a 2.2kg card that’ll pump out a bunch of heat, so I’m inclined to go with something stronger.
I might / will probably try ASA / ABS / PET-GF/CF… but I can’t help but wonder if it’d be feasible to CNC the structural parts out of aluminium? I’d need to convert the files I have to CAD files, but it seems like VCarve can import STLs? And the segments are probably thicker than they would need to be if they were made out of aluminium, but I could scale down the thickness in CAD?
Anyone with experience in this space have any thoughts? I feel like an all-aluminium core is probably the safest option for the long term stability of the case (assuming no catastrophic user error), but there’s a cool factor to having the whole thing (save the extrusions, bolts, etc) be printed. There’s also a cool factor to having the whole thing be aluminium, and to having it all be aluminium, except the outer panels, that are 3d printed, though.
Fair bit of progress here - while I was still deciding whether I was going to join or not, I found a dude to print the parts I needed as a backup, and they arrived around the time I had all the internal structure bits printed myself.
I like the other guy’s colour better (and he printed in ASA rather than PETG), so I rebuilt the whole thing with his. At the same time, though, I’d edited the front panel file to add a space for a front USB-C port, and the side panels to experiment with having those attach magnetically instead of screwing on, and that seems to have worked!
So now I need to print a bunch of the new magnet-ready panels and experiment with putting a PVC mesh (or maybe just printing with a finer mesh?) before I put it to work
It currently weighs 4.5kg, measures approx 30x15x20cm and I can pick it up by the top in
one hand, which is very pleasing!
In the first pic here, you can see my new experimental magnet-panel printed at the space in blue Hawaiian PLA (left) vs the printed-for-me one in translucent teal PETG. The front panel is printed at the space in pink PLA, the side pink panels are printed for me in translucent pink PETG. I think I’m going to use the blue hawaiian for the other blue panels, and neon city for the pink panels.
I ended up replacing the core frame with an ABS one I got printed elsewhere (originally printed as a backup, but I liked the colour more), and the panels with Neon City (Blue/Purple) and Blue Hawaii (Green/Blue) modified to (just about) connect magnetically, aligned to be more Purple+Blue from the front and Blue+Green from the back.
…And now it lives hidden in a hole in the wall under my TV behind the canvas it’s sitting on in the picture
