My First Case Mod (G5)

[akhilv1]

Sorry, but I have already ordered my parts. So I'm committed to drilling a lot of holes, it would seem. I know it will be a pain, but I'd rather do it double sided. It'll be a lot cleaner with the HDD connectors on one side and all the cables connecting in the back.

No Problem and I was actually thinking of having the traced and the sata data and power connectors on one side and leaving the hfs side with just the recepticals.

 

[akhilv1]

Update Time:
My connectors should be coming in tomorrow, but I haven't ordered the PCB yet. I originally designed it in eagle only to find out that there is some awkward scaling issue when you import from the library which causes an issue with DRC. I switched to a software called PCB Artist and found a company that would fab my board for really cheap comparatively, and I will be submitting the design soon. As for Schmov17's Eagle design, the same issue is occurring with Annular Ring expansion. I have attached PDF versions of each of the layers, feel free to ask me any questions you may ave about them, and as always, feel free to use them as I know a lot of fabs accept the layers in the pdf format.

As for the Plexi... I've been quite lazy to take it to the dfab lab at my school, but I'm hoping to get that done by the end of this week or so.

 

[akhilv1]

I thought I'd do a quick update.

I've been a little lazy, so I haven't cut the acrylic yet, but in the meant time, I did have a pcb made, and it turned out spectacularly. I finished soldering and testing a while ago and I ended up with only two minor issues. I forgot to mirror a sata port, and it's too close to another port so I had to put it on the other side, and the socket connector mounting tabs had to be bent because the hole spacing was off.

If anyone plans on using my schematic, I can modify that and send the the eagle or gerber files.

Also in the mean time, I have added 3 more PCI slots in the back of the case by using the 4 slots off another G5 that was being scrapped. Im also working on making enough space in the back so that the two 92mm fans don't interfere with the motherboard. I ran out of cutting bits on my friends dremel, so I'm waiting on mine to arrive so I can finish up the case.

My build seems to be turning into the cheap version of the no backplate flush build so we'll see what happens.

 

[akhilv1]

So I guess it's time for an update to the Acrylic HDD cage. For my first time Laser Cutting, I ruined a 24 x 24 piece of Black 3mm Acrylic that I spent $25 on... ;(

I went back to the drawing board and made a couple of changes so that that wouldn't happen again. In the mean time, I ordered another identical piece of acrylic, which is sitting here unused. Before that arrived though, I stumbled on 2 36 x 31 pieces of clear acrylic windows, and so I modified the file to accommodate the extra thickness, and also increased the height of the rack to go from top to bottom instead of hanging off the midplate. Version 1 of the tall pieces was cut only for me to realize that the mount for the PCB was off, and that the front fan mount could use some work so it wasn't permanent. Also, when a 240mm rad was mounted to the mid fan plate, it would interfere with the GPU in the bottom slot.

Now I'm gearing up to cut Version 2 of the tall hdd rack, and this time, I'm adding a magnetic removal price for the front fans as well as accommodations for a top mounted up to 420mm rad, although this will never happen as the tall HDD rack blocks the front 140mm fan mount. I also took this time to remove the steel part on the side of the G5 and cut the locking mechanism off so that it can be moved to the top of the case for better space usage. Since I wont be using a horizontal midplate anymore, I can totally ignore the mounts for that on the lock bar, and move ahead with cutting the unlock handle and just moving that up.

 

[the-mpire]

What a great mod! Thank you for all the details you shared. May I ask you a favour? As I recently started my first G5 mod and I have a laser at hand as well I am thinking about doing custom backplates made out of black acrylic or plexi. You already did the work I was going to do (drawing the case, front, back etc.). Would you share PDF or any other vector based filetype? Many thanks in advance!