Make your own retro case

You have an industrial grade 3D printer and sheet metal producing devices in your basement. You're also a VIP customer of every ebay retro seller. Also a plenty of free time on your hands to realize your ideal PC retrocomputer.

It can be anything, but let's concentrate on imaginative fictitious computer cases, not components. So OK to have some custom risers, breakouts, simple electronics, but let's not go into custom logic boards like "15x15 cm board with 286, VGA, integrated ram, XY123 power connector". Try to use real components when imagining the case.

Crude napkin drawings are a plus

Seems like alot of work....

The manufacture or the imagination part?

Alternatively, not having 3-d printer or sheet metal tools, I design to fit existing enclosures. Considering how cheap pc boards are, it is a reasonable approach.
Bill

We can all dream.. But putting that type of effort into a case... Well. I guess I just dont see the point unless your someone who can do this: http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/forum/showthread.php?1-Doom3-Project-Mars-City-Worklog


But even if you are.. Why?

Probably just as much effort to build one from hardwood--and you end up with a piece of fine furniture.

I want something dual-storey like the Cooler Master HAF XB. It gives you the all-around accessibility of a desktop case, with the opportunity to hide many of the sins of cable tangles. The original design had 2x5.25 bays and 2x3.5; I'd go for four 5.25 bays. Maybe rotate the PSU to improve clearance in the back. Extend it about 5cm front to back so that the longest of long cards are no challenge.

The major rework would be visual. I did a rework on a real one a while back-- replacing the honeycomb grille with one using chevron patterns, adding a small OLED display in the style of traditional LED displays, and beigeing it up. I'd continue that premise but dial it up a bit more-- more appropriate buttons and LED panels to make it look like someone wanted to design a 1980s "Looks enough like a 5170 that people will take it seriously" PC clone, that specific texture of old cast plastic, get the colours right. Perhaps a modesty panel for USB and card-reader slots.

This would handle anything from an XT board to modern extended-ATX.

I built my case using wood, nails and glue.
It looks like a hacked piece of crap but I'm sure that was how they did it in the homebrew days. c:

Ages ago I worked at a company that had its own machine shop. Instead of buying off the shelf industrial cabinets they built their own. Mostly a tube frame holding the heavy stuff with a stainless steel shell with removable panels for electronics, controls, and power. It's not that hard to make a metal case if you have basic bending equipment, a spot welder, some clamps, etc. The expensive part was the heavy equipment that did louvers for airflow and a GreenLee knockout to punch clean holes.

Most people don't have 3D printers big enough to make plastic cases and anything wood related would get expensive using hardwood and the proper tools needed.

NeXT said:

It looks like a hacked piece of crap but I'm sure that was how they did it in the homebrew days. c:

Click to expand...

Hails back to the origins of the word "breadboard". My late father had a yen to resurrect his radio building days of the 1920s. So he lined up some surface-mount (Eby, I think) sockets and some battery-type receiving tubes and a bunch of AWG 14 bare wire and a nice clean pine board. Wood screws to fasten the sockets to the board. Neatness counted, so wire was stapled to the board at appropriate places. Wound his own coils, but had to settle for regular (meshed plate) variable capacitors, instead of the book-type. And batteries. 45v for the plate supply.

I will 3D print my first housing later this year, but all electronics will be custom around an ISA slot backplane.

I don't have sheet metal bending material, but I do have a small CNC (6030) and a lathe and way more 3D printers than any sane person should have, so building a case is possible...

I am planning on a "Borg" like cube... A big square box with a heatsink down the side for pre-switching linear regulators, and ISA slots one side, and a simple LED and logo face, with a modifiable fourth-side for unanticipated expansion.

I've built some custom cases before, mainly around AT style hole spacing, for a large industrial multiplexer... I borrowed the AT hole spacing anticipating I could modify a real case, and then the company I worked for said to make a case from scratch and gave me a budget.

Think a PC like case with over 100 serial ports on the top where the monitor usually goes,

If I was back in the day, I would have made it out of wood or modified a plastic box... But I was comfortable designing video game like enclosures that used minimal panels, and a cabinet wasn't that hard to put together.

I also made a PC a long time back into which I installed a small screen - it wasn't intended to be useful, but to provide an idea of what was on the screen since the screen was a projector, and wasn't always on.

As for my favourite commercial case, it was a full size 386DX that had an alphanumeric display (LED or Plasma - can't remember ) that displayed the selected Head, Track and Sector being accessed on the HDD. I don't know why they did it, but it was something I really enjoyed and would have kept it had I not already been working on a Pentium at the time.

Pactec cm5 clam-shell enclosure is perfect for 100mmX100mm pc board. It is $10 new from Mouser, but surplus lots are sometimes available on eBay for $2-3 each in larger quantity. I’ve designed multi-board Z80/6502 computers for Pactec cm5-200 enclosure.

A lot of work and a lot of knowledge and resources required, but I think that this is pretty impressive. Currently, out of my league. Nice that the author is sharing the files.

That is super cool! I'll probably have to make that.

- Alex