4 open air mining computer cases, worried about being wobbly, corner reinforceme

[morphtrust]

*******(sorry to anyone who is confused by the title but I had to use 4 instead of FOR since the title is limited on how many characters, however if after reading this, you have a suggestion for a shorter title that explains what is in the thread I am all ears )***********

anyone out there have a shelf, or mining rig that they got that seems a bit unsteady because of lack of contact point?

all of the square tubing rigs I have seen as well as most of the angle aluminum rigs I have seen all seem to suffer from this, and though a single case should not be a problem, when you start stacking them up with the weight of all the hardware on the above cases gaining leverage over the bottom case, I am sure it will not take much to cause it all to topple over causing a lot of damage to your mining hardware investments!

This is something that can be sorted incredibly easy and I am offering packages of reinforcement units to solve this if you feel this is important to you. also note that the stacking rigs that firmly connect, this should be able to be deployed on the bottom rig and maybe one or two in the middle of your stack of 6 or more lol, stabilizing the whole stack substantially even if you have box fans hanging off the side pulling on them a bit. though mounting them on all frames will give maximum stability

for a guideline I have the ones shown on this corner that measure an inch between holes and enough room in the cut out area to allow for 1 inch angle comfortably, with the edge from the sides of the angle being identical on both sides
also any rolling on the edges to avoid sharp edges is experimental and can be done as plain flat fold over to avoid the roll from intruding into your case inside volume of area, ( I noticed this with my very first design where the powersupply is mounted in the corner to the angle) (the one pictured at the end of this post has holes that work for 4-40 screws but the size of the screw hole is customizable up to one quarter inch sized screws and bolts if you want. also thickness is about .020 on the pictured one, but thicker metal can be used, just expect it to drive up the cost of shipping for a lot of them in one pack a bit lol.


8 pack of these would be 15 dollars made from aluminum sheet, and $12.50 for steel sheet. this is enough to mount say on the top bars on both sides all the way around to allow for there to be one that is always being stretched and one that is being buckled on no matter what direction your case is being pushed on avoiding any movement and giving maximum security, and if you insist on 20 of them (total of one for every corner around sides top and bottom and one for each corner on the top of the case) I can do custom cut out holes for thing to poke through like USB ports and what not. just let me know. On tube frames you will have to either drill all the way through the case to get a screw all the way through and a nut on the back side of it if you can not do threading on the tubes and this is of course much easier on angle.

if you want something with custom hole placement and sizing and I am sure I can work something out for you. (I can also coat them with epoxy enable spray before shipping for a small extra charge if you want.


just let me know what you are seeking package wise and I can get you a quote on custom units, or custom quantities and see what we can do to cut down on shipping costs. I can even do double box bends so you can mount to the inside faces of those tube cases to avoid any thing even as thin as a screw head or the bracket from sticking out the sides of the case, again just let me know.

on shipping charges I can pack quite a few of these into a one pound cost box to ship them to you. so holding off and ordering all of them at once will save quite a bit since priority mail for a one pound or under box is only about 5.50 to most of the US states.


picture of the corner reinforcement


***edit to add contact info to reach me
user names
Skype: architct
eBay: facesmiths
yahooIM: morphtrust
gmail chat: morphtrust

also you can look at my sheet metal skills more thoroughly over on this thread
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=490358.0


****edit 2

for those not comfortable with any of the above, I will be making cases shortly that use 1/8th thick aluminum angle and will be possibly offering some with titanium angle too, and will be including these and all the custom brackets to mount hard drives and optical drives as well as two power supplies, 6 GPUs, larger case fans on back and side if desired as the mounts will have several contact points, for nearly all parts even the rails to set and clamp down the GPUs to change the height they sit over the motherboard, and motherboard for around 175 and future upgrades will be things like quick change contact points to stretch air filter covers over them so they still allow maximum air flow but catch most of the dust, cutting down on your maintenance of you systems, and you can just toss the filter into the washing machine to clean them periodically, possibly even with custom patterns printed on the filters to tidy the look of your mining farm up a bit

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[morphtrust]

this is what I was talking about by the way in the previous post concerning a brace to stabilize the cases made with square tubing with out eating up any inside room or increasing the foot print of the cases

[morphtrust]

working on some more case design components for those that might be interested,

right now it is all hand made and what not, but still very effective at solidly holding the two powersupplies in place, and I am about to add more holes to everything so a top fan on the bottom supply will have plenty of air space to work with if two of those sort are used, thus leaving the option to stack them ontop of each other or spread them out with one at the very top of the case and one at the very bottom (top as in under that top bar, not way up where the legs are at to attach a second case on top to stack them up )



if anyone is interested in cases too, and willing to deal with the issues that come from hand formed parts partially, as I get this design down, you can get them for a lower price and get a lot of extra goodies like hard drive mount brackets and what not too, just let me know what you are needing

[morphtrust]

oh I should add that besides sheet metal tools for much of the stuff I am working with, (the bar in the last pic is a very hard alloy that a 16gauge sheet metal bender just can not get a decent bend on or grip if so little is available to bend on it) I also have a CNC mill and lathe I can be coaxed into getting on to make some custom parts, either for cases or anything else, including maybe some custom tooling for someone making cases and wanting a short cut that saves them a lot of time and gets them a precise action like shaped hole cutting or something, Not shown it yet but I have several cutters that allow me to cut square and rectangular holes of various sizes too, all custom made from off the shelf tooling so I can replicate it for anyone wanting something

removed super secret pics lol.

[morphtrust]

new holes punched and modifications to the rail for the power supply support, so either position can be used now, allowing for separating two supplies that have fans on top of them for air flow to reach the top of the powersupply on the bottom (and a shot of what that rail started life like earlier last night lol)

[morphtrust]

hard drive mounting brackets for a single standard hard drive (3.5 not the laptop standard 2.5 units lol)






by the way no idea what these little bits are worth, so if you have an idea, feel free to shoot me a message or something..

[morphtrust]

just mentioning I placed the rails up on ebay. anyone wanting some but wanting to use bitcoin to pay, let me know. and I can help you out. will also make them a lot cleaner looking than the home made looking ones in here
rounded corners and if you want polished to a mirror shine surfaces lol.

[morphtrust]

bump to keep from being lost

[morphtrust]

bump and info that I shipped my first open air case today XD. Still need to get a physical motherboard for the standoffs as I don't trust any of the info I have found on motherboard sizing due to the ancient age of the info.

[morphtrust]

my friend setting up a rig in the case I posted so far here, *(and sending me feedback to improve the design )



apparently the sapphire 270x 4gb cards are super short, unlike the other 2gb cards he had that are long enough to stretch to the back of the case. lol, so he had to move the rail in some, guess I will have to make multiple contact points on these so people can slide the rails around and position them where they most want.
Then I can start worrying about the aesthetic aspect I have up my sleeve XD

 

[pontiacg5]

I have a DXF of the motherboard mounting spec, if you would like.

I know it is good, there are pictures of my open air cases around the forum I made using the same pattern.

It is a standard though, and "old" info is still totally relevant.

[morphtrust]

would definitely help other than just getting a motherboard which I dont want to buy till I can get a whole rig of guts (so I can test it all out of the box and be sure it is not broken, for warranty issues)

been looking around too and found a couple machines that would be much better deals for mining rigs though. at least start up capitol, but the problem is they are all specialized server stuff, not ATX like the motherboards people are using now.

[pontiacg5]

Here you go, I put an ATX power supply mounting pattern in there too.

http://speedy.sh/wDa6m/Motherboard-pattern.DXF

I'm not sure what you are seeing, but I highly doubt server grade stuff is cheaper.

[morphtrust]

thanks will have a look

[morphtrust]

just an update on how things are going.

the original case after some modifications, the guy I sent it to, made to it, (looks like it needs more mods to be where it will be 100% what he needs.





The new case I am making with adjustments to make sure it suits the needs of his next build.









Adjustable for different powersupply lengths




just working out now how to give them feet all the time, for the base unit on the bottom of the stack, any suggestions would be welcome. (this one I will be using some standoff 2 inch extruded aluminum I-beams that I have some laying around here of, but not sure where yo get more of it, so I can only make maybe two cases worth of stand offs out of it, thus why I need to figure out something more off the shelf I can acquire for future builds beyond the next case after this one )

[morphtrust]

@pontiacg5 I will be giving that DXF file a shot, looks like from a print out that it is going to work, will modify it too a bit to make a G-code file if anyone is interested in one for cutting bases to mount mother boards to on a CNC mill though I am going to be using an 1/8th inch end mill for all cuts and 7/64ths drill bit for the standoffs so they can be tapped afterwards for the MOBO mounting standoffs. If anyone needs it adjusted for 1/4" endmill maybe since I am doing centerline cuts and adjusting the file (off by .0625 outside direction of cut) you would need me to adjust it by .125 outside direction of cut for that 1/4" endmill *most router CNC set ups have a 1/4" collect option only, I can go down to 1/16" inch on mine since I have a rotozip and the collets are very simple to make my own here to any diameter I need on a lathe.)


anyway enough CNC talk lol

[morphtrust]

@pontiacg5 The DXF file worked like a charm Thanks a million. Now I can make them with confidence. Sent the second case to the guy I sent the first one to, and he has confirmed his sabertooth ceram!x mobo mounted to it with all the standoffs I put on the board using that DXF file perfectly

you can see what I have done as far as re-engineering the design over here

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=490358.msg6107523#msg6107523 (warning tons of pics lol)

cases hold 3 power supplies natively, and up to 7 video cards with a full card slot in between each card (ie in a case you would use two screw points on the card then skip a screw point, then use two, to get that amount on there, so if you leave more room like two screw points then you get less on the rig that way, and I can put the holes where ever if someone had a lower quantity of cards they wanted to place, making the spacing between them equal and solid. I would just need to know how many. Now I am going to take a bunch of measurements off the new rack mount case I got and see how I can modify the design to fit racks so people will have more options got this monster to take the measurements from

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=490358.msg6153467#msg6153467

[morphtrust]

updated pics of the rig, and hard drive mounting brackets here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=490358.msg6306982#msg6306982