Disclaimer: I am not a professional
when it comes to working with Plexiglas. There might be better ways of
doing the things that I did that I don't know about. This guide is only to
show the way that I built my case. Your mileage may vary.
About a year ago I decided that it was time to do another major
project. I knew I wanted a case that was small and had a very small
footprint. It was important for me that it look very professional, and
very clean. I also wanted to take another stab at building a
Plexiglas case from scratch.
With this in mind I started sketching out some basic ideas and
eventually graduated into cardboard cutouts of the case I wanted. I then
transferred these plans into my computer and sent them to Bill
at Clear Computer Case. He
used their industrial laser to cut out the panels I wanted and sent them to
me.
Because I used a laser to cut all of my panels from the template I
made, I don't have any traditional cutting to do. All of the pieces should
just glue together. And because the ambient humidity here is so low I
don't have any need to clean up the edges of the panels. Unfortunately, if
you are in a climate with over 60% humidity, you will have to prep the edges of
the panels before glueing..
This panel is the base. It is by far the most important
panel in the case. Everything is glued to this piece and most of the
components are mounted to it. Notice that I did not remove the backing
entirely. By leaving some of the backing on the chances of scratching the
panel is greatly reduced. While doing any assembly work, you should always
leave the backing on any part that you are not gluing.
Oddly enough, I have found the best way to assemble these cases is
to mount the motherboard first. To do this I used standard brass
stand-offs that screw into .11" holes. By using a stand-off and a standard
screw you can tap out the holes using the stand-off itself.
The only important thing is to make sure you have the stand-off
straight before you screw it in. Otherwise you will have a lopsided screw
that won't line up with the holes in the motherboard.
When you are done screwing in the stand-off simply take off the
case screw like you normally would.
