3D Printed ITX done right: The NFC-4TF

designing computer cases for people to build at home really excites me and this is my latest project to my Discord for an ITX case with a low profile GPU and the option for a flex power supply and this is the resulting layout two 92 millimeter fans in front provide a torrent of intake for the system and also set the CPU panel height which is 79 millimeters there is plenty enough room at the bottom for a flex power supply and all its cables to be easily installed and the Gap also provides a natural spot for the on off switch which has been an icon in my design language for 15 years flexibility and power supply Choice is still provided as many of the NFC Discord Community as well as myself would prefer to use the HD Plex 250 watt Gan so I provide alternate trim panels and mounting the motherboard uses 10 millimeter standoffs which can help with cable runs but also allow intake fans to gently cool any back mounted nvme drives the NFC angel wings logo provides an exhaust often I see requests for dust filters in the YouTube comments and although they aren't for me I designed one this time that I felt enhance the Aesthetics and improve the current market offering you can buy activated carbon filters and cut and drop them in the front easily and remove them easily now for the part that really excites me the chassis has been designed to be printed on a home 3D printer and cut on a home 3D diode laser the 3D printed Parts need to be super super clean with no visible support marks they also need to be very strong but not use any brass heat certs which are expensive and tricky to install finally a need to be simple to assemble with no complex glue jigs the entire case assembles with only a few plastic screws I really want this case to look professional so here's what I did to avoid the 3D print at home look firstly I use lots of different materials with different textures these layers really help keep the case visually interesting but also blend the edges and structural transitions secondly the edges edges are everything in a computer case if the edges of a case look bad the case looks bad my friend Kevin from laser 3D didn't invent the acrylic case but he did Elevate the art by coming up with 3D printed support structures for panels with transitional edges thus raising the bar and setting the standard several years ago he generously collaborated with me on a S4 Mini laser 3D project and this is where he came up with the awesome trends positional 3D support structure this case is the inspiration for this 4tf project I simply iterated on it to make it easier and faster to print assemble and look nice on a home fdm printer instead of requiring SLS the other inspiration for this project is the availability of affordable and Powerful diode lasers this little guy is the Falcon 2 a 22 watt dialed laser that I partnered with creality to use with this video project as you see it comes nearly set up and ready to run they have several models at different price points with the Falcon 2 being their premium model as it includes an air assist that can be controlled manually or through the software light burn it also has a monitoring head that can check for airflow problems flare-ups or a dirty lens additionally it has an emergency stop button which unfortunately you'll get to see me have to use in this video possibly the largest quality of life Improvement on this model versus my big CO2 laser is the framing function basically the machine draws a bounding box around the edges of your program so you can frame the material for a cut my big laser does do this but stupidly it doesn't have a tracking light the Falcon 2 lets me get extremely precise so I was able to use blanks from other parts I'd cut in the past do my test which saved a lot of material the big difference in this model versus the others is the 22 watt head which allows for cutting with fewer passes to get it set up I spent an entire day doing test Cuts with different air power speed material thickness and focusing variables to get The Sweet Spot all this data I'm sharing with you in the video description below I did make a dumb mistake in thinking I could use Clear based acrylic with this laser because I didn't know how diode lasers work the wavelength of this technology lets you cut dark opaque materials like black acrylic but clear acrylic light just passes through I could have saved a lot of time setting up if I had known this from the start this thing Cuts wood like a dream the marketing materials claim 15 millimeters in a single pass but I suppose that would heavily depend on the type of wood and the edge quality I know it can cut Dogwood Birch Walnut and Cherry beautifully but even my big CO2 laser struggles with purple heart so I'm not too keen on trying that additionally there's something you should know about laser cutting thicker materials on any machine and that is declambination basically the light focuses to a point so if you focus towards the top of your material the sides will get a tiny bit slanted this is more pronounced the thicker the material you're using quarter inch wood is more than thick enough for my projects and the effects are minimal especially after sanding it was now dark outside so I had the brilliant idea to move the Falcon 2 into the bed of my big laser and use the fume extraction from it fortunately I was distracted by someone pulling up and before I totally got it set up my big Laser's Gantry moved the last known position after homing which meant it pushed my little Falcon 2 onto the floor and it was an absolute disaster I broke pieces off the head of my big CO2 laser and may have ruined the calibration on both axes I was worried that I also ruined the Falcon 2 but it looked like it was all in one piece and thus I was concerned with the calibration but the machine proceeded to cut Parts like nothing had happened despite its dents and it gave me precise arcs and Tiny circles on my acrylic Parts I'm sorry creality for dropping a machine but at least we know it's drop tested the cut quality on the three millimeter black acrylic is outstanding on this machine on this thin material it exceeds that of my now broken CO2 laser which is better for thicker materials at faster speeds but I will absolutely be using this little guy to cut smaller parts just because the quality is so good all in all I'm really happy with this style of product and this one in particular and I do highly recommend it okay so here's how this thing goes together the frame uses four quarter beams which attach like Legos to the front and rear frame pieces the motherboard side panel is also the motherboard tray and to make it really strong and further reduce the chance of cracking I use large trim washers which do look pretty awesome I used two 92 millimeter Scythe fans which are a favorite of mine alongside the noctua and thermal right for their power and their Timber along with the side panels and power supply the fans are also a stress member of the case meaning that they provide strength and rigidity to the assembly the GPU is one area I need to double check in the design and see if I can improve because I noticed it was going to be difficult to install with the motherboard already in place rather than remove the motherboard I just remove the back I O Shield of the GPU install it first and then attach the GPU it took no time at all this way but I do agree this is not the stand way of doing things there is a metal bracket I made for the HD Plex 250 watt Gan but unfortunately I did not have it made for the time of filming so I don't have footage of it installed you can see how it would look or with a flex power supply in the cad which is available on my patreon page the case really comes alive with the installation of the panels not only does it make the 4tf look beautiful but they do add a lot of strength and rigidity in particular the Cherry front and rear panels are stunning after sanding and treating with a beeswax tongue oil finish I've used enough Cherry over the years and I'm going to rectify that the CPU side panel looks so good thanks to the Clean Cuts in the low heat of the diode laser I was hoping to do a smoke acrylic to start but this black acrylic looks amazing and I have zero regrets if you make this project yourself you'll notice that the front and rear frame have holes in them for screening the top and bottom panels I side rather than have more screws to have everything clean and stealthy so I used a very high Bond tape to attach them instead you can still access everything with these installed so there's virtually no drawback and it looks great I am honestly stunned with how it turned out I hate saying this but it looks 10 times better in person with how the light bounces on the materials and the different textures it feels fantastic in the hands it is very solid and I can't imagine how solid would it be if I had printed with the continuous fiber on the mark forge 2 and use carbon fiber panels I wouldn't hesitate to sell this alongside my other cases it does not look homemade at all I would be happy to make you one but the best thing is you can do it yourself on your own equipment which is what started this whole project I'm grateful for creality to let me try the Falcon 2 and I absolutely recommend it and can answer any questions you have about setting one up in your home office I'm also super thankful to my patreon patrons who funded the materials and time need to make this video the fusion 360 project files alternate face plates step files and light burn project files are available to patreon patrons as a special thank you please consider signing up and downloading one of the many project files that I have available there I really do appreciate it and I'll see you guys next time peace foreign

Channel: Not From Concentrate

Views: 75,837

Keywords: Creality Falcon2, Diode Laser, Creality

Id: oyJ2Zuaj7rc

Length: 9min 54sec (594 seconds)

Published: Thu May 04 2023