Transparent PC case

My old PC was taking too much space under the desk. I decided to make smaller case for it. I didn't want to use cardboard or chipboard but went with the acrylic / plexiglas in hopes of getting a better look. It didn't quite work out though.


Nobody knew that acrylic is so hard to jigsaw :-) So I settled for the 3D-printed front piece. The rest I was able to jigsaw and sand or cut-and-break.

It was very helpful to take a front photo of the case and use it as a template in Fusion 360.

I tried gluing the acrylic pieces together but it didn't hold very well and the glues smell awfully. Also, you might want to be able to open the case at a later point :-) So I used a soldering iron tip to force the M3 sockets into my 5mm walls.

Overall, it worked out OK for the first attempt at a PC case.

If I'd do it again, here are the few things I would do differently:

• Buy a cheap table saw to cut the acrylic
• Use acrylic solvent glue instead of a general purpose clear one
• Figure out a better way to place the M3 sockets
• Figure out a better CPU cooler story. Currently using small old cheap one - very noisy.
• Soft coupling between the case and the tabletop to avoid cooler vibration transfer (yes, the cooler is that bad!)

Hopefully this post gave you some ideas. Please post your results in the comments. Good luck!