Weighted Companion Cube HTPC (with pictures)

[Linqon]

I'm a big fan of the game portal which was popular a few years ago. In that game there was an item, a "weighted companion cube", which played an important role. If you've played the game, you know what I'm talking about.
Anyway, I thought it would be fun to have a HTPC case based on that model. Sounded like a fun vacation project. Some 200+ hours later, its complete.

The complete buildlog has been posted on a swedish modding site, here, in case you want more details.

But I'll share a few pictures that may intrest this community:


The final result, with cake. The cake is an ingame joke...





The insides. Its covered with a sound dampening material all around. A fan controller controls all fans.


The heartplates act as a "soundtrap" with dampening mat behind them. These are the only openings on the case and the only place where noise comes out.


HDD suspended to avoid vibrations. Also it hangs right in front of a fan which will help cooling it. Not that it's needed, but still...


Work in progress picture showing the lid. All the cables were hidden underneath the dampening mat.

The hardware is pretty good compared with HTPC standards since its mainly old gear from my gaming rig that got left over when ive upgraded.
Amd Athlon X2, ? GHz
ATI Radeon HD 4350, passive cooled
Seasonic S12 600W.

As for sound, it's quite good. 12mm plywood and 10mm dampening mat all over. The only openings are the "hearts" and they have that soundtrap.

For cooling it has 4 revoltec 12cm fans. Not the most silent ones, but I wanted red leds and they seemed like a good tradeoff between noise and cooling ability. The PSU is placed directly above the hole underneath, so the fan from the PSU blows air right out from the case. So airflow is provided by 5 12cm fans.

My fancontroller makes sure I can change the speed of the fans depending on what Im using the computer for. At it's loudest setting its never louder than the tv. At the lowest setting the normal ventilation in the room is louder than the case (from 1-2m distance)

Last weekend I was playing some games with a friend and took the temperatures, GPU Diode hit 79 degrees celsius at most, CPU was around 55-60 degrees.
I could try to redirect the top fan a bit to have it provide more cooling on the graphics card, but I'm not sure its needed.


All in all, I'm quite proud of the case. It was alot more difficult to build than I could ever have guessed ("Hey, it's just a cube with some fance corners, how hard can it be?"), but I'm glad I did it. Atleast now that I'm done.

It's a great piece of furniture next to my TV. Not as much of a chick magnet as one could guess though

[Riffer]

It looks nice and cosy inside that case.

[widowmaker]

Haha very nice. Might I suggest a thick big red round silicon pad/button for it to rest on?

[theycallmebruce]

Holy crap, that's a lot of work you went to! I really enjoyed Portal too. Nice to hear it's quiet enough for you too.

[beaker]

This was a triumph.

[Cistron]

Boah, it's huuuge. What are the 'exact' measurements?

[Linqon]

Boah, it's huuuge. What are the 'exact' measurements?

Aye, It is. It's something like 54x54 cm between corner piece to corner piece. Inside its 42x42 cm (inside wall to inside wall, not counting the dampening mat or the fans).

The original plan was to fit my homecinema/dvd player inside as well, but that had to be abandoned once I saw how much room the computer was taking up. I wanted no visible contacts, room for a normal computer setup (ATX) and didnt want to have to open the case to insert a DVD. This put some restraints on the build and increased it's size quite a bit.

I looked at this smaller cube build quite a bit, but I thought it was too limiting. I wanted a case where I could dump my old recycled gaming hardware.

[bonestonne]

ha, yeah, ITX would have been a little bit smaller.

Rather than having the ODD door on a hinge, did you think about a lighter material, and attaching it to the drive tray itself? seems weird, but definitely a flush finish. The door is cool, but something about doors in front of optical drives makes me nervous.

[Linqon]

Rather than having the ODD door on a hinge, did you think about a lighter material, and attaching it to the drive tray itself? seems weird, but definitely a flush finish.

Yea, I thought about. But all the other heartplates have about 15mm of space to the wall of the case and I wanted the front plate to look similar.
Also, that would mean I would have to figure out another placing of the power and resetbutton.

The door is cool, but something about doors in front of optical drives makes me nervous.

I agree. The magnetic lock is quite powerful too. But if the DVD tray should open when it's not supposed to, it would meet resistance from the door and close again.

[sNNooPY]

hahaha!
AWESOME!
Portal rules!

[frenchie]

You rock !!!!!
really cool project !!!!!! Great job.

[RBBOT]

This is SCIENCE!

[kittle]

Great looking Case!

Im curious how much the weighted cube actually weighs. its not small.. and plywood and such isnt light either.

[Linqon]

Great looking Case!

Im curious how much the weighted cube actually weighs. its not small.. and plywood and such isnt light either.

I couldn't fit the entire case on the scale I have, but half weighed 14 kg, so about 30 kg for all of it.

Yea, its heavy!

[frostedflakes]

This was a triumph.

Not my cup of tea, but I can appreciate all the time and effort you put into this. It's a *really* good custom case, just not something I'd want in my living room, heh.

[Kate]

WOW CUTE!!