Custom Homemade Case Advice

[magruder13]

I'm building my own case for a playstation 3 and I see all of these custom cases on the internet and had a few questions if anyone has experience.

My idea for the case would be to make it out of a cheap plastic or thin wood and then coat it in carbon fiber. Then case is around the size of a mini-ITX case.

The pros:

1. easily shapped and I can make sure it all fits before i put on the carbon fiber.

2. more inexpensive than having it milled (every place ive seen wants 200+ for the milling of half the case)

3. Light weight

4. Looks good

Cons:

1. no experience with Carbon fiber

2. expensive, I want to spend less than $100 on materials


If you have any experience in this please help!

 

[banthracis]

1. How exactly are you gonna coat wood or plastic with carbon fiber? Carbon fiber is a polymer that can only be manipulated in an industrial environment as it require 2000C+ temps to properly mold and create.

The closest you can get is to attach premade panels to wood or plastic, but that's silly as the panels themselves are perfectly fine for a case.

You can use the textile version's of Carbon Fiber and glue it one like cloth, but I don't think that's what you're thinking of.

 

[Somebody_007]

I thought the textile was very strong

 

[magruder13]

I'm thinking of the carbon fiber cloth that you coat with resin.

"The Epoxy resin is HIGH quality clear, UV resistant epoxy, and has NO smell/ fumes (not cheaper, inferior polyester resin) Epoxy has a 40 -50 minute working time at room temp. and cures in 24-48 hours at room temp. NO oven curing is needed. Oven curing can be done to speed the curing process but will not make a difference in final product strength."

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Carbon-Fiber-Kit-cloth-material-epoxy-resin-_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem2c50916409QQitemZ190330266633QQptZLHQ5fDefaultDomainQ5f100

@ somebody_007 - It is supposed to be very strong, it is used on many things such as boats, surf boards, car parts.

 

[Somebody_007]

yeah thats what I thought. I think even most carbon fibre is made with the carbon textile and epoxy instead of the method banthracis mentioned.

Just a question whats actually the point of this thread? I don't really see a question.

If you're asking our opinion whether this is a good idea or not I don't anyone wil be able to give you any information since this is a computer forum and I don't think there are a lot of people here building carbon fibre cages for their ps3.

If you don't find any more information I'd say go for it. Should be fun lol. And what beats saying you built your own case?

 

[banthracis]

OK, gotcha. I thought you meant using actual carbon fiber case. Textile version works, but be aware it's the equivalent of gold plating something.

Basically, it'll help but doesn't provide anywhere near the durability and strength of actual carbon fiber panels.

Still looks good though ^^

Weight addition is pretty negligible though, since it's basically pasting on cloth. The bulk of the weight will still be determined by the plastic or wood you make the case out of (the weight saving line is what confused me into thinking you meant actual Carbon fiber panels).

You'll have to figure out out how you wanna do vents as well. Still would probably be a fun project.