Open Air X case (Designed, developed and made in India by me)

truegenius

Disciple
Hey there,

So it began around 4 years ago, I saw case manufacturer sacrificing cooling performance of computer cases for the RGB, I thought why they don't do both, "I can do that if I had money" I thought.
Then few month later I got a job, I had to make a choice either to continue B.tech or get the job, then I thought to grab the job as it will give me funds to make the case happen.

In ~4 years of designing, developing, testing, revising, I created and tested 20-30 prototypes amounting to around Rs 7Lac (AKA 2 yrs 3 months of salary) including computer parts bought for testing and clearance checking, now it finally reached to the point which I think is good enough to compete with the giants.

I named the case Open Air X. And Yes I am the owner of AKDesigned (technically) , and creator of the Open Air X computer case :)

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It is based on performance first looks always approach. I combined directional airflow of normal cases and open air design of test benches to get best of both world.
I simply can't compete in normal case market so open air was the only way to go. So as Dmitry Novoselov from Hardware Canucks says "If you are the type of person who will complain about dust accumulation inside of it you already know this is not for you"
More info and the case is available for purchase on Amazon here ( only 6 are made, no more will be made so they are limited )

Now lets get to the build.

Specifications:
Common components used are
  • Case : AKDesigned Open Air X
  • Cpu : Intel i7-8700K @ 4.8/5.3Ghz base/turbo (Deledid, LM, Resealed)
  • Motherboard : MSI Z370 SLI Plus
  • RAM : 4x8GB Gskill trident Z RGB @ 3600mhz cl16
  • GPU : Gigabyte 1080ti Gaming OC
Sneak peek with AIO (Deepcool GAMMAXX L360 V2)

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I am currently using it in above config with AIO cpu cooler and stock gpu heatsink.

Cooling Performance

Since its open air and cooling performance is so good so :
cpu fan set to spin at 500rpm (4.8v) if cpu temp >50'c else don't spin
vrm fan is a 92mm 2 pin dc fan set to run at 4.2v (minimum volts it needs to spin) if cpu temp >50'c else don't spin
nowadays noise floor is 35dB at night time (12am onwards) , and its noise is 38dB at above mentioned settings ( 52dB if running deepcool's fans at max as those fans are loud, jonsbo fans were 45dB at max ) it is so quiet that I can hear the spin of HDDs and needed to stop wall clock as it was creating background noise and causing noise floor to go higher :p

ambient temp 20'C

20 minutes Prime95 v29.8 avx Smallest ftt stress test (test video link part 1 , part 2)
CPU max- 68'C Avg- 65'C
VRM max- 96'C Avg- 92'C

10 minutes gaming (2 loop RDR2 benchmark ultra setting @2560x1080) (test video link)
CPU max- 57'C Avg- 47'C
VRM max- 64'C Avg- 60'C
(cpu fan didn't spin 70% of time)
GPU (+100mhz oc) max- 75 avg- 67


Sneak peek with cpu gpu custom watercooling loop

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link to Custom watercooled rig video

Currently its hanging on wall behind the monitor
Plan is to hang it on right side wall, hand monitor on wall, and hand keyboard on wall too ( that is no table ) and again make it full custom watercooled (as i used aio just to test )
stay tuned ;)

*reserved*
 
This is really good. We need more custom cases in India. I know in the US, lot of such players do very awesome ITX builds, which is the hype these days :)
 
This is really good. We need more custom cases in India. I know in the US, lot of such players do very awesome ITX builds, which is the hype these days :)
Thanks for kind words :)
If people liked that idea then I already have designs to make it even more premium ( aluminum and carbon fiber based )
also, a passive radiator as the temps looks good for 500rpm fan speed.

I'm sure you got inspired from this design by Thermaltake



I was inspired by singularity's spectre and thermaltake's core p series ( i also watched jp modified, Declassified Systems, Designs By IFR and many other modders on youtube, also LTT and GN's videos for design and functionality inspiration)
spectre was too expensive and too specific, and thermal take wasn't taking advantage of open air ( pushing air onto ssds/meshed back, and will look empty when not filling it up with radiator )
 
Thanks for kind words :)
If people liked that idea then I already have designs to make it even more premium ( aluminum and carbon fiber based )
also, a passive radiator as the temps looks good for 500rpm fan speed.





I was inspired by singularity's spectre and thermaltake's core p series ( i also watched jp modified, Declassified Systems, Designs By IFR and many other modders on youtube, also LTT and GN's videos for design and functionality inspiration)
spectre was too expensive and too specific, and thermal take wasn't taking advantage of open air ( pushing air onto ssds/meshed back, and will look empty when not filling it up with radiator )
I appreciate the effort and enthusiasm ,could you name the software in which you were able to design , because i have have one design on my mind , i made it on SketchUp , and what kind of fabricator did the work for you , or what software do the fabricators use , i am a novice though i want to make one or two custom cases
 
I appreciate the effort and enthusiasm ,could you name the software in which you were able to design , because i have have one design on my mind , i made it on SketchUp , and what kind of fabricator did the work for you , or what software do the fabricators use , i am a novice though i want to make one or two custom cases
1) I used fusion 360 for the design ( 2d design )
2) then used corel draw to convert that dxf file from fusion 360 to cad ( as laser cutting shops use cad file )
3) then handed over the file to laser cutting shop, they do some more adjustments to file ( design remains intact ) make it more suitable for their laser cut machines ( they will charge some money for those adjustments depending upon design complexity ). Some offers sheet from their side ( but rusty if you don't need full 8'x4' sheet ) some don't even offer sheet from their side thus you will have to arrange and drop at their shop.
4) then took the cut pecies of sheet metal to sheet metal bending shop and told them where and how much to bend to finally create case ( this was the hardest part, as they don't bend accurately, this was major cause of building 20-30 prototypes ), also they can only do simple bends, can't even do offset bending which is necessary for side pannel fitting, so I had to go with different mechanism for side pannel
 
If you were to do build of an existing design like Sentry 2.0

How accurately and for what amount could it be done?
I will need to look for its videos to give more accurate idea, but roughly it will take around 3k for sheet, laser cutting ( without vent perforations, add atleast Rs500 for that much amount of perforation ) and bending ( without paint or button or front pannel ) if you provide the c\oral draw file
those 2 lowered/recessed area in this image ( left side ) can't be done without stamping for which one will have to create die which will cost multiple lac (2-5 lac for your case) just for die ( indeed this case must be using die )
 
I will need to look for its videos to give more accurate idea, but roughly it will take around 3k for sheet, laser cutting ( without vent perforations, add atleast Rs500 for that much amount of perforation ) and bending ( without paint or button or front pannel ) if you provide the c\oral draw file
those 2 lowered/recessed area in this image ( left side ) can't be done without stamping for which one will have to create die which will cost multiple lac (2-5 lac for your case) just for die ( indeed this case must be using die )
I see, okay. Won't be worth the hassle I guess.

Thanks for looking into it though, appreciate it :)
 
I see, okay. Won't be worth the hassle I guess.

Thanks for looking into it though, appreciate it :)
here it says ~Rs20k for that case, pretty sure you can build it under 10k ( if only 1 try was needed )
Also I wonder if china use some doraemon's gadget to provide those Rs1k case. Even with volume manufacturing, stamping and all cost cutting I doubt any Indian company can build them under 1k
edit: wait, thats not the price, thats funding :facepalm:
What is its price?
 
here it says ~Rs20k for that case, pretty sure you can build it under 10k ( if only 1 try was needed )
Also I wonder if china use some doraemon's gadget to provide those Rs1k case. Even with volume manufacturing, stamping and all cost cutting I doubt any Indian company can build them under 1k
edit: wait, thats not the price, thats funding :facepalm:
What is its price?
I think it was around 200 USD. Its in limited batches each year. And yea, lot of cool ITX cases to try out in Aliexpress ;)
 
Nice. I was planning to do something similar, with very limited NAS cases or too expensive ones in the market. I salvaged a 2U backplane from a decommissioned server at work and was planning to design something similar. Great.
 
Finally its done.
There is no table, the keyboard tray is hanging on wall.
( the wire that you see hanging is actually power button. I am using it since 1st prototype as i only made 6 buttons for retail unit so i am still using it. Retail unit have different detachable sticky power button which can be stick on side of table or back of monitor or any place that user like )

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wont it be like a vacuum cleaner for the dust in this room :rolleyes:
Fans don't even spin most of the time, i installed AIO about a month ago and yet no where near dusty. At this rate i think i will need to clean it once per year.
as a comparison, it will be as dusty as my keyboard will get due to settling dust.
And cleaning is as easy as it can be, just blow air on it and use a new paint brush clean the remaining dust, hardly 5-10 minutes task.
 
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