Building a Tiny 3D Printed PC Case with an RTX 4060
You turn it on as for the side panels they're simple enough maybe the easiest part of the entire build to 3D model but here I really wanted to pay tribute to one of the best Ultra compact cases of all time the Skyre 4 mini I've always thought that the panel cutouts in the skyre looked really nice and aesthetic so I tried to incorporate them as best I could. I've also copied the unique split face plate design from the T1 which I've always found really appealing and I've got to say this tiny DIY box turned out pretty good.
The only thing left to do now is build it first. We join the two frames together first at the center here and then near the I/O all of these screw points by the way are self-tapping as well and seem to work pretty much perfectly next is our motherboard which is just like any other PC case finally on this model I was able to get the IO Shield positioning dialed in. Our tiny power supply is next and I did have to shorten and resolder these three cables here just to make this small Gap possible but that's easy enough I might end up making some perfect length cables for this build eventually but the stock ones from hdplex they are pretty long but they do actually fit.
Next we have our 4060 we have for screws at the back need the iio the end clamp with three screws there and then we have the Riser cable which does need to be gently folded in a very specific way but does fit and then we have the custom power switch and side panels which go on at the end. And there it is our tiny 3D printed 3.6 L Mini PC case with an RTX 4060. To be honest I can't believe this actually worked as for performance I really wanted this thing to be able to run Overwatch 2 at 1440p 240 HZ and it does that that pretty comfortably but this is where things started to go really wrong.
The case started to melt, I made the huge mistake here of using PLA for the 3D printed plastic which is really easy to print and doesn't release any harmful fumes but it also has the lowest glass transition point or softening point out of any 3D printer filament. The top panel started to cave in and the front panel was deforming really badly all of my hard work days of 3D printing all just gone to waste I was so excited to show you guys this project but it didn't even last 20 minutes. But while PLA has a glass transition point of just 60° which is the point where it starts softening like this our ABS is closer to 100 so that should be enough to avoid any serious deformation or melting.
Like we see here at least until I get my hands on some even more heat resistant Plastics like polycarbonate and since I need to reprint a bunch of these panels it's worth adding some ventilation at the top too. This was a huge oversight by me and honestly I thought that since the 4060 only had a TDP of around 100 watts that this wouldn't be necessary but I've never been more wrong. The only thing now was to patiently wait and just hope that this thing could work and it did. The top ventilation helped a lot in keeping the case cool and the panels were not even getting close to warm enough to start deforming so more ventilation while printing an ABS just to be sure that seemed to do the trick.
Both the 4060 and our I5 CPU was sitting around the mid-70s which is more than fine for gaming temperatures at full load. At the same time our tiny 250 W power supply seems to be handling things just fine as well. The whole build just worked perfectly. But, I'll be the first to say though that the panel fitment definitely needs some work you know there's quite a lot of compression and stuff like that. I've made the mistake of modeling this like it was made with metal and like it has a lot more support than it actually does.
Simply put with plastic you need a lot more joinery, a lot more connecting parts and support that sort of stuff. Should be easier enough to add now that I know where it needs it and I think in one or two more revisions I can get this looking and feeling a lot more solid. I will leave the 3D files for this one linked Down Below in the description, that's kind of been the vision for this project you know something super compact super cool but also something that you guys can print at home potentially on your own desktop 3D printer maybe wait a couple more weeks though that way you won't have the same kind of issues that I still have here.
But yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to improving it a lot more in the future and turning this into a truly Flawless console Destroyer
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enso recently I discovered that this thing here exists it is a super tiny RTX 460 from gigaby and look you know I don't recommend the 4060 let's be perfectly clear about that the price to Performance is just not there but we have to admit this is a really interesting product it can still run ort games at 240 HZ it can do a little bit of dlss and maybe a bit of light rate tracing too the problem is I haven't really found a PC case that I'd really want to use this with there is the laser 3D ht5 which is small but surprisingly still over 5 lers in volume and then there's the velka 3 which comes in at just four but even in the Vela 3 installing a lowprofile GPU would leave some empty space not being used so potentially there does exist a hardware layout out there that is more space efficient and smaller so I'm going to try and make it but before we do that I went on a search for the smallest PC components that you can build with that way we'll know for sure that this thing is truly as small as possible uh the biggest component is this thing right here it is the ITX motherboard and doesn't really matter which one you use they're all the same size but the one that we have here has like some pretty low profile heat sinks and it will be enough to run our I5 13400 F under gaming loads as for cooling the CPU there's no chance any liquid cooling will be involved in here there's no space for it uh but we do have space for the 47 mil tall alpen phone Black Ridge which yeah there are CPU coolers that are smaller than this but I don't think we'll need them this thing is supremely compact I've used it a bunch of times and the performance is like way better than you'd expect the power supply is where it gets really tricky though for a typical tycal ITX gaming rig I'd usually reach for this it's an sfx unit which in a normal PC is extremely small but for a super tiny PC that we want to build I'd maybe consider something else like this a flex ATX unit which is even smaller these don't have modular cables and are typically lower rated but they will save you a bunch of space recently though I found something even smaller than that from a company called hdplex and I've used some hdplex units in the past but this new model is super super impressive this is the world's smallest all-in-one ATX power supply there's no need for an external power brick it barely takes up any space at all and it is completely passively cooled too with no internal fan it's only rated for about 250 Watts which sounds criminally low for a gaming PC in 2024 but considering our 4060 tops out at 115 watts and our CPU is only going to be like 65 wats on top of that things should be completely fine at least on paper if it's not I also picked up up their 500 WT unit which is a bit bigger but still extremely compact considering what it can do and then of course there's the highlight of the build which is the lowprofile 4060 and I was really surprised at how heavy and dense this thing was when I first picked it up because it's so small I just expected it to be like one of those cheap flimsy coolers that you see on like a GTX 1050 or a 1650 but it actually looks like gigabyte have really tried to squeeze a bunch of cooling in this tiny form factor I also like the location of the8 pin p connector which should mean that we don't need to use any low profile adapters so these are all the parts and now it's time to build the case but before we do that we need to make some rough 3D models of the stuff that we're using at least this way we can know the exact dimensions of the hardware that we're working with you know I've built in a lot of really compact ITX cases over the years and this seems to be how they're made right you see what kind of Hardware you're going to be using you orientate them as efficiently as possible and then your case is effectively you know shrink wrapped around that that and this was the start GPU plugged right into the board power supply over on the right I mean this looks like the most space optimized layout that is possible and it was only 3.7 L but I knew that once I had made some extra room and brackets and the side panels it would be closer to four which is basically the same size as the vulka 3 a bit bigger than I had imagined so I played around a bit more I moved the power supply above the motherboard and turns out this was a little bit better now down to just 3.5 L this is where things start to get really crazy the GPU was the tallest part in the entire build so if I just laid it vertically and used a riser cable instead and if I swapped the 47 mil Tall Black Ridge cooler to the 37 mil tall L9 from nocta then I can get things down to just 2.7 L which is mind-blowingly small I knew at this point that this is something that I just had to make I started with the motherboard tray and the iio shield then the mounting for the tiny power supply and then the GPU mounting which I knew I couldn't use the fullsize bracket that it came with so I had the idea to mount the back of the card just directly to the case with those four screws this probably wouldn't work but I decided to give it a shot anyway but at this point despite how small the starting frame is it's too big to print in a single go on my 3D printer so I sliced the part into two separate pieces and then added some screw points to get them locked in I also added some support posts just underneath the graphics card and then we have ourselves a pretty goodlooking frame to start with now I've never thre modeled a PC case before so I knew this first print would likely have some major errors and problems and I was right there was some obviously incorrect measurements and tolerances that needed correcting before I could even install the motherboard but after that and a couple more revisions up here it is the super compact tiny frame for our PC and I've got to say I am super happy with how this turned out the io Shield finally fits now that did take a little bit of tweaking to get right the motherboard is completely locked in I've also added a power Supply socket at the top rails at the front as well for where the front panel will slide in and I've also added a clamp for our 4060 so this clamps down the end of the graphics card and completely locks it into place otherwise we just have those four tiny screws which really weren't holding it as tightly as I would hoped oh yeah and since it didn't have a proper power switch laying around I actually made one out of a spare mechanical key switch which is kind of cool you know it gives the build a nice little retro feel whenever you turn it on as for the side panels they're simple enough maybe the easiest part of the entire build to 3D model but here I really wanted to pay tribute to one of the best Ultra compact cases of all time the skyre 4 mini I've always thought that the panel cutouts in the skyre looked really nice and aesthetic so I tried to incorporate them as best I could I've also copied the unique split face plate design from the T1 which I've always found really appealing and I've got to say this tiny DIY box turned out pretty good the only thing left to do now is build it first We join the two frames together first at the center here and then near the I/O all of these screw points by the way are self-tapping as well and seem to work pretty much perfectly next is our motherboard which is just like any other PC case finally on this model I was able to get the io Shield positioning dialed in our tiny power supply is next and I did have to shorten and resolder these three cables here just to make this small Gap possible but that's easy enough I might end up making some perfect length cables for this build eventually but the stock ones from hdplex they are pretty long but they do actually fit next we have our 4060 we have for screws at the back need the iio the end clamp with three screws there and then we have the Riser cable which does need to be gently folded in a very specific way but does fit and then we have the custom power switch and side panels which go on at the end and there it is our tiny 3D printed 3.6 L Mini PC case with an RTX 4060 to be honest I can't believe this actually worked as for performance I really wanted this thing to be able to run OverWatch 2 at 1440p 240 HZ and it does that that pretty comfortably but this is where things started to go really wrong the case started to melt I made the huge mistake here of using pla for the 3D printed plastic which is really easy to print and doesn't release any harmful fumes but it also has the lowest glass transition point or softening point out of any 3D printer filament the top panel started to cave in and the front panel was deforming really badly all of my hard work days of 3D printing all just gone to waste I was so excited to show you guys this project but it didn't even last 20 minutes but while pla has a glass transition point of just 60° which is the point where it starts softening like this our ABS is closer to 100 so that should be enough to avoid any serious defamation or melting like we see here at least until I get my hands on some even more heat resistant Plastics like polycarbonate and since I need to reprint a bunch of these panels it's worth adding some ventilation at the top too this was a huge oversight by me and honestly I thought thought since the 4060 only had a TDP of around 100 wats that this wouldn't be necessary but I've never been more wrong the only thing now was to patiently wait and just hope that this thing could work and it did the top ventilation helped a lot in keeping the case cool and the panels were not even getting close to warm enough now to start deforming so more ventilation while printing an ABS just to be sure that seemed to do the trick both the 4060 and our I5 CPU was sitting around the mid-70s which is more than fine for gaming temperatures at full load at the same time our tiny 250 W power supply seems to be handling things just fine as well the whole build just worked perfectly I'll be the first to say though that the panel fitment definitely needs some work you know there's quite a lot of compression and stuff like that I've made the mistake of modeling this like it was made with metal and like it has a lot more support than it actually does simply put with plastic you need a lot more joinery a lot more connecting parts and support that sort of stuff should be easier enough to add now that I know where it needs it and I think in one or two more revisions I can get this looking and feeling a lot more solid and I will leave the 3D files for this one linked Down Below in the description that's kind of been the vision for this project you know something super compact super cool but also something that you guys can print at home potentially on your own desktop 3D printer maybe wait a couple more weeks though that way you won't have the same kind of issues that I still have here uh but yeah I'm definitely looking forward to improving it a lot more in the future and turning this into a truly Flawless console Destroyer\n"
