Battleship PC
A client requested a small PC built inside of a model battleship to display in their Miami-based business. This was a very time intensive project that required a lot of CAD work, 3D printing, CNC routing, model making, painting, soldering and custom LED lighting effects.
Even with the small PC components, there needed to be considerable adjustments to fit everything and have sufficient ventilation. I cut holes in the side of the hull for the I/O interfaces and cut holes on the bottom for custom airflow meshes to fit.
Since the battleship internals needed to be accessible for PC building and maintenance, I decided to attach the deck of the ship to the hull with magnets rather than superglue. The magnets were strong enough that everything was kept in place, even during freight shipping from coast to coast.
I designed and 3D printed mounting plates that fit into the previously cut holes, and secured all the parts in place with glue and fasteners to make sure everything would fit as intended.
To save on time and labor, I opted to completely build the model, minus the brass accents, then paint and weather it all at once, adding the metal pieces after.
Because the PC vented from the bottom, I needed to raise the ship off the ground by a couple inches. To do this I CNC’ed a simple base and support pillars out of a walnut board, and fixed the hull of the ship down onto the supports.
To add a little extra flare to the case, I wired individual LEDs to all the movable turrets and smokestacks, and routed the cables to plug into the PC components so that the user can program the lighting effects that they want.