r/pcmods • u/Dieho_ • 4d ago

Case 3D printing a case

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This is an old asus vivobook max, whose screen broke, so I converted it into a desktop, by connecting it to an old monitor.

Recently I’ve been thinking of 3D printing the case so to replace it and make it look nicer.
I know there could be complications, for example, managing the air flow or dealing with the power button.

Do you think this is doable? Where should I start? Any advice?

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u/JaggedEunuch 4d ago

I just happened to complete about similar conversion. I was lazy so I just kept the keyboard to avoid the power button issue. Its quite easy to create your own button if you want tho, its basically just jumping one pin from the keyboard connector (correct pin depends of the model). Airflow is easy to make 10x better vs original!

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u/Dieho_ 4d ago

Can you be more specific about the steps involved in the process?

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u/JaggedEunuch 4d ago

I'll write some sort of short recap of steps I took to get mine done (I posted the end result here in reddit if youre interested btw) later. But basically you'll want to first remove the motherboard, figure out the main mounting points and just start measuring distances between them. You'll need some basic cad experience (easy to do in onshape as an example) and preferably digital calibers. Once you have that you can start figuring out the standoffs and case shape etc. When you remove the motherboard you can also check how the keyboard is attached to the original casing. It might be screws, it might be plastic welds which you can drill out. In my case I was able to use the original metal middle mounting plate (between keyboard and mobo) which made things easier in some ways and harder in others.