Gadgetory

Manufacturing a single case can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to design and develop but the machinery used to make those cases cost millions of dollars and a recent tour of Lian Lee's case manufacturing facility in Taiwan we got to see firsthand the advanced and largely autonomous hydraulic presses laser cutters automatic shaping machines and other equipment used to make a case some of these tools apply hundreds of thousands of pounds of force to case paneling upwards of 1 million Newtons and others will use high-voltage equipment to spot weld pieces to aluminum paneling today we're taking a walk through from the start to finish process of how a case is made before that this video is brought to you by thermal Grizzly's high-end thermal paste and liquid metal thermal Grizzly's cryo knot is an affordable high quality thermal compound that doesn't face some of the aging limitations of other pastes on the market cryo knot has a thermal conductivity of 12.5 watts per meter Kelvin focuses on endurance is easy to spread and isn't electrically conductive making it safe to use on GPU dies thermal grizzly also makes conductor not liquid metal which we've used to drop 20 degrees off some temperatures than our dee-lighted test bio tube at the link in the description below the first steps of case manufacturing at the leonie facility is to design the product once this process is done that CAD files go to the factory across the street which Lian Leone's to be turned into a case in a simplified canonical view of the manufacturing process the first step is again design then raw materials and preparation of raw materials followed by either a laser cutter for basic shapes or a press for tooled punchouts then after that there's washing grinding flattening welding and anodizing for aluminum paneling let's start with step 1 the laser cutters and hydraulic presses Lian Lee uses a laser cutter for defining wide sweeping designs and shapes in thicker aluminum paneling examples might be rounded borders of maybe a 2 millimeter thick piece of aluminum cutting out panels from raw sheet metal or even cutting the Boroff an aluminum borders that Lee only makes and these are also made on this very laser cutter in Taiwan Lee Ann Lee is a desk PC as another example is largely made on this laser cutter the laser cutter is attached to a liquid nitrogen tank that's the size of a conversion van he's primarily to boost the cutting power of the laser for dense metals the byproduct is some cooling of equipment for continuous use but it's mostly a means for boosting the power each of these machines cost right around 1 million dollars USD but there's an ongoing maintenance cost for refilling the nitrogen tank Lian Lee uses approximately two full tanks of this size per month requiring routine charges alternatively and directly across from the laser cutter case manufacturing can also use hydraulic presses for functionally stamping out the shapes and the panels these presses are configured to punch holes in the case and in several locations simultaneously making them significantly faster than a laser cutter for complex designs an example of a design more suitable to a hydraulic press than the laser would be a mesh ventilated side panel mesh ventilation requires dozens of small holes with a laser cutter you'd have one laser cutting a full circle for each mesh hole which would then exclude the unwanted metal for each individual hole it takes forever to do and manufacturing costs would skyrocket as a result although fundamentally is similar in concept a hydraulic press makes the most sense here these particular units cost approximately 1 million USD each and Lee Anne Lee uses several of them to keep the factory operating efficiently just behind these machines is a large washing machine for cases case panels and other metal components like drive sleds need to be individually washed before progressing in production this is because the previous machines all use lubricants mostly oils to keep the presses running that lubricant can get onto the paneling which would eventually be made a permanent blemish if allowed to continue without a wash this giant washing machine uses a conveyor belt and a pressure washer on the far end of the conveyor belt a worker straps componentry like drive sleds down to the belts for washing as it progresses through the washer the parts get pressure washed by internal hosing with a waterfall forming underneath to filter and recycle the water where possible this reduces waste of the water and also reduces cost at the other end of the line the pieces are spat out into a container and then move to the appropriate assembly area the next machine is the grinder which is a simple but interesting two-step process for finish pieces several grindstones are positioned along this machine and are used for ridding of sharp imperfections on the panel edges this smooths down the panel to perfection a panel is fed in by workers grinded down by the stones and then fed out the other end the workers then begin step 2 where they restart the process but use a non woven cotton spool to create hair line brushes in the aluminum the result is that ever noticeable brushed aluminum faceplate water is used for lubricating this machine and is recycled to reduce waste and cost the machine goes through tens of tons of water per hour and does so at a relatively high pressure as seen here by the skull and crossbones next a panel can be taken to the automatic welding machine to arc weld the panel clips onto cases these are an iconic Lian Li design and our socketable balls that clip into the chassis frame in this example Lian Li is manufacturing the N case n one side panels where each panel takes upwards of 30 seconds to outfit with just the mounting joints so no wonder the n1 is expensive when considering that the machine time carries significant cost every second is spent on making something like an n1 panel it's time that could be spent making a more mass volume case and so that time must be paid for somewhere for this machine a small joint is first secured to the panel via impact where a Lian Li exclusive pin solution ensures security once impact hammered into place the panel is ready to get zapped by the welder it's a satisfying pop and a burst of light but the end result is a secure mounting joint for side panels the machine works autonomously but has personnel oversight each weld runs off of 300,000 volts but we're told that it doesn't need much current to secure these pins to a flat side panel and so as relatively low amperage once the panel exits the welder the technician manually grinds down the edges of each ball joint to achieve smoothness finally concluding it with a double check versus a reference panel to ensure consistent production runs and quality as for why Lian Li goes to such overkill to manufacture just a side panel mounting joint we're told that the companies spec for connection cycles is 3000 meaning that you should be able to remove or socket this panel three thousand times prior to possible failure of a jaw in other words if he restock you the side panel twice a day for four years you might eventually encounter a weld joint failure after this the same technician can take the panel to another hydraulic press this one is capable of exerting 1.1 million newtons of force and is used for these same punching process as described earlier but it might be useful if a panel needs a second pass some panel designs require multiple passes to ensure structural integrity of the metal during manufacturing the folding machine is also used in nearby deployed for exactly what its name indicates stamped or laser-cut metal sheets are set near by the folding machine and then can be fed into the machine to bend case paneling suspect this is useful for unibody designs or for more traditional designs where something just needs to be bent for the last part of this Factory a customized world's only thread boring solution exists near the exit and entrance this final machine drills threaded and unthreaded holes into metal panels the machine can drill up to an impressive 60 holes at once but the drill bits have to be kept lubricated and cooled somehow rather than spraying solvent all over the bits as used in most machines the Lian Li custom-made solution brilliantly allows the bits to drill into the panel pass through it and enter an oil tank for cooling and cleaning on each press this allows for an efficient solution that doesn't require more moving parts and enables a total customization of the panels made on this machinery next we venture across the street to visit Lian these other factories the second Factory is back in the main office and it's shared with designers engineers and executives this Factory is only and used 5 to 10 days per month but Lian Li is hoping to ramp up production soon to put the factory into heavier use the first machine in the factory is a flattener almost like a giant rolling pin and workers use this to feed sheets in to flatten obviously in the demonstration they gave us a sheet of raw aluminium was used but the machine typically works with punched out materials to counter the chance of multiple locations of applied force warping the metal the flattener has a limitation of 3 millimeter sheets but this is plenty thick for the aluminum that Lian Lee uses for their case design once flattened the sheet is ready for anodizing and is near the end of the process however this Factory also has several additional machines that we get to see before the flatteners ever used one of these is another line of hydraulic presses which we're punching out drive sleds during our visit to the factory the presses have motion sensors for safety and will stop instantly if they detect what might be hand movement nearby but will otherwise operate largely autonomously from raw sheet metal to produce small components that get used in cases like again drive sleds or PCIe slot covers unused raw materials can be recycled to reduce cost and waste land Lee has eight of these automatic shaping machines as they call them and an additional 11 s nc110 presses with SMT 2 to 20 presses on the other side the SMC presses jointly process 350 case components per hour with 10 days worth of processing per month and each press can apply 200 tons of pressure some apply 250 tons of pressure and they all work in two rounds or more of pressing this line wasn't operational during our visit but they typically work autonomously press a sheet and then use suction cups to automatically move the metal to the next machine for another round of pressing multiple rounds are used to increase the distribution of applied forces such that warps of the metal are less likely to occur but if they do the flattening machine can be used to fix that each of these machines has a tool you've likely heard us talk about case tooling before and this is where the cost really comes into play for cases tools are made often as one offs or very limited runs using a CNC one tool that we saw in particular was for the a 75 case and costs upwards of 12,000 dollars to make that particular tool that we were shown this isn't even useful for the entire case only for one specific panel typical tooling cost is two thousand to ten thousand dollars per tool and each case needs multiple of them an individual case can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past other companies have showed us cases that had tooling costs exceeding six hundred thousand dollars USD or even more in some cases raw material cost is only a few hundred dollars for these but the CNC time is expensive every minute on the CNC especially for multiple revisions this time that could be used making a sellable product rather than something to make more products later leonie's engineers spend about a month of revisions on the tools which of course also has the cost and that's not counting the initial design period tools are mounted to the underside of the hydraulic press machines and are used to stamp panels out and despite being made of steel these tools can still be fragile the tools have to be grounded and static charges has to be removed prior to use as a static charge can suck up the panel's and break the tools after all this Lindley sends the panels upstairs for anodizing assembly and shipping at which point consumers can buy the finished product and that's how the cases are made in Lian Leah's factory this is all done in Taiwan but additional facilities are being made in China and of course we've toured previous facilities like NZXT s in shenzhen and the inland Factory in Tao yen subscribe for more as always and remember to go to stored at Karen's Nexus dotnet to backorder one of our anti-static mod mats actually not used in the grounding process of making case components we just ordered another round so if you want one pick it up there otherwise visit patreon.com slash gamers nexus to support us directly in making more factory tour content like this and we'll see you all next time