Student Designs Cardboard PC Casing
A University of Houston student has caught the eye of manufacturers and retailers with his computer cardboard casing.
A University of Houston student, Brenden Macaluso, has designed a computer cardboard casing that could be both environmentally safe and extremely unstable at the same time. The cardboard-housed computer is the result of a graduate thesis, and addresses three issues: how are things manufactured, how they are used, and how they are ultimately disposed. Macaluso is now actually talking with manufacturers and retailers to bring the "Recompute" to the market sometime before the holiday season.
The Houston Chronicle reports that the cardboard housing requires less time, labor, and parts to produce. It can be assembled without fasteners and screws, and will feature fewer parts to dump into landfills. Macaluso said that the case takes advantage of the cardboard's corrugated traits, ventilating the entire rig. To reduce the overall amount of heat, the power supply and the motherboard are isolated from each other, and of course the processor has a built-in cooling fan.
As for problems with trapped dust, Macaluso said that the cardboard casing can be sprayed with air for quick cleaning. As for spills, Macaluso assumes that consumers will clean up the mess before the spill gets out of hand; this factor seems the most dangerous in accidental situations, sparking a fire that could possibly consume the PC's paper-based outer shell in mere seconds. According to the Houston Chronicle, there are even questions about the case being sustainable.
But with manufacturers taking notice, this cardboard case may be sturdier than it appears, if not a great conversation piece when friends or family come to visit. "It is controversial," admits EunSook Kwon, the director of the industrial design program at the University of Houston who oversaw Macaluso's thesis project. "I think that's the beauty of this project."
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... or one could just throw their empty steel computer case in the steel recycling bin like any normal person would.
key features: part computer case, part camp fire
Or even reuse it. But alot of people apparently just throw whole computers away. I bet there are plenty of P4~ish level of computers just sitting places that would still run perfectly fine. Which brings me to: You still have the problem of motherboards and whatnot just sitting in landfills.
Or even reuse it. But alot of people apparently just throw whole computers away. I bet there are plenty of P4~ish level of computers just sitting places that would still run perfectly fine. Which brings me to: You still have the problem of motherboards and whatnot just sitting in landfills.
nto strue , about the mother boards and card compents , thera re many palces tehse days that have special recyliing centers , thatr strip and sperate all these compnents for recyling
Special recycling centers, sure. It's called China, where the metals get stripped out of the PCB by kids. Fun cancer factory, yay!
why dont they put a biodegradable plastic cover on it problem solved.
never will I put my beloved hardware in such case... NEVER
... or one could just throw their empty steel computer case in the steel recycling bin like any normal person would.
"normal" people in Houston don't recycle
acrylic cases spring up intersting conversations, cardbord cases just make you look like an idiot for buying one.
The computer case accounts for 10% of the embodied energy of a computer, at the absolute most. It's also the most reusable part.
hmmm... that gives me an idea for case mods. I could work up a prototype with cardboard first.
Have any of you guys seen movie called 'Manufacturing Landscapes'? I recommend you take a look, it tels few interesting facts about 'recycling'.
Watercooling leak.
I've seen the "cardboard PC case" a dozen times in the last 5 years. The problem is nobody wants a freaking cardboard case.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/05 [...] dboard-pc/
And this will cost how much more than a normal case?
How could this be a thesis? Seriously, this project deserve a D at best...
My final project for my bachelor degree was way more impressive and it was far from a thesis.
I was using a DSP for Analog/Digital/Analog conversion for my guitar signal. In the digital area, I was applying echoes, equalizing filters and distortion...
5 student in mechanical engineering have made a frigging plane for their final bachelor project... a frigging PLANE!!!
And this guy is doing... a cardboard pc case... for a master thesis...
Is this not the same as you guys already showed in past february?
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/R [...] ,6967.html
Seems the same...
hmmm, fire
Cardboard cases may not be in our immediate future but some of the concepts could be further evolved into something more useful. What about flame retardant corrugated acrylic and plastic similar to what the US Post Office makes all those sorting bins out of? What about modular cases that can be reconfigured for whole new builds; a rack server one day, a mini-tower the next?
All the manufacturers are looking for ways to build their hardware for less and still take advantage of pro-environment incentives offered by the government while looking sexy and cutting-edge to consumers. Something unique, practical, and innovative may eventually come out of this. (But I'm not sure if a cardboard computer box passes for a post-grad thesis.)
twantko: You are so right, the CBC did an excellent piece about that, including video of poor Chinese people doing the dirty work...
Interesting idea but some serious issues:
1) As already mentioned, fire risk.
2) Durability. If it doesn't catch fire then the constant heat will cause the cardboard to degrade faster.
3) Strength. I want to protect my electrical components from physical harm. Young children or pets could annihilate this.
So this is what passes for a graduate thesis these days? A computer case made out of cardboard?
As many of you have already said, the durability and safety of such a case is dubious at best. Not to mention the fact that, the case is probably the least environmentally troublesome part of the computer. Since I started building my own computers back in the mid 90s, I've only ever used ATX mid-tower cases. The computers have been rebuild many times over, but I continue to reuse the same cases. The nice thing about steel is that it's easy enough to use a dremel to machine a hole for a side-mounted fan or front-mounted USB connectors.
Steel is a piece of cake to recycle, whether your throw it in a bin to be reused or it ends up in the landfill. When steel oxides, it turns to rust, which turns to dust and returns to the Earth whence it came.
Now PCBs... that's another matter. Old motherboards (and video cards, soundcards, modems, etc.), once they've given up the ghost, or outlived their usefulness, are basically inert. The plastic, which would normally photo-decay over a course of hundreds of years, could remain in tact for millennia given that the thin layer of gold is almost completely non-reactive and will never decay or degrade. Fortunately, these days, motherboards contain main of the modules which used to be disparate components (such as sound and ethernet).
Bottom line: cardboard box as a "case mod" project... kinda cool. As a graduate thesis... not so much.
"You would be surprised how many homeless people buy computers."
The Big Hit
Now I could be wrong on this but isn't one of the reason most cases are metal for the EMI shielding that they can do? I like having a metal case, not sure what else I would want it made out of.
It wouldn't meet the EMI shileding requirements for various standards and as such the systems would be less stable.
IBM did a heap of research on this back in the 70's, computers should not be housed in plastic or cardboard for this very reason.
It wouldn't meet the EMI shileding requirements for various standards and as such the systems would be less stable.
IBM did a heap of research on this back in the 70's, computers should not be housed in plastic or cardboard for this very reason.