Intel NUC 11 modular case

Modular Case for an Intel NUC11.

Lost track of the various Intel NUC11 models. It's that one with the i5-1135G7. Without the two USB-C/Thunderbolt connectors.

The case is modular. Central part is the board-one. I melted in heat sets there (8 pieces required). The bottom part with the fan and the bottom part with or without the SSD part is then screwed through the case to the board part. All screws used are M4 with cylindric heads.

The fan used is a Noctua NF-A9 5V. To mount it into the fan top, 30mm M4 screws are just enough if you remove the rubber edges.

If you plan to add further extensions, i added a schematic of the case size and the screw positions.

The case basically works and is already in use but i will probably add some optimizations in the future.

If you don't want to apply a cooling mod, the fan tunnel works surprisingly well. Just mount it between the board and the fan part. The model was just a quick test, because i modified the cooling.

A "JST micro mx 1,25mm" connector fits to the board if you don't want to cut of the connector of the original fan. Pins do fit 1:1 to the Noctua.

If you don't use an SSD, just let the SSD-part out. There seems to be a very specific cable needed to connect an SSD to the FCC-Sata-Connector of the board. I'm still searching for a fitting one. So in the photo it's without the SSD part. 

Pictures of how i modified cooling are also attached. Right now the additional cooler just sits on top of the original heatpipes with a 1,5mm thermal pad in between mounted to the original fan mounting points. So no modification of the original hardware needed. With the pwm regulated fan i get 2-3° less then original under full load, but it's almost absolutely silent. The Noctua does not even come close to its maximum RPM.

Update:

Added Spacer_10mm. It's a generic frame you can mount between separate parts if you need more space for whatever reason. It's 10mm high, so you can simply scale it's height in the slicer.

Added FanMount and FanCover which replaces FanTop. It still fits the Noctua NF-A9 with 25mm height, but is ~1cm lower. Also fan mount screws are hidden inside and less space required, however it's two parts. It also includes a fan grid in the print.

Update 2:

Since the SSD-part barely fits an SSD (and only with angled or very small connectors) and i still couldn't find a fitting FFC-SATA-cable, i used the M.2 B-Key-slot to connect a SATA-SSD via an M.2-SATA-adapter.

https://www.amazon.de/dp/B081F8PX3C

It can be cut to fit the 2242 slot and has soldering points to reconnect the power supply. Since a 2.5" SSD only fits barely, i removed the case from the ssd and the pure board gives plenty of space, so i could even add a mount for the voltage regulator to a new ssd-part (NUC11-ssd-board-only.stl)

Be aware: the mounting points for the bare ssd-board fits both my 2TB sandisk and my stoneage sandisk 128GB ssd, but it may not fit for various other pure boards.