ClearPC, C3 and BeanTech: The Clear Chassis Comparison

BeanTech BT82 Construction

Finally, we have our BeanTech BT82 acrylic enclosure.  We noticed a few qualities about this case right away.  First of all, we saw that the hard drive bay does not contain a single removable column.  Instead, it houses a fixed column that contains 7 3.25” bays and 4 5.25” bays.  After dealing with the C3 and the ClearPC’s removable column, this was an interesting welcome, at first.  However, we soon noticed that this advantage proved only slightly better than the other approach.  We now have to remove both side panels (4 screws each) in order to add or a remove a drive.  When installing the whole system, the C3 takes a little longer.  On the other hand, when just upgrading an additional drive, the BT82 takes at least twice as long.

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The case came completely shrink wrapped. Additionally, there was an extra layer of shrink wrap around the case under the first wrapping. We left the inner layer of shrink wrap on the unit while we worked on this; the BT82 does not come with rubber gloves so we attempted to minimize fingerprints.

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The BT82 expansion bay did not use any thumbscrews, unlike the C3 and ClearPC.  This was sort of a let down, but we realized there are no thumbscrews in the entire housing.  If you have a few thumbscrews lying around, you might want to substitute the plain screws that come with the case.

While on the subject of the expansion bay, we should also note the poor quality of the acrylic sheath covering the bay and the EMI shield.  This small sheath is made of some other thin acrylic that does not hold with the same quality as the rest of the case.  The instructions insist we use a knife to cut the acrylic out, but we found that no matter how careful we were, the acrylic always broke.  A stray cable insertion would surely damage this sheath. This did not score many favor points with us.

Weak Sheath