Commodore Amiga 2000 Retro Fit Case Mod

[88keys]

2/1/2015
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Case arrived at my door yesterday.

It's in pretty decent shape for being 25 years old (manufactured in 1991 according to the stamp on the inside). Hit has a few scratches but nothing horrible. Some rust on the inside that will need to be removed and painted to prevent it from recurring.

According to my own rough measurments, there is definitely plenty of room to mount the Power supply, motherboard, video card, and extra PCI(e) slot, and 2x 80mm fans, and 1x 120mm fan in the rear. Going to bring it to work tomorrow and take measurements so that I'll have specific dimensions so I can design mod along the parts that I'll need to make everything work

I'll also have to remove some of the motherboard posts which appear to be spotwelded in so they'll have to be drilled or cut out from underneath. What I'll probably end up doing is purchasing a rear I/O plate from mountain mods and have a new motherboard plate and rear plate punched out by a turret press.

A re painting may or may not be in order. The scratches aren't horrible by any means but it would be nice to cover them up. That and the plans for the 5.25" bay could raise an issue depending on what ends up going there. As it's pretty much impossible to match color on plastic I would have to find something close to the original color (which appears to be a lighter shade of teal) and use that.

Upon actually having this in my possession I am pretty sure that the port holes on the lower right of the case (not shown in pics) are big enough to hold all of the front USB ports and audio that anyone would ever need.

The floppy drive buttons could be converted into power and reset buttons pretty easily. and I can probably gut the internals and put card readers on the inside.

As for the 5.25" bay, I could purchase this non working 5.25" floppy can keep the look completely original in the front. It would serve no function but I could mount a SSD or two on the inside.

Or I could get this 5.25" swappable bay and mount a SSD inside. It wouldn't be completely original, but hot swappable drives is a pretty nifty feature and it would still look retro. Not to mention that it's cheaper and it serves a purpose. However this would make repainting necessary.

Another option is possibly making a custom 5.25" face plate and make a retro fan controller using a dial and a 7 segment LED display like this (link).



Personally leaning toward one of the two former options, however I need to make a decision rather soon considering the floppy drive auction ends in several days.


FWIW: This build will not have an internal optical drive.

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(reserved for future use)
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[88keys]

I closed the old thread becuase I have finally decided on a case to mod, and I have made the purchase, so I'll be documenting my progress here.

Amiga 2000 Chassis

Now this is the first mod that I've done in a long time and will be certainly the most extensive one that have ever done. The main goal here is to modify the internals to house modern ATX components while leaving the exterior original or 'retro' as possible.

In other words an modern adaptations such as USB 2/3.0, SD Card readers, etc. need to placed in the rear of the PC or discreetly placed inside an existing slot of cavity.

Any others such as aesthetic mods need to look time appropriate. Like if I wanted a temp monitor, it would have to be something like an 7 or 14 segment LCD display (example). Or change the color to a nicer shade of gray or beige (which again would have been appropriate for the time).

I will bump this thread whenever new progress is made with the first post will be updated aswell. Or whenever I have a question.


FWIW, I work in a tool and die shop and I have some experience in metal fabrication, so I do have some clue as to what I'm doing. I have a few ideas as to how this will work, but I can't arrive at anything specific until I have the chassis in my possession and I can take precise measurements to ensure proper fit and placement of various components.

 

[88keys]

I also posted a thread about this on an Amiga forum and one idea that was suggested to me was to somehow make it look like the Amiga 3000 chassis with everything appearing more integrated.

What he meant was to seal the gaps around the drive bays and led cut out and then smooth it over and paint it.

Seems like an interesting idea if it's feasible, but I don't know how you would mod plastic to look like that.

Is there some kind of epoxy or putty that you could use to make that work?

 

[Charlie98]

I'd probably take the 2000... looks easier to mod to me.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I'd probably take the 2000... looks easier to mod to me.

Yeah - standard 3.5" and 5.25" bays and bezels haven't changed in 20+ years.

 

[bradley]

Nice project. Seeing that Amiga 2000 brings back so many darned good memories.

 

[88keys]

2/1/2015:

Case arrived at my door yesterday.

It's in pretty decent shape for being 25 years old (manufactured in 1991 according to the stamp on the inside). Hit has a few scratches but nothing horrible. Some rust on the inside that will need to be removed and painted to prevent it from recurring.

According to my own rough measurments, there is definitely plenty of room to mount the Power supply, motherboard, video card, and extra PCI(e) slot, and 2x 80mm fans, and 1x 120mm fan in the rear. Going to bring it to work tomorrow and take measurements so that I'll have specific dimensions so I can design mod along the parts that I'll need to make everything work

I'll also have to remove some of the motherboard posts which appear to be spotwelded in so they'll have to be drilled or cut out from underneath. What I'll probably end up doing is purchasing a rear I/O plate from mountain mods and have a new motherboard plate and rear plate punched out by a turret press.

A re painting may or may not be in order. The scratches aren't horrible by any means but it would be nice to cover them up. That and the plans for the 5.25" bay could raise an issue depending on what ends up going there. As it's pretty much impossible to match color on plastic I would have to find something close to the original color (which appears to be a lighter shade of teal) and use that.

Upon actually having this in my possession I am pretty sure that the port holes on the lower right of the case (not shown in pics) are big enough to hold all of the front USB ports and audio that anyone would ever need.

The floppy drive buttons could be converted into power and reset buttons pretty easily. and I can probably gut the internals and put card readers on the inside.

As for the 5.25" bay, I could purchase this non working 5.25" floppy can keep the look completely original in the front. It would serve no function but I could mount a SSD or two on the inside.

Or I could get this 5.25" swappable bay and mount a SSD inside. It wouldn't be completely original, but hot swappable drives is a pretty nifty feature and it would still look retro. Not to mention that it's cheaper and it serves a purpose. However this would make repainting necessary.

Another option is possibly making a custom 5.25" face plate and make a retro fan controller using a dial and a 7 segment LED display like this (link).



Personally leaning toward one of the two former options, however I need to make a decision rather soon considering the floppy drive auction ends in several days.


FWIW: This build will not have an internal optical drive.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Cool project. I'll have to track this thread.