- Mar 18, 2005
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I picked up an older PD board off a member here about 4 or so months ago for rather cheap.
Board
It sat for a while, I had no idea what to do with it (it didn't come with a backplate, no biggie just limits things). Searched scrap yards, plumbing shops, metal shops, ebay, hell anything that might inspire (mini-itx.com is so very cool and helpful for this). Screwed around in Edge designing some weird and not so weird things.
Eventually had a day off and wandered over to a salvage store on the other side of town and picked up an old electrical panel box (or something, I don't really know what it is used for) and thought it might look pretty sweet as some sort of obelisk looking dealy, then got to work.
Kinda crappy design but in my head it looks better
Filled in holes and sanded down
The SD card with my worklog photos died so the progress is about 1/3 the way through. In the last pic I've already glued an aluminum strip to the inside then filled the holes with metal filler and sanded it down. Also, I found an old low power PSU from a 5$ case I bought a while ago (case was tossed IIRC) , unboxed it and cut the tops of the cooling fins off, it just barely fits. The bracket that holds it is a bit of leftover aluminum, the EMI shield is some more leftover aluminum with holes drilled for more airflow over the fins.
PSU, also can see 50mm fan mount holes drilled
Closer shot
Backplate cutout
Goddamn the backplate is a tough bitch to do. Dremel took care of most of it, the rest is hand filed down (took like 4 hours). Kinda looks a little off, I fixed it later though.
Decided the PSU would get mighty hot since I cut the heatsink in half/off, added some cut up bits of an old P133 heatsink and glued it on with epoxy mixed with arctic silver paste.
PSU with fins added
Should help it stay a little cooler (I hope).
Picked up a 4gb CF card and IDE adapter off Ebay, tests put it at 10mb/sec, kinda sucks but w/e.
Fast forward about a month or so to yesterday/today, wife was out of town and I had some spare time from doing house reno, got to work on the mounting holes and intake/exhaust holes. Also wired up a reed switch for the main power ON, it's going to sit in the front top corner (shielded of course form the back). It seems to work fine behind the aluminum so fingers crossed.
Fan cutouts and mounting screws
The little plastic tab is to hold the back of the MB, keeps it more solidly in place. It's getting replaced with something a bit more robust later this week. Also, I messed up on the 50mm output hole, I had accidentally drilled a 40mm fan pattern, had to fix it with the 60mm fan and a ton of cutting/filing.
Side panels fitted and sanded smooth
Many hours of sanding, grinding with the dremel and more sanding, plus making a huge mess with the table and miter saws, it stands roughly completed.
The feet/stand I made from some leftover plexi scrap and rubber bushings I had lying about. I took the palm sanded to it since I like the frosted look.
Rubber feet
Other side
I hope to get the priming/painting done this week, few hours of block sanding and it should come out pretty nice. I was thinking Ford Escort Dark Blue (I have a full can of it already). Also, the sides will be getting frosted as well, I have a purple/weird blue EL wire dealy for it, not very bright so might have to make up an LED string or something. Still need a 60mm grill, a 1gb DDR stick
Hopefully I can finish it for next weekend, would be nice to start getting linux working on it (hoping to get a LAMP setup working to host my webpage).
Hope everyone likes it thus far!
Edited since I can't spell tonight.
Board
It sat for a while, I had no idea what to do with it (it didn't come with a backplate, no biggie just limits things). Searched scrap yards, plumbing shops, metal shops, ebay, hell anything that might inspire (mini-itx.com is so very cool and helpful for this). Screwed around in Edge designing some weird and not so weird things.
Eventually had a day off and wandered over to a salvage store on the other side of town and picked up an old electrical panel box (or something, I don't really know what it is used for) and thought it might look pretty sweet as some sort of obelisk looking dealy, then got to work.
Kinda crappy design but in my head it looks better
Filled in holes and sanded down
The SD card with my worklog photos died so the progress is about 1/3 the way through. In the last pic I've already glued an aluminum strip to the inside then filled the holes with metal filler and sanded it down. Also, I found an old low power PSU from a 5$ case I bought a while ago (case was tossed IIRC) , unboxed it and cut the tops of the cooling fins off, it just barely fits. The bracket that holds it is a bit of leftover aluminum, the EMI shield is some more leftover aluminum with holes drilled for more airflow over the fins.
PSU, also can see 50mm fan mount holes drilled
Closer shot
Backplate cutout
Goddamn the backplate is a tough bitch to do. Dremel took care of most of it, the rest is hand filed down (took like 4 hours). Kinda looks a little off, I fixed it later though.
Decided the PSU would get mighty hot since I cut the heatsink in half/off, added some cut up bits of an old P133 heatsink and glued it on with epoxy mixed with arctic silver paste.
PSU with fins added
Should help it stay a little cooler (I hope).
Picked up a 4gb CF card and IDE adapter off Ebay, tests put it at 10mb/sec, kinda sucks but w/e.
Fast forward about a month or so to yesterday/today, wife was out of town and I had some spare time from doing house reno, got to work on the mounting holes and intake/exhaust holes. Also wired up a reed switch for the main power ON, it's going to sit in the front top corner (shielded of course form the back). It seems to work fine behind the aluminum so fingers crossed.
Fan cutouts and mounting screws
The little plastic tab is to hold the back of the MB, keeps it more solidly in place. It's getting replaced with something a bit more robust later this week. Also, I messed up on the 50mm output hole, I had accidentally drilled a 40mm fan pattern, had to fix it with the 60mm fan and a ton of cutting/filing.
Side panels fitted and sanded smooth
Many hours of sanding, grinding with the dremel and more sanding, plus making a huge mess with the table and miter saws, it stands roughly completed.
The feet/stand I made from some leftover plexi scrap and rubber bushings I had lying about. I took the palm sanded to it since I like the frosted look.
Rubber feet
Other side
I hope to get the priming/painting done this week, few hours of block sanding and it should come out pretty nice. I was thinking Ford Escort Dark Blue (I have a full can of it already). Also, the sides will be getting frosted as well, I have a purple/weird blue EL wire dealy for it, not very bright so might have to make up an LED string or something. Still need a 60mm grill, a 1gb DDR stick
Hopefully I can finish it for next weekend, would be nice to start getting linux working on it (hoping to get a LAMP setup working to host my webpage).
Hope everyone likes it thus far!
Edited since I can't spell tonight.
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