Well, I have three shots for you as it stands so far. I just now mounted the motherboard, which gives me the motivation I need to try and finish (I was panicing earlier on how the hell I would mount the board in there, didn't think I would be able to finish it off!)

I didn't use aluminium and make a tray in the end. I scouted out to the shed while everyone was out and found a couple of bits of scrap wood, cut it to around the right length and screwed it to the sides of the briefcase. Then drilled some holes in the wood and put in those little bronze spacers, screwed the motherboard on As far as grounding goes, I think I am just gonna make a wire which goes under one of the spacers and screw it to the PSU, should work ok.

[attachmentid=13474]

The IO backplate (thank you hardnrg, couldn't remember what that part was called!!).. well, for now I have just cut out a rectangle from the bit where there was actually no wood (this part allows the briefcase to raise a bit and make it taller).

[attachmentid=13473]

Finally, the supports I was talking about These just hold the briefcase up to compensate for the missing part of wood going all the way around (who's stupid idea was that, really!!!)

[attachmentid=13475]

Whatcha think so far? Bear in mind... it's... my first real make a case attempt, so it's bound to be a little hacky!!!

Left to do:

• Cut out PSU fan/plug holes (that's gonna take some effort )
• Maybe make the IO backplate bit bigger and put the proper metal plate there, but the machine should only actually have the parallel port (LCD), serial port (serial console) and keyboard plugged in anyways...
• Cut out LED holes on the front (no problem really, chipboard cheapy stuff!)
• Cut out LCD rectangle on the front! (same as above)
• Cut out fan hole (same as above yet again!)
• Cut out network plug holes/brackety bits up the side

Seems like a lot, but I think cutting in the chipboard won't take long really! Cutting the wood around the side (PSU fan, IO backplate and network card holes) is gonna be the biggest pain in the arse.

sweet, keep us posted
-drew

Excellent...keep up the good work!

that sure does look real nice

Thanks guys

I'm pretty pleased with it so far. With a few holes in it for various plugs, maybe a coloured lighty up (brief)case fan in the top and a little LCD display, I think it outta look pretty neat while it's running

I'll probably be cutting out the stuff in the top tomorrow, well.. a fan hole at the least, possibly the LCD display. I'll post some pics of that

Have you thought of mounting an LCD monitor to the inside of the lid of the briefcase? Then you could mount a thin, laptop style keyboard ontop of the actually components. Install small speakers in the front by the clasps. It would end up looking like a brief case laptop. I don't know if that's what you had in mind.

Can you imgaine going to class/work with a briefcase, looking all professional, then you open it up, and bam, you're playing CS or sumthin.

It's a brief case!! get it? it's funny.

sounds like someone can do some stealth wardriving now!

Yes, I have actually. I was looking for something quite small (its a server, console only) thinking about trying that playstation LCD.. but they seem to just be a real pain to get working properly and I have no idea what 'csync' is.. or if the onboard graphics supports it (doubt it!!). I don't really have the money to mess around with a proper 14" LCD or anything, so I think the PS LCD is about my only option.

Oh, and it's a 1ghz celeron with like.. 64mb of PC100 SDRAM at the moment. Might just manage CS 1.6, def not any new games though

mrboo....i am strangely in awe of this bizarre creation....

....but i dont know why!!

I look forward to the finished article. obviously the easter break gives you very little to do unlike me...i'm rationed to 2 hours a day revision before i trudge 240miles back to scouse land.

aww...i wanna trendy case (no pun intended) now!

Looks good! Good luck and have fun finishing it...modding is so much fun I love unique stuff like that too. Oh, and i bet you can *solder* the ground wire to the psu!

lol Actually, I do have lots of Uni work I should probably be doing, and revision! I have 3 bits of coursework to finish off because of the early easter break, then 2 weeks after we're back it's straight in to exams

The briefcase only cost me like £9 from Argos It's a bit crappy, but it's probably about the only thing that's going to fit inside my cupboard! I marked out a fan hole by drawing around a selotape circle thingy!

I should be getting some stuff I ordered for my cousins computer tomorrow, which includes 4 coloured fans .. so I am gonna steal one of those for this 'trendy case' The actual fan hole is going to basically be directly over the CPU fan, which is nice! I think I may have a go at totally finishing it tomorrow if I can. Dreading the cutting of the sides But yeah, i'll post pics with any progress!

Oh oh oh! I am in your sig! Privileged, thank you oh mighty geek!



HOLY CRAP! I never thought of doing it like that. Fantastic idea. hahahahaha, look out mr PSU....

cool idea. Like to see the finished product when it's done.

Lmao. Looks good, keep going.

isnt argos great? i got a snooker cue for £14 does the job seeing as i am shíte at it.

and i just *had* to update my sig now...haha.

all the best!

You should find an x-connect on ebay or something and get some cold cathods in there lol. Pretty awesome man.

Yeah! There was another one similar, like a cm bigger all around, that was like £19 but.. I am a cheap arse!

I could put a cold cathode in there, but.. I don't think it'd be all that great, unless I put a window in it I guess Rather not spend any more money on it if I can help it anyway!

But yes. Been at it again this morning. Cutting the side wood (it's ply wood I think, about 2cm thick evilness). I have managed to get both network cards in with the lid shut! It's a bit messy but I can tidy it up a bit if need be. I'm just relieved to have it done at the minute! I've probably got about 5 different types of cancer doing it, what with all the funny smells coming from it while cutting/drilling/etc etc!

Next up... the io backplate! Then I might consider cutting out the PSU plug/fan holes. I'm really not looking forward to that though

[attachmentid=13492]

I had an idea of doing something like this, and im glad to see someone went about doing it

my idea was to some how get like 3 foot cables though to reposition the ports and have them stick out the back but not with a backplate, if anyone has any clue what i mean by that let me know lol

It's kinda hard work so far lol. My hands are all screwed up from doing it, hurt like buggery they do.. but it's worth it.

I just finished enlarging my backplate part. Take a look now I'm kinda impressed, whatcha think?? I did slip a bit but still...

[attachmentid=13494]

Next up... PSU plug/fan holes *CRIES*

MILESTONE! :
Woohoo! I cut out a big hole for the PSU fan/power plug. It's still roughed up because I was desperate to power it up But.. its nice and quiet with the briefcase closed (no hard drives yes though. So, here's a couple more pics!!!

The BIOS screen (no hard disk so it searched the network...)
[attachmentid=13495]

The (rather rough) PSU fan/power ... hole
[attachmentid=13496]

Now, I do realise there's many unused screwholes there, I originally drilled the holes with the PSU the normal way around but discovered the 20 pin connector wouldn't reach, so I had to redo it screwed in upside down

I am gonna try and get some nice black tape to tape over all the hole edges, so you can't see the wood. Next things to do are slightly easier Gotta cut the case fan hole in the top (chipboard), remove the LCD from the server and cut a hole for that, cut some LED holes and finally.... make a grounding wire from the motherboard to the PSU Oh, and drill a couple of holes for the hard disks.. or come up with some other ingenius way of mounting them!

Ok, before I go cutting... does this look alright? The blue thing would be the LCD (I think it'll fit there), orange LEDs are the network lights and the big red circle is the multicoloured 80mm fan. Comments???

[attachmentid=13498]

hmm, looks ok

Just one question, why did you cut a big hole in the Case to allow for the top of the NETwork Cards to stick out?

When it would have been one hell of alot easier to either cut done the back plates, or if you dont want to cut thet plates, to take them off altogther.

LCD placemnt looks kool But I would put the LEDs closer 2gether personaly, but thats more a personal thing

So have you got a Power button yet? (+ Power LeDs etC)

I want one!

Looking good markie! I have seen it done before with a briefcase and I just think these mod's are fascinating so keep us informed

I cut the hole for the network cards in the top because... the lid won't close otherwise Also, it helps keep them fairly stable (they actually don't wobble about much at all!) since I have no place to screw them down.

I can't have the LEDs closer than what I drew in the picture, simply because the LCD's PCB is pretty big

lol no power button yet. I need to dig it out from underneath the bed.



haha! My mum said that.. I had two words for her



Thanks! I will cut out the fan/LCD stuff tomorrow if you think it's alright looking. I should be able to get a small webcam video clip of the network lights/pics

humm i still havent progressed in the last month with my project, one rocky boot box + 650mhz duron = one really odd PC lol. oh well idk yet but ill prob never get around to doing it.

looking forward to that webcam pic and I am definatly liking the lcd placement!

looks good my man, looks good. you think 2cm ply is bad? try 12mm Stainless Steel bar after re-threading the bar 35mm with a hand die-stock. it's like a work-out for your arms. Even more so when you are resigned to the world's most poorly designed hacksaw

i think someone meant to trim the PCI plate a little so you didnt have to cut the case up - basically so they weren't as tall. a bit life small form factor pci cards, if ya know what i mean?

http://www.mini-itx.com/news/11544953/ - this is something that would be a lot more fun to mod with!

and something like this http://www.warcom.com.au/shop/flypage/accessories/285 would have been easier no doubt!

Man, 12mm steel!! How GEEKY are you!?!? Nah but really, why did you have to cut 12mm steel? That must have been quite a task

Oh right. Nah, aint cutting up my network cards and.. you can't actually get the backplates off these things. They aint screwed on like most things, a bit of metal is actually twisted around through a hole on the card!

Anyway, a little update for you. I cut out the hole for the LCD and drilled four holes around for the LEDs. Cut up the stripboard, two LEDs each, soldered on the wires.. mounted. Tested, works great

Then comes the fun part! The LCD, I decided to move the pots/resistor/wires on to a bit of stripboard to make it neater (it was just... floating before!). So I soldered everything on, plugged it in... lit up. Glue gunned it all down... then realised, yeah.. it was lit up... but the white test blocks weren't there! So I spent literally 3 hours examining this bit of stripboard, trying to get all the glue back off... trying to figure out what the hell I did wrong. I looked at these diagrams I drew ages ago and the little circuit matched exactly. So I get out the multimeter and test everything in every possible combination you could imagine... only to find that the wire going from the stripboard to pin 2 on the LCD, which is supposed to carry 5v to actually power the LCD controllers... wasn't making contact! ARGH! Soldered that again and it's working now. What a waste of 3 hours!!!

So yeah, bear with me while I reglue it all and then I will get a picture. All I need to do now is the fan hole and hard disk mounting thing, then you can also have a nice video of the network lights blinking etc etc lol

UPDATE: Right, sorted.. works. Have a picture

[attachmentid=13525]

markie! markie! mr boo!

maplin have aluminium flight cases down from £29.99 to £7.97!!! That's a few pennies short of 8 quid for an ALUMINIUM FLIGHT CASE!!!

the inside is lined with 2-3mm thick neoprene (dense foam)... it's completely squared off inside, no curved surfaces or sides or anything, thats on the outside, so nice 90* angles to work with...

8 quid man, such a good deal, i measured the inside dimensions for ya

lemme find that piece of paper!

* Internal Dimensions

308mm : height
431mm : width
98mm : bottom depth
40mm : lid depth

comes with a detachable shoulder strap too!

ARG! i've lost the sodding piece of paper with the product code on it, also it's not in the catalogue, and i can't get to it on the website (Maplin)

it exists lol, i measured one today, we've got four in stock so i guess other stores will have a few knockin about, dunno how long for tho, it's like a super briefcase for 8 quid...

i'll find out the product code for you tomorrow (i'll be at work) if the dimensions sound like you could fit everything in... on that note, the neoprene lining could easily take 1mm squishing, probably up to 2mm...

can't believe i don't have that code on me... made a special receipt for it and everything lol

that sounds excellent. Are those measurements inside measurements? Its around the same size as the one I have, but aluminium would be nicer! Do get the code for me please

EDIT: nrg, is it this one??? http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Module...orldID=&doy=2m4

According to the stock thing, the Norwich branch have ONE of these... but it doesn't look like £8 to me Maybe I should take a visit..

Has to be the next best thing to a laptop

PEOPLE!!!! I have a little video clip for you all Tell me what you think! Had to reposition the fan way closer to the LCD because otherwise it would be sitting literally RIGHT on top of the CPU fan and it'd probably screw something up/make loads of noise!

It's 3MB in a zip, grab it from: http://www.asmh81.dsl.pipex.com/briefcase_litup.zip

Gaaa! how come windows media player ten can't play this thing, where is the codec?

Oh! It plays in media player fine here, but maybe logitech installed some codec..

In Crystal player it says it's "Indeo Video 5.10" .. if you're having problems playing it I could try and recompress with xvid or something..?

I tend to agree with xPETEx on this though, I'd would've thought it better to shorten the backing plate(s), in fact here's a graphical representation of how I intend to mod (cutdown & secure) an NIC into my next little Retro project (VCR case)



This does not however detract in any way from your awesome suitcase project

That's an awesome drawing!!!! Betcha spend a couple of days on that didn't you 24/7 since pete mentioned the idea? ha!

It would have been better yeah, but... I would rather cut up the briefcase than the network cards to be honest IF I could have took the plate off altogether then I could have made my own backplates and cut them to size and if they ever needed to go in a proper computer just put the normal backplate back on. But, meh, all good. I put a little sheet of metal over the hole which helps keep them stable, and the LCD's parallel port goes out through the side of that hole which keeps them from moving at all really

Now installing windows to update the BIOS. All I need to do now is secure the hard disks (don't have a clue how, any ideas??), put in the power/hard disk lights and stick a power switch somewhere... all the rest is done (does the little video work for you?)

Great job markie! That thing looks awesome. Can I get 1 more pic of it in the light to see how the case looks finished? Those nic activity lights are a nice touch. A+.

If they are in a corner or against the wall some velcro tape along the edge should do the trick in securing the hd's.

thanks. The video works for you then? The lights were from just a ping, in proper usage they'll blink seperate from each other. I will get a couple of pictures of inside and outside after windows installs (nearly done). The black tape looks kinda... meh.. but it hides the wood. Maybe I should take the tape back off.. dunno.

Yeah, the hard drives are in a corner! Velcro might work... but the briefcase is gonna be stood up, which means the hard disks will be vertical like...

|

Like that. The velcro might come unstuck from the hard disks and they'd fall over

yep

got it

nope

it's N95AA, it's discontinued so it's not on the site nor in the catalogue

but it exists lol... you'd probably have to phone up Norwich and ask them, if they don't have it, they can get it transferred from another store possibly...

Video works fine, but I used the ati player that came on my aiw cd
Yea, if they're vertical I wouldnt trust velcro. If you happen to drop the briefcase during harddrive seek you can kill that drive if its vertical held on with some velcro...Maybe those rails that some cd-roms use? If you could screw the drive to it, then the rails into the side it will be nice and snug

Oh right! I shall have to ask about it then

Meanwhile, in markies room of doom...

The front (you can still see my pencil markings for the original fan position, oops.) Think I should take off the tape around the LCD there? The metal bracket on the front keeps the cards stable, don't want a network card popping out of the PCI slot while it's on

Think I screwed it up a bit by doing that and the tape?

[attachmentid=13559]

Anyway, inside...and.. that's... blah As for the top, well, there was a load of pen holders and stuff sewn on so I had to rip it all off.

[attachmentid=13560]

A shot with the digital camera while it's on... the camera isn't too fond of lights but meh

[attachmentid=13561]

That dang side fan might have to be 7v'd though. Noisy thing! Only problem is... LED's go bye bye if you 7v these ones. Grr.. dang akasa.

go markie!

looking good

Thank you fellow norfolk person

I think that if I left the laptop drive in it's nice cardboard box... I might be able to get away without mounting the hard drives at all, cause the box is dang big so it'd squash things and keep them there anyway kinda thing. I might get some velcro just for good measure though..

It still needs a power button and hard disk/power lights.... ! Any idea what voltage the normal LEDs are for power/hdd lights? The only LEDs I got here are 2/3v things, so if it's more than that i'll have to steal them out of the old computer this is going to be replacing...

Gonna leave it priming for a while to see how hot the CPU gets

i've hung my hdd with velcro, and it makes it kinda quiet, and two strips is easily enough to hang it upside down

I think the leds are less than 3v, but i'm not sure... rip some of an old case to be sfae.

I'll give it a go then!! I didn't think the sticky velco stuff would be enough to support the weight of hard disks!

Fan has been 7v'd, pretty dang quiet now I just took the tape off the front bits and I think it looks much better, even though the cutting around my LCD is a little... messy.

Think it's a little better now?

Yea, it looks "cleaner". I wonder what the temps will be like in that thing, with no intake and all.

You and your quiet fans! You'd die if you heard my system with everything on full blast .

the only thing ya gotta worry about on the velcro is the adhesive getting warm. the velcro itself so long as it is say 15mm width should be fine so long as the strips are the length of the hdd. i am quite impressed with that though. if you looked at my earlier post and the links, im sure that you could have much more fun with things of those sizes!

as for 12mm stainless steel cutting, well, i occasionally do some odd-jobs for my dad doing basic engineering stuff. thread cutting, industrial metal polishing, re-threading, cuttin exhaust studs etc etc...it's all good fun. and when the steel gets hotter from the friction of cutting, it gets physically harder. oh joy.

Jeez that is like awesome
u should like patent that

lol, actually the fan on the side is intake, was gonna leave the PSU as the exhaust

Left it priming and went to watch TV for about an hour and the CPU heatsink is still only warm Kinda scary considering! I may have to take off the heatsink and triple check it's making good contact (I already checked twice before, but.. meh lol)

I like quiet I sleep in this room and there's 4 computers constantly on about, 3 of which are about 60cm away from my bed, they HAVE to be quiet



Yes, I did think about a mini itx but a) they're quite expensive b) I need a parallel port c) I didn't know there was PSI riser things, I needed two PCI slots.. most of what I saw had only 1! oh and d) this is going to be running FreeBSD, not too sure about the compatibility there.

This MSI matx board with 1GHz celeron cost £35, I thought that was quite a good deal I am considering putting this 1GHz chip in my second computer, which just so happens to be S370. That's currently got a celery 633@950 in it. Dunno yet. This 1GHz chip seems to run stangely cool.



lol thanks! A few people have put computers in briefcases though

Ummmm, nah I did it in less than 20 mins (first read this thread yesterday ) as for the idea... I had actually decided on that course of action because of the height restrictions involved with my (soon to be) VCR project, hence the reason for the native audio/video m/board M571

You can see below the moderate space I have to work with...

lol. Well.. I could see how you might get that working if it doesn't need a CD drive..

Looks like you could fit a little ATX power supply in the back (the micro atx kind, I have one under my bed and it's really quite small, 150W). Hard disk or two down the right hand side tray bit and motherboard in the middle.

OR! You might be able to squeeze the little PSU at the back of the right hand side tray bit, have the hard disks in the back and modify the front of the right hand tray to fit a CD drive? Maybe get hold of a 'slimline' cd drive?

EDIT: Looks like fun though. Hope you post progress and stuff so I can see *may have to see if I can get hold of a broken VCR and see if I can put my spare PII normal size ATX board in there*

mrboo....go to sleep! at least i have an excuse: 1 litre of Tesco "Kick" ie/redbull....man now i'm buzzing....jammin and me were just printing off some of the rastorbate things! heidi klum is great....


....anyhoo...i think you should give a vcr a go. i remember the toaster PC that i saw a few years ago. that was really quite something! another idea is integrating a pc in to your furniture/surroundings. if it was safer, integrating a pc in to my chimney breast would look very cool, but our bricks are not safe to rip away because it's a victorian house it'd be so good though! imagine the saved space and potential cooling