Silverfox Posted April 2, 2005 Posted April 2, 2005 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! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
markiemrboo Posted April 2, 2005 Posted April 2, 2005 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! 455175[/snapback] 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 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hardnrg Posted April 2, 2005 Posted April 2, 2005 markie! markie! mr boo! maplin have aluminium flight cases down from Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
markiemrboo Posted April 2, 2005 Posted April 2, 2005 markie! markie! mr boo! maplin have aluminium flight cases down from Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kobalt Posted April 3, 2005 Posted April 3, 2005 (edited) Has to be the next best thing to a laptop Edited April 3, 2005 by kobalt Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
markiemrboo Posted April 3, 2005 Posted April 3, 2005 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 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
aaronamd Posted April 3, 2005 Posted April 3, 2005 Gaaa! how come windows media player ten can't play this thing, where is the codec? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
markiemrboo Posted April 3, 2005 Posted April 3, 2005 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..? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tazwegion Posted April 3, 2005 Posted April 3, 2005 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.454692[/snapback] 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 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
markiemrboo Posted April 3, 2005 Posted April 3, 2005 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?) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Puck Posted April 3, 2005 Posted April 3, 2005 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. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
markiemrboo Posted April 3, 2005 Posted April 3, 2005 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. 455799[/snapback] 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 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now