Switchboard

[EM3Bilko]

This update is basically just to show you how things are looking after some changes have been made to the item or something that was added. Now I know that some liked the color of the speaker covers that I painted GM-Metallic Red. Now I have painted them to match everything else, Black. So for the first pic I'll show you how they look with their new dress. It was pointed out that the plywood edge of the circle that I cut was showing. I have since then painted the edge black but you will still see the clear coated wood thru the grill on most of the pic. So here are the grills.

I used a old Cat5 cable by cutting off each end and putting the RJ45 plug into my Cat5 connectors so that when I painted the connectors I wouldn't be paint the contacts inside the connector. So here are some of the pics of that job finished.

If you remember the first phone that I purchased for the project was the old 500 series table top phone in black. I removed the ear and mouth piece from the handset of the black phone and replaced the beige caps on the French style phone and also painted the gold ring around the dialer black. I'm going to purchase a black handset cable next payday so the I'll have the phone all black except the area that hold onto when talking on the phone. Here are some pics of the phone parts that got painted.

The controller in the middle has a brushed aluminum faceplate but the small area around the faceplate and butts up against the panel was beige and scuffed up so I painted that area that's beige in color.

When I make the change over for Switchboard to be my main rig and this rig I using now will become a project sometime in the future. The change over will put the DVD burner that's in this rig will go to Switchboard and placed into the opening to the right of the controller. The burner is a NEC 4X that has been a very reliable unit for me. I've also have been working inside Switchboard. The power supply is in and it's a Enermax 450watt unit. The mobo is in and it's a Foxconn 6150K8MA micro so the graphics is the nVidia 6150, sound is a 7.1 surround sound, has firewire header on the board so that I can hook the connections from the controller for firewire in the front along with USB 2.0. It also has firewire with the I/O plate. I'm thinking about putting in a capture card, not sure yet. It does have a PCIxE-16 slot if I ever upgrade it and 3 PCI slots. It does have 4 memory slots and it's setup for Dual Channel memory. It is a socket 939 running a AMD64 3000 and will have a AMD heatpipe heatsink and fan that was designed for the Opteron cpu. Still have the handset of the phone to hook up which has 4 wires to connect. Got the floppy drive and 1 HDD mounted but not wired to the mobo yet. I will be putting in another HDD because this is going to be a dual boot system with Linux and of course this one that I'm using which is XP Home. So I got quite a bit done today. Maybe tomorrow I'll start working on the mobo area to get it fired up. So until then all ideas and comments are welcomed but remember Happy Modding to ya.

[EM3Bilko]

This update is to fill you in on what I have done so far today, I installed the parts of the computer which will be my main pc. To start with I setup the cpu with the heatsink and fan from a Opteron 170. The processor is a AMD64 3000 single core. I installed half of the memory with is 512mb of PC2700, I will be putting another 512mb once I get the unit into the house. I also installed 2 HDD, a 30gig WD for WindowsXP and 10gig Seagate for Linux and then also put a floppy inside just in case I need a floppy drive. Hooked up the cables from the controller for USB and Firewire. Put in a 450 watt power supply and plugged in the 24 pin connection and all the other cables except for the DVD Burner which will be put in when the unit gets into the house. While I'm putting all this stuff in I'm also doing wire management. I still have to put in the power strip because the power socket only gives me enough for 2 plug ins and that's been taken by the 120mm AC fan, power supply and then the speakers are still needing a place to plug into. Then once I get it into the house the router and modem need the 110volts AC, so I'll need to get the power strip in tomorrow. Here is a batch of pics that I took today while working.

 

After I did all of this work I plugged it in and pressed the power button and nothing happened. So I got my ohm meter and checked to see if contact was being made when the button was pushed and found that it wasn't. So I pulled the boots off from the connections of the switch and found that one wire was broken off from the switch. So I broke out the soldering gun and corrected the break. Here is what I found.

Once that was corrected I plugged everything back in and pressed the power switch again and everything powered up. So now I'll clean up my mess and then take this unit into the house and get it setup as my main unit. While I'm getting it setup I'll use a different computer until Switchboard is ready for use which will be sometime later today. Hot Dog it's going to be working after a hard bit of work. So any ideas and comments are welcomed and remember Happy Modding to ya.

Edited July 14, 2007 by EM3Bilko

[EM3Bilko]

It's now in place. I'm using my wife computer right now.

Still working at getting all the programs back onto the HDD. It's working better now that ever.

Well, there you have it. Windows is on completely, have the trim pieces made and installed and it's running quite well. Once I get the money together to purchase a crimping tool and the RJ45 connectors and cable then I'll have more of the black color from the cables running up to the connections near the top. I'm also looking for some rigid tubes to mount into the table under the connections at the top. They will be holders for the cables when the cables are not in use. I would like to find some that are black already then see if I could do some painting on the tubes so that they look like marble to a certain degree. Well, we see how that goes, anyway I'm looking for the tubes for cable holders. Here is a photo showing you by way of a measuring tape in inches the size of Switchboard.

Then I can give you a photo comparing it to my chair.

I don't have much room to move it around. I couldn't get my chair any closer because of the work bench that was in this room when we got here. This room was a add-on to the house at one time and they didn't even put in duct work to heat and cool the room. We use a window AC unit to stay cool and then small space heaters during the winter to stay warm. So with this bench in the way it's hard to move Switchboard around and it's not the lightest unit either. It's the heaviest computer case I own. Happy Modding to ya.

Edited July 14, 2007 by EM3Bilko

[coolcat97]

Excellent work man! :thumbs-up:

[EM3Bilko]

Excellent work man! :thumbs-up:

Thanks coolcat97, this has turned out better than I thought it would. The processor isn't the most powerful but it surpasses the 2800XP that it replaced. I've got a GeForce 7100GS ordered to replace the on board unit which is a GeForce 6150. I have a TV capture card that will be going in when the new graphics card get here. I also have a memory card reader that will be going in and I was given a Polaroid Portable DVD player with a 7" screen when I got out of the hospital recently. The reason that it was given to me was because it doesn't work and I had commented that I would like to have the screen. I have gotten the screen to work off of the S-Video connection and it will be going into the front of the Switchboard. That will be installed later but the rest will be installed when the new card arrives. I also have a network switch that will be going in and that is where the Cat5 connections in the front come in. Once I get then all hooked up and the cable work finished, then there will be cables coming up out of the front table to plug into the front connections which will hook up a computer for each one. That too will be a later project. So Switchboard isn't finished but it's enough done to be used. So check it out periodically for something new. Happy Modding to ya.

[AxcesDenyed]

Thought this deserved some Digg recognition.

 

Digg it

[SMeeD]

Dugg. I would have never thought that was a computer

[EM3Bilko]

Thought this deserved some Digg recognition.

 

Digg it

Wow, that thought never crossed my mind. Thank you for your consideration and linking me to Digg It. It's not 100% completed as of yet but it is functional and I'll be putting a slightly better graphics card (GeForce 7100GS) to replace the on board unit (GeForce 6150) along with a TV capture card. Once they are in I'll start my work at putting a 7" TFT LCD screen into the top front portion where the phone dial and Cat5 connections are. I'll be posting these improvements here for Switchboard. Again Thank You for the link and Happy Modding to ya. EM3Bilko

Edited July 15, 2007 by EM3Bilko

[EM3Bilko]

Yes sir, that's my computer and this reply is being written using Switchboard. Glad to hear that you wouldn't have thought this was a computer, I did it. That was my goal, to make a unit that didn't resemble a computer. I do have rollers on the bottom so if I move it will be a simple procedure to roll it out the door. Again Thank you SMeeD for your comment and Happy Modding to ya.

Edited July 15, 2007 by EM3Bilko

[EM3Bilko]

As you know Switchboard is now in service and there are a few things still needed to be installed. This update is for the handset cable and others. You can see in some of the other photos that it is beige in color and now it isn't. Here is a photo to show you the color.

Here are the other improvements in the form of photos.

Now for the words that describe what all that the photos are trying to tell you. The first photo is of the card reader which is suppose to read something on the order of 21 cards that is if there are that many. The second photo is from in front of and slightly above and is showing the Samsung DVD burner that is a 18x burner with Lightscribe so that I may make pretty gray scale labels on specially marked discs. Now the best is not visible and that is the replacement of a 10gig HDD with a 80gig HDD so that brings me to a total of 110 gig of storage space instead of the 40gig that Switchboard started with. Still have to paint the dividers black where I had to cut to make room for the card reader but that won't be a problem. This morning when I got up the first thing that crossed my mind was what to do with the LCD screen that was given to me here lately. This is what I thought about. Yes I have a photo of my thoughts.

So with Switchboard just about ready to put the screen into it now, I'll call it quits for today. So remember all ideas and comments are welcomed and Happy Modding to ya.

[EM3Bilko]

This is a update for Switchboard but it isn't. It's for the 7" screen from the DVD player that I received as a gift. I was told that when I start on the screen to make sure to take a lot of photos. Which I did. The first thing I had to do was to figure out how it came apart. I started by taking my knife and putting the edge of the knife in the seam and try to pry it apart but that didn't work. So a little closer look found these little rubber plugs in the area around the frame where just maybe screws would be to take out to get it apart. I used my jewelers screwdriver to pry the rubber plugs out.

Once the plugs were out the screws were visible.

So I went to town taking out the screws. Once they were all out the frame separated quite easily.

Now that I had the back of the screen off I had to pry these little tabs back and at the same time pull the screen away and hold it away while I pried another tab back and repeat the procedure. It was a pain in the butt holding these tabs back and at the same time pull the screen back. Here are the tabs that I'm talking about.

I finally got them all and this is what I found.

The kid just made a total mess of the screen. I'll have to clean it for sure. Then I had to get the rest of the components out of the lid. Here is what I had to remove.

These parts were the easy part, just unscrew the speakers hold down straps and out they came. The pcb parts were just as easy, unscrew them and lift them out.

This seems to be a good place to stop. It's my mothers birthday and we are taking her out to eat. She's 84 today and is hopping around with a broken ankle. We'll get her there sooner or later. Any way I'll get back to this later. Until then all ideas and comments are welcomed and Happy Modding to ya.

[Crow47]

Wow, I've just gotten into this on the tail end it seems, but nice work! I love seeing custom cases like that.