PROJECT: HTPC-3 Part 2

Here is a continuation of the riveting MDF box work log:

A shot of the completed hard drive cage in all its simplicity.

It's removable, by necesity. Two bolts hold it down...

...and on the underside of the bottom plate, they screw into these.

Here's a shot of the hard drive cage, some of the optical drive cage and some motherboard stand-offs. The MB standoff are some short bolt with a coupe of nuts that hold them in place as well as elevate the motherboard. Pretty simple really. It was an idea I first saw on the hardocp.com forum, although I'm sure it has made the rounds in other places.

An inside view of the HD cage. It's essentially a 3"x4" strip of 1/4" MDF with 1/4"x1/4"x4" sticks to hold the HD's. Pretty simple and effective. The only problem I had was drillig the mounting holes witch was a complete failure. I think I will just glue a small piece of steel with the holes already drilled and that should work.

A couple of shots of the 80mm fan intake. I was pleasantly surprised that I drilled the mounting holes and coutersinks on this and it all lined up, plus I can use the hardware that came with the fans.

And here we have a quick install to see how things look. I'm pretty happy so far. Next up will be the back panel which also turned out pretty good, not perfect but the best I have done so far.

Late.