PROJECT: HTPC-4 Part 2

After sitting alone in the dark hot/cold attic, it emerges:HTPC-4.So I get a call on Tuesday or Wednesday from my wife. The power had gone out and when it came back on, the media center would not. Up till this point, I've been using the VCR case for my media center, with a narrow elongated PSU. It's worked out great. But either as a direct result of the power outage or impeccable timing, the PSU died. Since I didn't have a PSU of the physical description on hand, I though of my options... that pretty much boiled down to one: HTPC-4.

When I last left it, I had just finished gluing all the sides together:

I was just going to move all components from the VCR to HTPC-4, sans the irregularly sized PSU. But before that, I sanded, drilled the hole for the power button, made sure everything still mechanically functioned and fit. I needed to shave the edges of a 120mm case i wished to use due to the routing on the top was a little small, but despite that everything, uh, for lack of a better word, worked. Not precise, but with the tools and environment I have, I'm happy with it. So once I had everything fit and working, I took it all out, and began the painting process.

To paint this proper, I should have sanded more, painted slower, and applied more coats. Instead I sanded till I thought it was adequate, I painted a lot of coats, but they were too thick and still not enough... and since they were too thick, sanding was a joke. I then applied some clear coat, but both cans I had were 2/3 empty and one was having propellant issues. But I just wanted to get this done and hooked up to the TV. After it was all dry, I could definately see a lot of blemished and out right bad cuts in the MDF. But I was still OK with it. I installed everything and screwed the top down. Everything still fit and it powered on. Success.

I mounted the powerbutton on the side again, for child... well not proofing, more like resisting. I don't have any attractive buttons to use so I guess the big, attention calling, RED one will have to work for now.




I was able to get 1 120mm fan in there. I though I had some grill to cover it and the other holes, but I couldn't find them... have to keep looking I guess.



Here's a shot of the 2.5" SATA Hard Drive (commonly used in laptops) and the MicroATX PSU. You can also see a small ribbon cable connected to the FRONT PANEL header on the motherboard...


...I like to use hacked up floppy cables for this... due to the fact that I have a lot of floppy ribbon cables and no normal two pin connectors.


Sitting vertically next to the XBOX, once I get a couple of 25' HDMI's and a 25' USB extension, I'll be locating these two to the side to the couch and getting rid of the "media center" they are currently located in.

All in all, I'm glad I finally finished this one. I did perform a rush job, but it could have turned out much worse.

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PROJECT: HTPC-3

images by Weston Colton
www.westoncoltonphoto.com

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PROJECT: HTPC-3 Part 7

And we're done, I believe.

Here it is, hooked up to my 7 year old 15" LCD (best post honeymoon purchase ever) and getting Vista Home Premium loaded on it. Internal hardware includes:

AMD Athlon X2 BE-2400 2.3 GHz
1G (2x512mb) Coarsair DDR2 533mhz
BIOSTAR NF61S-M2 TE Motherboard
PNY GeForce 8400 GS
Rosewill Wireless-G PCI
DVDROM/CD Recorder
400W PSU
120G Seagate HD
160G Seagate HD (both 7200.7 series so a little old)
IR receiver for the remote.

Weston the photog was in town this weekend and took some really nice shots of the system that I will post later once I get them. Overall I'm happy with how it turned out. Not perfect by any means, but I learned a lot from this that hopefully will result in better builds later on.

Late

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PROJECT: HTPC-3 Part 6

Light at the end of the tunnel, kinda.

Well, here we are, coats of primer, flat black and 2 coats of clear.

And here we are a couple of days later and 3 or 4 coats more of clear.

This thing is shiny.

All in all, it turned out alright. The white specs you see on the 3rd picture are really there, but much less visible. I know that kinda sucks, but it's barely noticible and given what I have to work with, I feel pretty lucky to get it that clean.

I'll post a few more pictures once I get all the components in. The clear coat was still slightly tacky this morning, so I'm hoping it will harden a little more by the time I get home from work. I still have to mount the fans and I'm thinking of putting some screen to filter the dust and to "stealth" the fans slightly. I went looking for some metal mesh locally, but none is to be had and I don't feel like paying the price they want on the internet. More later

Late.

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PROJECT: HTPC-4 Part 1

Yes, I started another one, before I had even started to paint HTPC-3. This one is a lot less complicated and besides, I needed something to do while the paint/wood filler/etc etc dried.

Here's a shot with the sides and front panels glued on.

This case was going to be low-low profile, measuring inside the box at 2-1/2" tall, 16" wide and 10" deep.

The outside dimensions being 3-1/2" tall..

17" wide...

and 10-1/2" deep.

And sorry about the pictures (all of them in fact). The photographer and the camera are horrible.

Here's a quick shot with the top laid on it.

Here's my trusty Dremel drill press.

I used my router attachement to make this... but what for?

This.

I'm experimenting with different ways of attaching the top to these boxes. So far both are pretty weak but manage to keep the top in place. Still they aren't very effective and may just go back to just gluing a couple of pieces of wood to the underneath of the top to keep it in place. For now though, this works and turned out great.

This is how I glued the nuts in place. I filled the hole with wood glue screwed the bolt in just enough, placed the top on and pulled all the bolts up, thus preventing the bolt from sinking to the bottom of the hole. I'd didn't work quite that easily, but it worked.

And the finished product. Verdict: UGLY

I was going to go about this one a little differently, that is to say, I was going to use sheet metal for some parts. So I bought this and prompty measured out the cuts.

And voila!

Two cuts and the holes drilled for the M-Atx PSU (2.5" High). Because the case is so lo-profile, it won't allow for a dedicated card. It will acomodate a 1/4" height WiFi card, and that's pretty easy to drill a whole for, but for the most part I'm keeping this simple. Make sure your mobo has a 780G Northbrige or equivalent and you don't need a dedicated card.

Yes, I am the absolute worst at cutting holes with a jig-saw. I need to buy some bigger hole saw bits. But the sub cuts, courtesy of my router addon to the dremel worked awesomely.

Seriously, I suck.

Here I used some metal for the side mount and a piece of MDF as a spacer on the side against the front panel. Worked perfectly. I added some wax paper there, as the spacer was stil drying and had some glue squeezing out.

A quick shot of the rear panel, unglued

The rear panel being glued on...

And due to some forethought, I fastened the panel with some screws before-hand, just in case. Well, the glue didn't hold at all, (I forgot I used liquid nails last time, doh.) and the only thing keeping it on was the screws. So I drilled a couple more on and there we are.

More on this as it develops... it just needs to stop raining.

Late!

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PROJECT: HTPC-3 Part 5

I'm actually a bit further on down the road with this project than the pictures suggest. I'll get caught up either tonight or tomorrow but for now, an update:

Remember when I said I had messed up the HD cage and that I'd just probably drill the hole on a slim peice of sheet metal and glue it on the cage? Well, that didn't happen, what did happen is that I bought a 16oz box of wood filler and fixed the holes, then redrilled them using my new dremel attachment. Work semi-perfectly. Almost srewed up the alignment again but, eh, I got it to work.

As soon as I verified the holes, I sanded it a bit, sprayed it with a few coats of gray primer, and sanded some more to prepare for the black. Turned out pretty nice.

And here's the box after a couple of coats of primer and a sand or two. Almost ready for black paint. So far it looks like crap, but I can verify with the black paint and clear coat, it is looking pretty slick.

More tonight, or tomorrow on this project.

Late!

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