Case Mod - In Progress Felix: Old Soviet computer

This.

How about Bloc Punk?

 

Wicked!! Will all those switches be functional? The 4 corner switches would be awesome fan controller dials.

 

Apparently there's Atompunk:

 

Thank you. Yes, all (or almost all) the switches will be functional. And 4 knobs around the main gauge are fan controllers indeed.

@Nexxo
Yes, the period of atompunk suits perfectly. Although I don't know how Chernobyl disaster of 1986 relates to the period of 1945–1965. Maybe they kept in mind the disaster on Mayak plant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_disaster

Tomorrow there will be new pictures.

 

I love your attention to all the old knobs and gauges. There's something special about old computers you can't compare to new ones

 

Believe.



There's a book called Core Memory that celebrates the look of old computers.

For me, it's the same with old HiFi equipment:

 

What they were able to do back in the early days of computers never cease to amaze me. I saw a documentary about videogaming history and the first video game created. How the creators completely went against what people believed computers were for. I also get kinda the same feeling with HIFI, so I think I know what you mean. But let's not derail this further. The topic could foster a thread on its own

 

That faceplate mockup is yummy!
-It would be terrifying to a Mac user too.

@Vognen - Off-topic activity is a good sign of how excited we are over this project.

 

OK, let's proceed. I took the front panel from laser cutting works. It is made of 2 mm thick aluminium. It cost me ~14 USD, and I don't know if it's cheap or expensive, so it would be interesting to compare with prices in your countries.



The main idea I have about the design is to make the front panel easily mountable and dismountable and to avoid intense cutting of the case. Some years ago I already have made a case a bit like this, but at that time I cut off the original front panel and placed the new one instead of it. That method had many shortcomings, I've had to move 3.5" and 5.25" drive enclosures and front fan, and also the whole chassis became weaker. So now I want to make a panel that can replace original plastic one without any intervention in chassis design.

My new panel is going to be placed 42 mm far from original panel (generally because of gauges' thickness). So I need a rather wide frame to cover the sides.

I've already shown you two alternative designs, and finally I chose the second one:



The frame should be made of 1 mm thick bent steel. At the stage of cutting it looked like this:



The cutouts on the sides after bending will form a blowhole for a front panel fan. When I was coming home holding this long quacky plate in my hand, my weak-sighted neighbor had saluted me “Hello, fisherman!” thinking that I was carrying a big fish

And finally after bending and powder coating it began to look like this:





Then I glued six angled pieces to the frame with strong epoxy.



The angled pieces are placed so that I don't have to use additional bolts and nuts — I will fix the panel on these elements using only the nuts that should fasten bars and resistors.

 

$14 US is very cheap for a laser cut panel. Most places here don't want to deal with small jobs. Some will charge a $50 set-up fee too.

 

Killer theme

Subbing Greets from a neighboring country

 

Awesome dude ! I dig the design, I dig everything that has a retro-look.

 

Why do the smallest works take most of the time? I got my dremel overheated while filing, shortening, grinding and polishing different small parts. And then it was time to cut wires and solder, cut wires and solder... But finally I got a working prototype of the front panel!



In the bottom of the panel there is the block of connectors that I took from original front panel. Later they will be hidden behind a decorative cover.



The view from the rear is not very nice.



I think that my skills of cable management fall behind the modern bit-tech level at least for 10 years. But maybe an excuse for me is the fact that no one else will see this mess .

Maybe you've noticed the little PCB in the middle of the panel. This circuit is made by my friend ALS (he's also a member of this forum). It is very functional despite its size: first, it can measure the temperature at two points using analog temperature sensors (they work even when the computer is turned off, with +5 VSB), and, secondly, it is capable to display on the gauges almost any of more than 60 parameters which can be monitored by AIDA64.



In its configuration utility you have to choose a gauge, select a parameter for measurement and set limiting values (better to say, where should be “overload” zone on index plate).

 

One... two... three...

Scha-wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnggg!!!!!

No, it's beautiful! An excellent bit of point-to-point wiring. And very authentic to the theme.

 

Oh man this just gets better and better.

 

Hot damn, I love it! Especially the functionality options. This is so well thought out!

 

Hello again! At present I have almost finished wiring and soldering all the front panel components, checked all the connections and reinforced some units. And it all means that time has come for labeling.

As you remember, I wanted my casemod to look not like homemade, so I rejected manual drawing at the very beginning. Second alternative was silk-screening, but it turned out to be very hard to find and very expensive because of making only one copy. So, without thinking twice, I chose common printing on a high-quality laser printer.

At first I planned to apply acrylic lacquer to the printed panel, but the printing office man offered me film lamination (maybe the translation is not correct, but in Russian we say just «laminatsiya»). He had two types of film, matte and glossy. I asked him to try both ones.



Matte film made surface that was very smooth to the touch and scratch-resistant, but, unfortunately, turned black color into gray. So I chose the glossy film that had a great look.

There was only one problem with lamination: the film was too short, so I had to cut my panel into two pieces. I decided to place a cut behind two gauges, so it wouldn't be very visible.



The printing appeared to be really accurate and clear.



So now I have to cut the holes for all the components. It wouldn't be very easy because paper with two layers of protective film is rather thick and strong. But I have an idea.

 

Love the idea; subbed

 

You can get an X-acto swivel blade: a hobby craft knife with a small, freely rotating sharp blade in the tip so you can cut out all sorts of complex curved shapes:





Cheap, too. Ideal for this job.

 

I second Nexxo's advise. I've been using the bigger model for quite a few years now and it is a great tool for that kind of job.