Project Stack-On LAN Box *Lesson Learned*

Promised Video of Setting Up Project Stack-On LAN Box

Stack-On LAN Box (20MB)

Well I have finally decided to post my project before I SELL the prototype this summer for someone else to continue to modify it as I have improved upon my design and hopefully will have some interest of people purchasing this case on a small quantity basis. I want to thank everyone in this forum for the creativity they have influenced me with, all the product vendors and retailers that had the necessary parts and supplies I needed, and a wonderful fiancée that has encouraged me so much, not to give up on desire to be creative which God has blessed me with. In this Log of Events I present to you project Stack-On LAN Box

For the past three years I have wanted to build a system that had the specifications of playing GAMES, MOVIES, MUSIC, use PROPRIETARY parts, EXPANDABILITY, and PORTABILITY. Looking at manufactured systems out there on the market I just wasn’t happy with what I saw. The market had systems that were very portable but lacked the use of proprietary parts and expandability (Custom Motherboards, Custom Power Supplies, One 5 ¼” drive, One Hard Drive Bay, and Two Expansion Slots). With Video cards take to expansion slots, Sound Cards improving, and Physics Engine Cards on the way, I needed to create a case that years from now I could take everything out, keep the case, and upgrade/replace all the hardware inside with the latest and greatest (ATX Mother Board, ATX Power Supply, Min. Four Expansion Slots, Min. Two 3 ½” Drive Bays, Min. Two 5 ¼” Drive Bays, Two 120mm Fans, Standard Heatsink and Fan). Thus with a lot of searching and influenced by everyone’s great ideas , I too decided to take a stab at a Toolbox case with GREAT results.

The initial planning stage took the most time of sketching up preliminary ideas from a Toolbox that was only produced and sold in Canada at the time so I had to go by dimensions from the manufacturer’s web site. Eventually I finally came up with the following plan.



After putting together all my ideas into the case came the most difficult part of trying to find a Toolbox here in the US that was capable of even holding everything. I tried searching the internet , and looking in hardware stores for hours upon hours with no luck. Beginning to wonder whether or not I would have to create my own toolbox, I finally found a 26” Stack-On toolbox that came close to fitting the needs of the project from Fry’s Electronic Outpost .
When I received the Toolbox in GREAT condition I then proceeded to update my drawings accordingly to reflect the actual dimensions of the Stack-On Toolbox. Just to say how great the Toolbox was for this project, I only ended up putting in about three weeks of work on cutting and bending on the toolbox.


After the final completion of my drawings I had come across an article in the local newspaper (Grand Rapids Press) about a company online that did Laser Cutting amongst other things called eMachineShop. eMachineShop offered the perfect services for what I needed. When I downloaded their free design software and converted my drawings to their format, the software was able to tell me whether my design was easily manufacturable with their equipment. I then proceeded to select the type of Aluminum and Thickness I wanted with finishing touches of brushing and anodizing. The software gives you a final price based upon design complexity, materials, finishing, and how soon you need the part. Shortly afterwards I received the following parts to my case: Motherboard Plate, Top Plate, 3 ½” Drive Cage, Volume Control Plate, 5 ¼” Drive Cage, Left Speaker Plate, 15” LCD plate, Right Speaker Plate, and Rear Plate (not Shown)





After receiving my case parts I then proceeded to pull together some items I already had on hand that had been planned into the case design. The first piece was a 15” Viewsonic VA520 LCD screen that I had purchased some time ago, and was amazed at how well it incorporated into the case as well as performance. I also had a Cirque touchpad that I wanted to include just in case I was somewhere without a keyboard and wanted to still watch movies or listen to some music. The last part was a pair of Labtec speakers I had purchased, which ended up being one of the most time consuming parts to incorporate into my design.



Purchasing new hardware was the next step I took and is always the most fun for me, receiving a package from FedEx with new hardware inside. Thanks to Newegg I was able to pick up an Aopen mATX Socket 754 motherboard (which I had to replace due to a simple mistake I made), Connect 3D Radeon 9800 Pro 128Mb 128bit, Coolmax 500w ATX power supply, AMD Athlon64 3000+ processor, 2Gb Geil PC3200 Memory, Logitech MX510 Coral Blue Mouse and Elite Keyboard, Two Seagate 120GB Baracuda SATA Hard Drives, One Samsung CD-RW, One Samsung DVD Drive, Three 120mm Coolermaster White LED Fans (not shown), and four 120mm fan guards (not shown). Finally a last piece from CrystalFontz, 634 USB LCD display (not shown).







Knowing I wanted to add windows to my CD drives like many of you have, I also purchased some 1/16” Acrylic from USplastics, Modders Mesh from Mnpctech for the top vent, some 4 1/2” O.D. Aluminum Pipe from Smart Metals Online for the 120mm Fans (not shown), and necessary Hex Heads Screws from Bolt Depot.


Now having all the parts I needed (Or so I though), I proceeded to get right into one of the easier things of replacing the black 120mm Fan on the Coolmax 500w power supply with one of the Coolermaster White LED fans. Luckily enough the milliamps on the new Coolermaster Fan was lower than the one installed on the Coolmax power supply so I didn’t have to worry about any kind of problem with the installed speed controller. I was quite pleased with the result as you can see. I also took the time of sleeving all the cables white and removing some of the AUX power cables to save case clutter.




Well thats it for now, I will continue to post a log this week up to the point of where I am at now with the case.

 

YAY! cant wait to see the un-rendered finished product!

 

you definantly deserve the title master modder

 

this is going to be an awesome project, nice hardware too.

 

Looks nice, I'm sure it will turn out great!


Question, though, why did you buy dual-channel RAM, as I thought that socket 754 only used single? Or am I mistaken?

 

Your right S754 doesnt have DC, but "dual channel ram" is generally just 2 sticks paired together. There is nothing different making them dual channel besides for the fact that there are 2 of them and they are usually a guaranteed match.

 

^^^^Yup, vapb400 explained it well ^^^^

 

Subscribed..

Looks really nice and can't wait for a next update

Keep on going like this and you'll make a really really nice case man

 

that is freaking cool

outstanding work so far

I'm subscribed

 

Got to hand it to you, this is a great mod!!!
The box looks very high quality, almost a factory design....
With all the lazer cutting, it just looks like it was meant to be that way.

MOD ON!!!

 

U wait for wot seems to be an eternity and then some comes up with a cool mod.....and i must say this is cool.....i want one......me personally not quite ready to start a mod like that but one can only hope that one day, when i grow up, i too will be able to start work on a mod like this.

Will be starting a new jhob soon in the engineering sector so will have access to lots of cnc machine at the weekend so will be having fun.....

Mod on dude

 

This looks pretty cool. I have something similar in mind, but haven't started it yet (nor have the MAD 3D skills you do). This is a question for a different section of the forum, but have you gotten the indication that you can seriously market this item? Cause, um...that would be sweet!

 

great project and im looking forward to future updates. kinda like the whole 'box' design with the lcd in it. keep up the work

 

wow that looks real good, thats going to make a sweet boxs.keep us updated

 

This should be real cool. Great idea

 

Here is a second installment of my log.

The next project I tackled was the Labtec speakers which took me above and beyond my knowledge of electronics . Luckily those in the BitTech Electronics Forums freely shared thoughts and ideas with me, to accomplish my design criteria and a BIG THANKS goes to everyone that helped. When I took apart the speakers I knew I wanted to connect the power for the speakers directly with the ATX power supply I had purchased. I also wanted to separate the Volume Control, Bass/Treble Control, and Headphone Jack from the PCB and relocate them on the top of the case and front.


When I opened the speaker casing up I was able to find the necessary parts for the Headphone Jack, Volume Control, and Bass/Trebble Control from Mouser.


The most difficult thing to figure out was, at what voltage the transformer inside these speakers was putting out. The transformer said 9v so I automatically assumed it was DC, but those in the electronics forum said I should really check with my multi-meter, which was a good thing because it was 9v AC. I then proceeded to boggle my mind on how was I to convert 12V DC to 9V AC. Eventually I turned right back to the Electronics Forums with their expertise of how to do this and the parts I would need. Unfortunately after purchasing the parts I only found out that I didn’t need any of the parts because there was a circuit turning the 9V AC to 12V DC. Well after all the head bashing , I hooked 12V DC to the Labtec PCB on a spare power supply and everything worked great! One thing I dreaded though was the thirty-seven wires I had to solder and extend so I put that small (said sarcastically) project off to the side until later.

Taking care of the major modifications to the toolbox took about a day full of work. I needed to first take the sides off the case in order to drill the necessary holes to secure the motherboard tray on the bottom and to drill the holes for those 120mm fans I had purchased. Quickly installing the motherboard tray I took on the project of drilling holes for 120mm in the plastic sides which I was very worried about . The handles in the sides are molded into the plastic having a slope that would cause the bit of the hole saw to slide all over. Then there was also the fear of this plastic side just shattering from the torque of the drill press, which is not a good thing after the difficulty of even finding this toolbox. Well I decided to try to build a frame around the sides that consisted of a piece of plywood and 1x2 boards that would act as a template and guide for the hole saw. Upon creating the frame the first trial on one of the sides was a complete success and a second success with the other side. Next was to get the trusty old jig saw out and cut out the back plate area and the front 5 ¼” drive areas.




While testing out my speaker and LCD plates in the lid I found I needed to do some cutting of the top webbing to allow the plates to sit back far enough in the lid along with the LCD screen I wanted to install. I needed to mount the back plate at the correct height so before I drilled the holes into the toolbox to secure it I temporarily installed the motherboard and a PCI card to get the exact position of the back plate and proceeded to mark each hole then drill.


Installing the 120mm fans was a breeze. As you see I have the Cooler Master White LED 120mm fan, an aluminum tube cut and provided by Smart Metals Online, Two 120mm fan grills, and four hex bolts. Installing the aluminum tube into the plastic side was a good snug fit that was secured further by the fan guards and hex screws. I was able to rivet the sides back onto the case after I was finished.



The LCD screen was easy to take apart and check. Most LCD screens usually operate off 12v DC so I brought out my multimeter to check the output voltage of the onboard power supply with a successful 12v DC and 5v DC making it very easy to connect to the ATX power supply. I then proceeded to install the frame into the top of the toolbox. I ended up using some black derlin rod from USplastics to secure the plate. Not knowing where these rods would hit the plastic top, I painted the ends yellow and pushed the LCD plate up against the top leaving yellow circles of where I needed to drill holes in the toolbox top. After doing this I proceeded to use the existing mounting frame of the Viewsonic VA520 LCD and only needed to cut off the bottom part of the frame for it to fit correctly in the toolbox top. I also needed to cut a top portion of the LCD plate I created with a Dremel due to the toolbox lock position being in the way. I also ended up using the control panel that was included on the VA520 LCD and extended the necessary wiring and secured everything in plate with hex screws.





I proceeded to install the Samsung Hard Drives into their frame without a hitch and continued on to the problem child of the CD-Drives and their frame. Unfortunately when I created my CAD drawings I drew the CD drives with the CD directly in the center of the unit. Realistically the CD is more near the front and I forgot to change this before I sent the pieces to be laser cut. After a lot of frustration I decided to pick up some Lian-Li Aluminum Drive Covers from PC-Toys and covered up the mistake in my design. I also had a little trouble installing the screws into the sides as the holes in the mounting plate didn’t line up quite with the drive. Luckily this is prototype so I made sure I fixed these issues in my drawings. Later on I proceeded to spend six hours bending over a scroll saw to cut the window for the top of the CD drive. Needless to say I only did one as it was 20 degrees Fahrenheit outside in our garage so I save the other one for the summer time. I also wanted to paint the drive casing black but I’ll leave that for someone else to do.





Until next time I get a chance

 

I'm not sure what kind of indication I should be looking for, on whether this is a marketable item, but I sure plan on trying if the interest is that high. Stack-On makes a great Toolbox for a computer case and only has a few cut outs that need to be added to their sheet metal and plastic before the toolbox is assembled to make it a bare computer case without LCD and Speakers. Otherwise Bit-Tech is the first Forum Community to get a project Log, just to see what interest there is out there. The real question would be, is this the next generation LAN box, sticking with Proprietary Parts and much needed expansion card room?

 

look very nice!! but i think the lcd will starting to get strange things.. but I hope tthat will come good!

 

This mod is indeed gonna hope its still easy to transport with all the stuff in it. Would like to see what it would weight at the end of the mod.

 

what ca i say but.......wow