Project - BioPhreak **Day 7 Posted - Front Panel Revised**

Project BioPhreak is going to be my LAN Party server case mod. This is going to be the server I'll bring to small LANs me and some friends host. Normally we use another player's computer as a server, but then there's usually some annoying banning or player muting going on, so this should be a bit better. The first four days of this project will be posted this first night, but after that I should be caught up enough to do real time updateds.

For this mod, I was aiming at having a very small case, but not have to rely on AGP risers and the like, so I started off with these two cases:



The case on the right is the one everything will be transferred into and used for this project. It was originally a mini AT tower, but I pulled everything out of it, drive cages and all, until it was just the bare frame. Forgot to take before pictures, sorry. The case on the left was an old Antec ATX mid tower that my uncle gave me, along with some innards that came with it. It originally looked like this:




I removed the ATX backplane first, since I didn't want to fabricate one of my own:



And it fit almost perfectly into the back of the second case.



The back of the mini-AT tower will need to be cut away for all of this to fit correctly.

 

The top of the ATX backplane didn't fit quite as well as I had thought, this top lip had to be shaved down a bit so it would sit in the back of the case, straight.






Marked the back of the AT case for Dremelization:


After a bit of hacking away with my Dremal and flexshaft, I got this:





Each mod I do, I always end up buying new tools. This time I bought a set of drill bits and this pop-rivet gun. Now I don't have to borrow so many of dad's tools.


For those of you that don't know, pop rivets are inserted into a pre-drilled hole, usually in metal, like so:


When the nail like end is inserted into the rivet gun, you pull the handle together and it pulls the "nail" through the metal rivet, and looks like this when finished:




I had to do this because that section of that ATX backplane was more like a hole in the case than anything, and I didn't want to much of the case lighting coming through the back. After I riveted that piece of aluminum into place, it looked like so:





Here is the back plate on the ATX backplane, all riveted into place:


The edge kind of sticks out a bit to much:


So it met Mr. Dremel in the workshop for an up close and personal make over:


Lookin' good so far.

 

The weird peninsula cut from the back of the case, earlier just looked stupid with that aluminum back piece that I riveted to the ATX backplane.


So I Dremel'd it off:


Did some more riveting to secure that ATX back plate...




And the back of the case with the ATX port cover on:

 

End of Day 1

I removed and cut up the mobo tray from the Antec ATX case to put in this one, which was HUGE compared to the frame of it's new home.






Since I didn't have any 90 degree angle metal lying around, I just took some sheet aluminum I had and bent it real well in the vice, which gave me this:


Cut that off of the host


and used it to hole the motherboard tray to the front of the case frame.




The end of Day 1's work is here. I think it looks pretty good from an AT to ATX case conversion.....so far.

 

you got serious skill. maybe crome it inside when it's finished and paint shiny black outside

 

I'm not quite sure what to do for the inside, but it'd had a lot of work done to it so far, which I will be posting. The outside will be painted a gloss automotive black, with green lighting.

 

Day 2 Begins

Here starts Day 2. I spent a total of six hours working on the case this day, and you're about to see why.

First step this day is to cut out an exhaust fan hole on the rear of the case, right above the motherboard ports. I traced the fan onto the case, then put a ruler over it, drawing a line from corner to corner to find the center of where the fan is going to sit.


Using my dad's 18 volt Milwaukee cordless drill and his 3" hole saw, I proceeded to change the back of this case forever.





The aftermath? Here you are sir....




A bit rough I might say, so I used my dad's round fine file to clean up those edges a bit, which came out VERY nicely.

 

wich mobo is that? Is that a dual Pentium 2 ?

hmmm
L

 

Yes, but it's just a test motherboard I have had lying around. I do have two P2 350's lying around though, which do work, they just run hot as hell. I've never found anything that I could use the board or chips for though. I won't spend the money on SDRAM for it because I have no real everyday use for the thing.

I found this case sitting in our attic a few years ago and brought it down because I thought I'd use it for something. Never did, but now I think I've found a use for it. This is a 4U (maybe 5U?) electronic equipment rack mount case. My dad brought it home from HP while he worked there in the late 80s, and let it to sit in the attic. I think I want to use the mesh on the front of the case, but I can't tell you for sure yet. We'll play with this later.




It's got very nice handles on it to, all steel handles, all aluminum body.



When I started this project in my mind, deciding where I wanted to place everything, I knew I wanted the PSU in front, but didn't know how. Here's what I'm using it prop the PSU up, and above the motherboard so it gives it enough clearance. It's the old 80mm fan bracket from the front of the case.



It will be placed here:



Now here is what took most of the time this day, the entire cage for the PSU. I tried SEVERAL different ways of holding the power supply in place, and I didn't care how much trouble it took to build a bracket for it, as long as it worked and didn't look fugly. This concept took me three hours to think up. Here it is, my PSU cage:

It gets the job done quite well if you ask me. The PSU doesn't move around at all either. A couple more pix of this later.

For the hard drive cage, I hacked it a bit and mounted it.....here:


A few shots from the left side, of how it's secured:





And of coarse, the right side:





Another two hours were occupied by me trying to figure out how I was going to hold the CD-ROM drive down, on top of the power supply. I also don't want it flying all over when I go to lift the case and carry it around. Here's what I came up with:


This is where the bracket from the bottom of the case, to the CD-ROM retainer connect:


And a few shots of the bolts that I'm using to hold it together...

 

End of Day 2

From the back of the CD-ROM, the connections are still accessible, which is perfect.


And then you have where it bolts to the case frame on the other end:




This clip I made, just by bending a piece of aluminum, works well for holding the bracket in place, at the front of the case.


Where the bracket comes up from the bottom of the case, it's riveted into place so it won't move to much. It's also slightly lower than the CD-ROM drive, so it pulls the retainer DOWNWARD, and keeps the drive from wiggling.





For the mesh panel on that rack equipment case, here's what I had cut out and hoped to use:



However it's not exactly what I was hoping for, so I went to the metal shop, and bought myself three 16"x24" sheets of perforated steel sheet metal for $27, including labor to cut it ($5). I haven't got pix of it yet, but it looks like it's going to be REALLY nice.


Now that I've got brackets for everything in place, here's some shots to finish Day 2 off with:

The PSU in it's cage, from the back.


Front of the computer so far.


Side-ish shot.



Yes, it does all look pretty ghetto, but that was with me getting frustrated from 3 hours of working on that PSU bracket, so I didn't file down the edges of anything until the next day.

 

Day 3 Begins

Here we are at Day 3. I didn't get the digital camera out in time, but here is what I started with. Modding the power supply.

I put an aluminum plate over the power supply plug and input voltage selector switch hole. The power cord connector is going to be routed to the back of the case, and the input voltage selector switch will linger around inside the PSU.







Here is the power connector assembly. It's got a resistor or something between the neutral and live leads. Could anyone tell me what this is, and what it's significance is?


I put some big shrink wrap around the showing wires, so nothing would short out.


Removed the connector which goes inside the power supply, as well as pulled the pins out, so it'd be easier to work on.


Soldered the extension wires on.


Shrink wrapped the individual wires, and then both of them together.





For the connector on the other end of the connection, I soldered the pins to the extension wires.


Then shrink wrapped the wires the same as on the other end.





For the ground, I just put an extension wire on the ground wire which I cut, then crimped a new connector onto the other end. Simple as pie.


Here is the extended power connector.



Before I could neaten any of the wires up, I had to go back to Home Depot to get some more zip ties, which I ALWAYS run out of during projects. So this time, I decided to just go with the bag of 1000 4" black UV zip ties that they carry.


Ahh, much better.


Now some shots of it reconnected inside the PSU.

 

End of Day 3

I then returned to the back of the case. I measured the original power connector hole on the PSU case, and then marked it onto the back of the computer case, cut it out with the Dremel and filed down the edges, leaving me with this:


Fit's pretty much perfectly.



I then used my dad's $40 metal punch to mark the connector's screw mount holes.


Drilled the holes out and secured the connector into place.








I just hope the connector doesn't over hang the motherboard so much that I can't install the board without pushing the connector out. We'll see in the end though.

So far so good. It looks like the PSU is mounted in the back!





Here's the handle that will me mounted up on top of the case. It's an 8" stainless steel drawer pull I purchased at Home Depot. I think it was well worth the $9 I paid for it.


The legs of the handle are threaded onto the main body, which is kind of neat. Not that I'll ever be pulling the handle apart to take advantage of this.





The screws for this drawer pull are originally made to go through at least an inch of wood before threading down tight in to the handle. I had to cut about an inch off of each screw to make it so they'd tighten down all the way.



I drew a center line down the top of the case to be sure this handle went on centered, and then measured the distance evenly from the edges to the legs of the handle, and finally drilled holes for the screws.


I wanted a bit more of added support under the cover of the case so the handle wouldn't tear through the thin sheet metal over time, so I used these large steel washers between the screw head and the case frame.





At this point of time the digi cam’s memory card was full and I couldn't take any more pictures, so pictures of the case with the handle installed will be on Day 4.

 

SVC Order 1

I had actually ordered a bunch of stuff from SVC earlier in the week, and recieved it BEFORE day three. I forgot to post pix of it before though, so here you all go:




http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a115/haxor417/Project_Phreak/SVC_Order1/P1010041.jpg[/IMG[


The packing list:

(2) Cooler Master 80x25mm TLF-R82 Green LED fans
(2) PC Toys 12" Single Device Rounded ATA133 cables
(1) Cooler Master DFL-UD1 EG Ultra cold cathode lighting kit
(1) Illuminated Bulgin Vandal Switch - Green
(1) Power Supply Mod (UV Green)
(4) Black Annodized Thumbscrews
(40) Black Fan Screws
(2) SVC Laser Cut 80mm Biohazard Fan Grills

Unfortunately, the green UV PSU mod isn't going to fit, because it's so cramped together as it is. I'm sure I'll find something to do with that UV green arcylic.

 

Day 4 Begins



Okay, now that I have got the handle on the case, I've noticed something bad. The front of the case cover doesn't grab onto anything at all, so when you lift the case from the handle, all lifting pressure is on the rear thumbscrews, which I'm not to comfortable with. So here's what I came up with.

These 90 degree angel brackets have had one of the holes drilled out larger on the vertical side, so I could put a 5/32" steel dowel through it, and the case cover on both sides. I think the pictures speak better than most of what I could say.



The second hole on this bracket needs to be cut off, since it will just be getting in the way.

Riveted in on the left side of the case:


And riveted in on the right side:





This is the section of steel dowel I cut off, and am using as a very large pin.


I didn't have access to the drill press at this time, so I just had to make do with my own Craftsman 12V cordless drill, which I hate, but it gets the job done.


These are the pins I'm using, they're called cotter pins, and the arms of them fold outward to retain.


Drilled holes through the case cover so the steel rod could slide through.







More images of the rod and it going through the case.









Slide a cotter pin through the drilled hole...


Bend the arms out...


And there ya go. No more having all lifting pressure on the back of the case.



Also, for the PSU, I found it kind of hard to deal with an extened power connector on the back of the case, and the PSU being "chained" to the case all the time, so I "modulated" it.









That's all for now. I'm going to Seattle on Friday and I'll be back next Saturday, so nothing can be done from those time periods. I still need to paint the case, cut the front panel, cut that 90 degree angle bracket on the left side of the case, and put the front feet back on.

 

Wow, thats a cool idea putting the PSU in the front of the case.

 

i like it, good modding going on there. perfect for a server at a small LAN

 

Day 5

Thanks for the comments guys, much appreciated.

Monday evening I placed another SVC order for one more green LED Cooler Master fan and four more black anodized thumbscrews. This package arrived yesterday afternoon.

Today I just did a bit of work on the PSU. I was kind of on and off with this today, so I wasn't done with it in a couple of hours.

I was testing the PSU and noticed that the fan wasn't running, but everything else was fine. So I took the multi meter to the PSU's internal fan connector and there's no positive voltage going to it! So I ghetto rigged one of the green LED fans to it like so:





I also cut out the existing fan grill. Since the PSU sits in the front of the case, I figured I'd put a biohazard grill on the PSU as well, as it will still be seeable through the mesh because of the green LED fan.


To make the grill fit in the case correctly, I had to shave some of the top and bottom of the biohazard grill down. Not perfect, but it'll be hidden by the mesh.







No drooling please.



And last but not least, my newest toy in the toolbox. Bought myself an automatic punch from Home Depot. It's just like my dad's Starret in terms of construction and effective ness, but mine was $15, versus the $40 he paid for his 12 years ago.






That's all for now. I'm hoping on Saturday to get the mesh for the front panel all cut, then probably on Sunday my older bro and I will take my dad's air gun and paint this baby. I've also ordered one more black biohazard fan grill for the front intake fan. For now, I'll just use one of the gold ones that I salvaged from an older scraped project.

 

Its comming along nicely, you have some serious skills there. What hardware do you plan on putting in there in the end.

 

Sweet Work! Looks Great, Glad to see alot of people bring their own servers to lans, I sometimes get funny looks that I bring 2 computeres to lans that my friends and I host.


As for that resistor on the IEC connecter, Im pretty sure its to drain the capacitors when its unpluged, but Im not 100% sure, when my dad gets home, I will ask him as he knows alot more about electricity than i do.

Keep it up

 

Thanks for the compliment.

Jetway 867AS Socket A motherboard
AMD Duron 1200
2x 512MB PC3200 Mushkin Basic
ASUS V6600 GeForce 256
52x CD-RW drive
PCI sound card
PCI network card
40GB IDE hard drive - will upgrade to 120GB later.
300W Antec ATX power supply

Yeah, I've never really been sure as to what the resistor is for. I think you're right when you say it's to drain the caps, since normally you'd short the live and neutral pins to discharge a PSU anyway. It could however be for something else...

Today I'm hoping to get that vandal switch wired up and tested, as well as get out to CompUSA and get myself a better digital camera to take photos with. Dad bought a new Canon Powershot 520 at BestBuy last night and gave the camera I've been using to my little brother.