Welcome to the first Mod project of 2009. Atom wood will be the first of at least two this year. I'd love to get into the next mod (it's a doosy!), but I want to get this one knocked out first. Why AtomWood? Atom I'm utilizing the Intel D945GCLF2 motherboard with an integrated Intel Atom processor. This motherboard is 6.75" x 6.75". A nice little board with integrated video, audio, 1Gb NIC. I will load it with one (all it will hold) 2Gb stick of ram. We use these motherboards at work for special projects and I had to get one for myself. We're building a system there with 4 motherboards integrated. I'll post images when it's done. A great little machine that I am giving to my wife for her kitchen desk. She has a pretty nice PC up there now, but a few years old. It's in a shuffle case. It's small but still 4 times bigger than the AtomWood. This will be a great box for e-mail and web surfing. Wood Well, simply, I am making this one out of wood. Wood case number 2. Certainly not on the scale of FiveWood in any way. This project will be completed by the middle of February (dare I make this a Valentines day present? Not a good idea.) I am using a technique that I have used to make boxes. These have been smaller than this project and I am going to try a few things I haven't done before (of course). The case will be made using the technique I use for making boxes like this one (6" x 3.5" x 4.5") This will be a Cube case. 8.5" x 8.5" x 8.5". Below is the concept image. I will post a couple of days work to catch up the progress.
Day 1 I started with a piece of 24" x 24" oak veneer plyboard. I never use plyboard for these projects, so this is an experiment. I usually process my own wood from raw cut boards, but I needed a piece of oak 10 inches wide to start with and this is a short cut. We'll see if its a good idea. Shortcuts usually come with a price. The First thing I did was to cut it into 4 pieces and label them so I can keep up with the grain patterns. These will be the 4 walls of the cube. They are to be miter cut and fit together. Here are the 4 pieces cut, mitered and layed out face down. Here I am taping the backs together with the mitered edges butted up. This allows me to assemble the box to measure for the other parts. Like so. Here I can check the miters and make some measurements. Next, I rout dados (channels) for the top and bottom pieces to slide in to. Another dado for the motherboard tray.
day 2 Here's the hardware array (sans CD drive). Here it's all mounted onto a standard ATX motherboard tray for testing. This is the motherboard tray from Phase III. I actually do use it for testing. Planning for rear access slot for back of motherboard. PSU and motherboard cutouts. Here's the motherboard tray. It's clear polycarbonate. This stuff is easy to work with and it is (tadah!) clear! A quick check for the motherboard fitting. The back access panels will be trimmed with walnut. Great stuff!
day 3 Okay, let's knock out the top panel. I want to use a piece of red padauk for this. I inverse rabbited the pieces to fit together as a solid top. We'll see more of this later. Since I can never get a mitered edge to be picture perfect, I have perfect the art of making miter covers. See below. I found this nasty piece of cherry laying in the pile. Let's see what's under the hood. Here's what the edge looks like after cutting. and after a little drum sanding, we see hwat lies beneath. Not bad. I skipped a lot of steps here. Basically, I routed rabbits and then cut them off to form these pieces. They have a real nice vertical grain pattern. Now, back to the top as it looks whn assembled. Things are coming together. The bottom piece as popped into the dado slots. Fits nicely but needs air holes. Markings for the side fan mount. This is a little 1.25" fan. We'll see it later. I'm going to use a hole cuter for this. My hole cutter looks like a really cool little space fighter. Brrrmmmgggg! Here's the front panel with the power switch and front air port cutouts. This is before I remembered to allow for the CD drive. Here I am marking for the bottom air ports. If you get the idea that I'm skipping all over the place, you're right. It'll come together in the end. Here's a side view with the right panel off. It looks cramp now, but I plan to expand the inside and keep the outside the same size. Here's the markings for the optical drive cutout. This will be a recess cutout. At least that's what I am going to call it. Sure, it looks ugly now, but just you wait and see.
because it's smaller, simpler, and unfinished? it's great to see another project cc3d, and it looks like it's coming along nicely so far. i love they way you use the contrast between different types of wood. i'm curious as to why you chose a full-size PSU and optical though. if i were doing a mini-itx, i would have tried to go as tiny as possible.
liking it so far, really nicely cut wood, nice and neat I agree with supertoad, odd certainly to chose a full sized PSU, but at least it keeps cost down
Wow nice work Cc3d. If it turns out like the sketchups then it should be really good. Are you going to be staining the wood? (sorry I'm not a wood person, the process that makes the wood a lot darker and smoother).
If anyone should know about wood, it would be cc3d himself and yes, he will probably stain the wood ..lol @supertoad still even when it's done i wont think it will be as epic as either of the previous mods. and yes, there are epic and simple mods. and @ cc3d - im still confused at why you gave up/postponed cbox i really really liked that mod this simple cube phase everyone is going with isn't doing it for me
I can tell you why. This project is magnitudes smaller than any of my previous projects. You won't be watching this one come together over the next several months. I hope to have this puppy done VERY soon! Small PSU? Yep. The one I am using is 1/2 the size of a std PSU. It's not only the smallest, but the lightest I could find. There are some server PSUs that are small and more slender, but they weigh a ton and make a LOT of noise! Cube and standard optical drive? I can answer both of these with the same thing. This is really the smallest package I could come up with (reasonably). The motherboard is 6.75" x 6.75. I had to have room for the PSU and hard drive and it really just worked out to fit a standard optical as well. I have a drawing where I could do this at 7"x 7"x 5" but why make things hard? The 8.5" cube is perfect for this application. Stain? Yes, this will be finished in tung oil. It'll look nice in that respect (see the box in first post). Epic? I've got a mod in the 'epic' category on deck for my next project. Let's just call it ZK for now. The design is complete and I've already made initial cuts for it, but I won't be posting that work until this one is done. Otherwise I'll get in a log jam and nothing will get finished. Oh yeah, it's not a wood build this time and it is certainly not a cube. C-Box? Is postponed, not canceled. I've got no good reason for this, but I have to go where the creative juices flow. After this project and then ZK, I'll be itching for another wood build and C-Box will be there for that. It really needs my full attention so that it doesn't end up looking like crap. Thanks for the kuddos
Hey I'm liking it a lot! I like how you log the construction... I need to get up to speed on my dados and rabbets. Any tricks and techniques you can share I'll be using eventually.
Yeaaah I've got the same PSU - They are efficient, sooooo silent mmmmm! and 300W of power! Perfect for HTPCs! did i mentioned that i your wood skillzz are way tooo goood ! yo;re like Tribal in acrylic Best Regards HeXeN
Excellent work, i'm going to be building a new wooden box for my jukebox machine in a few weeks going to watch this one for build techniques. Computers i can do, wood work i'm very much a noob, spent the weekend sharpening and playing with my new jack plane so looking forward to giving it a go.
I've been much of a fan for wooden mods, I gotta admit that. That been said, I love the design of this, and the craftmanship can' be ignored either! Keep it up, looking forward to seeing the result!
day 4 I appreciate the input and feedback guys. Day 3: So here's our cutaway view. Roughly, all three levels can be seen here: the motherboard level, the CD Rom drive level and the PSU / HD level. With a look at the front as well. Just prior to glue-up, I have taped all the panels together so that a quick folding will hold this together. As you can see, the box goes together quite easily now. Here is what the inside of each wall looks like before gluing. Now it's all taped up and glued up, all I need are a few clamps to shore things up. That ought to do it. There we go. Looks pretty good right now. Too bad I can't leave it like this. I'm afraid I have to do some pretty narley stuff to this yet. Here I have added the miter hiders on the corners. And here it is after I make the separation cuts. This is where I discovered the payback for the plyboard's benefits. Let me say this if it is for my benefit only. NEVER USE PLYWOOD!! What I have saved in time so far will be eaten up with the time it will take to correct this crap. I knew better, but I did it anyway! Always use solid wood and always process your own boards!! It's not so evident in the picture below, but this crap splintered and had more tearouts than a 16 year old in a V8 Mustang!! I'd estimate that this will cost me about 6 hours of patch work. Here are the three sections stacked. Forget about getting the seamless connections between the sections. I'll come up with something that looks like I planned to do it this way.
Tearout's a witch. I hate plywood for the same reason. Took a shortcut making a hutch for my current desk, and the edges tore off when dadoing for the shelf and top.
I wondered how you were going to get access to the components, very neat idea pity the wood didn't hold up.
i really like this projet, true its not five wood but still i also plan an atom box in a wood case just a lot smaller using PICOpsu and no CD-RW