Case Mod - In Progress G5 Sacrilege update Jun. 15th a tale of two doors

This is my second project log on Bit-Tech. The moderators say we must have a picture to start so this is a picture of my victims - plural!


Now some explanation. A few years ago I improved a Teal G3 Apple iMac with an mATX motherboard, 80 Gb HDD and a 15" lcd to replace the internal crt. I loaded Windows Xp home. The only thing my Apple friends had to say was "Sacrilege"! LOL. This is called Sacrilege 2 because I am going transgress with another Apple product. The G5. PCs in G5 are becoming more common. We have several on this forum alone.
Due to space considerations and a love for SFF builds, I am going to SFF a G5! Apple had the Cube but it didn't sell well and the Mini-Mac looks like an external hard drive to me. The only reason the Cube did not do well IMHO is that Apple should have made it look like a G5. I know there are examples of G5 looking cubes all over the internet, but most are just made to look like a G5 not made from real G5s.
Most people have probably seen the insides of a G5 too much. But if you look at some of the pictures I will be posting there was a great deal of engineering put into the case. The G5 case has several pieces - a door, a wrap around external skin that comprises the top handles, bottom feet and a full side that is used for mounting the motherboard. After the wrap around skin is removed is an aluminum internal frame that looks a lot like a normal case.
The front:

From the rear sort of at an angle.

This inner structure defines the size and "look" of the G5. What I started is:
Top front

Bottom front


So the old guy is really going to cut up a G5? Yep.
The inner structure is 8 inches wide, so I will make it 8" tall. It's the placement of the cuts that become critical if you want to reuse as many of the original Apple design features.
In the G5 there is a rail that runs from front to back that holds a shelf where the disk drives:

The internal cooling fan:

and the little locks that hold the optical drive in place:


I intend to keep the Apple G5 look by cutting this panel to fit the 8 inch height. This picture doesn't seem like much there is a reason to show it.

Notice that the top of the masking tape on the left is above the curved inner surface. This is important because the top piece will also be cut to save that curve as well as the shelf mount

The bottom edge of the masking tape on the left leaves 4.5 inches down from the top so I retain the shelf for the optical drive. The HDD will be mounted elsewhere and the fan will have to go too. Why do they have to go? Can't make a cube 8 inches wide by 8 inches high and leave it 18.5 long! Going to have to trim the length too!
This is where it gets interesting to me. The front includes the top as one piece and the back includes the bottom as one piece. The are symmetrical so you could take 2 fronts and mount them together and have no fans or PCI cutouts.
More pictures and descriptions coming up soon. I am waiting for parts to finish my Casdon but I'm never idle.
John

 

Hi, this looks like an ambitious project to pull of right.

I love SFF pc's and look forward to following your progress.

BenJ

 

.. do you have a sketch for us ??

 

This sounds def. interesting

 

Soon. I'm still disassembling donor 2. A ridiculous amount of effort just to get to the optical door that slides down out of the way. The HDD racks, fans, plexi air baffles - everything is stubborn. I'm going to donate all the unused Apple parts to my favorite charity. The John's computer stash box is getting full charity. You guys know anyone who needs some G5 internals?
John

 

oh i hope this is gonna be as good as it sounds! love G5's, this is why i have the lazy man's modded G5... lian li V1000B, however not as clean looking as a G5.

 

Well I am interested in seeing a sff G5. Maybe apple will buy the idea from you. Quick! Patent it!

 

Houston We Have a Problem

I'm trying very hard to use as much of the G5 cases as I can in this build, but I ran into a snag that I think I have figured out. First picture of the back panel and its replacement.


This is how big a G5 cube would be and how it would look from the back.
On the right is the stock G5 back with the door latch and the 4 PCI slots. On the left is a front panel turned upside down and aligned with the stock back picture. I really want to save the latch but only need 2 PCI slots for my build. Notice how the masking tape cuts through the slot for optical drive in the left picture. This is because:

In order to save the factory smooth corners on the inner frame, the minimum cut is 2 inches from the horizontal top. Why do I need the factory curve? It fits this:

The liner on the factory door. Why do I need the liner? Because the factory door is held in place by these 3 little grey sliding pieces on the optical and HDD tray:
closed and locked


When the door latch is lifted they slide to the right:


They are this grey slide that attaches like this:


I measured and I can save the front slide and the back slide and lose the middle one. Same with the door liner, cut a section out of the middle horizontally and vertically to match the new cube case corners.

Actually it will have to be stretched from 8 inches to 9 1/4 inches tall. In the first picture

I will cut across at the bottom of the door latch and then vertically to lose the PCI slots from the original back. Next we have to cut the new bottom piece up to the bottom of the latch and vertically to cover where the PCI slots were.
I will use the original Apple PCI slot covers but cut them down to 2 slots and then cut a hole to fit them in.

For grins check this picture of the two cases side by side.

If I was building a full size G5 I would be home free. Plenty of blank space. Use the optical slot for the ATX PSU and just cut across the two below the door latch and J.B. Weld (available at Lowes in the US) them together. Seems I am always making extra work for my self but that is modding. Remember measure twice ( or 20) and cut once, G5 aren't cheap. John is cheap.
John

 

Did someone call?
Solder them together!!!
I love the idea of a g5 sled, but a cube is good too.

 

Slap all the pieces into the car and run them to the machine shop and tig weld then them just re-drill holes? I have a welder friend that could tig weld in between the holes! Welding instructor and certified to work inside nuclear reactors while they are running. Try to X-ray a weld in those conditions. Did that for 16 years myself.
John

 

psst:

http://www.conf.co.jp/new_folder/gallery/g5cube.html

 

Yeah, seen it. Translate it and read it - it plastic like model car plastic. Not a single part from a real G5 I could find. I have built model cars for 50 years, now I'm doing this mod. I explained several times that I really, really want to use as much of a G5 case as I can. Sort of a prototype that Apple would have built. Like reverse engineering crossed with imagineering (Is this a new word?). Thanks for the link anyway, others might like to see it.
John

 

Actually, no...that's what Walt Disney called his park designers ("imagineers").
Nuclear plant work, eh?
My welding mentor used to do repair welds on ICBM's, fully loaded in their silos.
Claimed it never really bothered him cause if he screwed up he'd never know...

 

Looking forward to this.

Here is another project log you might like to read through for ideas jhanlon303: Mini-G5 ised

Shame he never completed it. You'd better finish yours!

Cyp.

ps G5 modding sub forum please.

 

I agree completely with Cyprio! You better finish it, or we shall punish you severely!
I love the look, /Subscribed!

 

Nice link, but DAMN that's huge! He didn't even take it all apart, just whacked a chunk out.
Mine is a lot smaller, mini-itx, pico powersupply, laptop drive, and half height DVD. I want it to set on my nightstand. More work on mod today. Love weekends.
John

 

Heh, that G5 was nominated for the project log of the month back in September of '05
look and see

 

Sweet. Just read the whole log. That was before I joined Bit-Tech. I would vote for it in a minute. Mods like this and the people who make them are why I joined. Ideas, techniques, people willing to share their passions. I belong to some other forums but I do not yet have the skills to post there. I like it here. I can make mistakes and people try to help. Some sites intimidate me.
John

 

Never be intimidated! I think you got the skills to be up there with the rest of them!
Cuz this mod frikkin rocks!

Btw, and on an other note, the MOTM contest should be changed... They should put computers at the same stage against each other... Don't get me wrong, I was honoured to be nominated, but it was in the early stages of my build, and I got up against some pretty mean mods, that were finished... I'm not saying I would have won at all, but IMHO it's a little unfair to put a 3 week build in the making, against a 1 year finished one!

 

My Casdon was only on Bit-Tech for 3 DAYS before I got nominated. I think the drift of this month was sort of "New people and Fresh Ideas" I agree that to compete against a whole month's worth of logs on a project that has been "in the works" and just getting around to posting seems odd. I post as I work. I get better feedback and I might never win a prize or a sponsor but I mod for me.
I think the moderators actually made a good selection of mods for MOTM.
John