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

It's a cube - almost

This was one long session. Measuring, masking, Dremel overheating every cut. Let's begin:
I borrowed a small bolt and nut from my wife to play with the inner panel. It still fits properly:

Some stuff going on in this picture. If I come in four inches from the front and four inches from the back - measuring from the vertical back I can keep several of the original rivet holes plus one door locking slider in the front and one in the back. Remember I want it to look and work like a G5 but tiny.

Once again with the original inner liner from Apple. I get the two door latch sliders above plus two of the original 3 slots for the Apple plexi air baffle, one front one rear.




There is no way that this cube needs a 3mm thick air baffle. You wonder "What Cube?"
This cube! I removed most of the masking tape and replaced it with extra clear tape from my wife's eBay store.
Front:

Door side:

Rear:

Non-door side:


So how big is it really!!!! One more picture:


TINY! One custom mini-itx mp3 player, movie player, old man's fun.
Now comes the tedious part - belt sand, trial fit, repeat. One 8 inch cube for my night stand. Linux alarm clock?
OOPs, I forgot the beer can shot! Couldn't find an empty one with all the Dremelling going on. Must have scared them into hiding.
John

 

its interesting, but how you goning to join the parts together?

 

Quite remarkable.

I've been thinking of how to deal with the "handles" and came up with a concept...
Maybe, instead of trying to scale them down to fit at either end, you could reverse them and make one double wide in the middle.

Crudely pictured, like this...


...continued on the bottom as well, it should be wide enough for the unit to sit (balance?) on.

I'm sure you'll come up with something, I'm enjoying watching the process.

 

yes it is TINY ................ but cute ................


Alan

 

...where have I heard that before?.....hmmm.....

 

You've heard that?
John

 

..........................


Alan

 

Making patterns

Quick update. By careful measuring, expert cutting, and careful craftsmanship - OK Just Luck - the pieces I cut out of the top and bottom to make the cube are big enough to make the side door! I am working on a couple heavy card stock patterns for the 3 sided wrap around feature. The new door is 2mm thick and the original wrapper is 3mm which is way out of scale for an 8 inch cube. I will make a 2mm aluminum wrap around more to scale. The original handles and feet are 8 inches wide by 2 1/4 inches deep. I figure about 1 to 1 1/4 inches for them to keep them in scale and maintain the look and feel of a G5. I'm waiting for the card stock glue to dry. Pictures in the morning Colorado time.
John

 

LOL. Well, one of us had to say it, and Cheap didn't jump on it so I figured....

LOL is right!

Looking forward to see what you've done.

 

Actually it's a quote from a great movie called "Calendar Girls". I have zero knowledge of the "Milk Marketing Board" or the women's club in the movie, but both of my parents died of cancer and I could have REALLY used "the couch in leather" I'm surprised someone in the UK didn't pick up on it.
Pictures in the morning is "somewhat problematic". more quotes.
John

 

Ok when reading the Casdon log I thought "wow he might be nuts" now I know you are! I LOVE IT!!! LOVE IT!!! LOVE IT!!!

Keep it up!

BTW a little worried about...

 

It's my camera. Somewhere early in the Casdon log I mentioned that the rechargeable battery pack died and I can't find another one. It's a Kodak Easyshare DX6340 with a printer dock. Now it eats at least 2 AA batteries a night using the closeup mode. I'm taking way more pictures than I show.
Ha! Someday we should start a "Director's Cut" or Bloopers thread for pictures taken but never uploaded.

John

 

The pieces of the inner case

Just a quick update. These are the pictures of the G5 inner case left overs. We have a front piece with power button, a rear piece with I/O and fans and 2 blank pieces from the top and bottom cuts.


I have mentioned that I will use as much of the G5 as I can, so the leftover top piece will become the new side door:


On the G5 the side door fits flush with the front and back and sits above the lower "feet" and below the handles, so this piece will be big enough. 2 mm aluminum instead of the 3mm original. Scale is important to the visual look of a miniature G5.

The card stock wrap musings around this evening.
John

 

You can't find nickel metal hydride AAs? Check the places where they sell cameras. Even overpriced ones are better than burning through a whole box of non-rechargeables.
The side material looks a little short...

 

I'll check on the batteries. They might even have a rechargeable pack for my Kodak.
The side is hanging off the right side a lot. Better pictures tonight. Weird angle. I need to shorten the back to get it square. The inner liner goes in first remember.
John

 

ROFL Paper craft

First off. I went to the store and bought a Kodak recharger and 4 AA batteries. That should help my camera woes.

Tonight it's time to bond with the belt sander and square up the inner case. You do remember seeing Mr. Tube sock?

Before I go to the sanding and grinding, I want to leave you with these pics. One layer of poster board was too thin to hold up the tiny beast so I glued two layers together with school glue. It's been 5 decades since kindergarten and I may have lost my touch

The card stock wrap around in place:



And where the door goes:



I should have gotten my grand daughter to do it

You know I like a little humour but this is too much! It DOES have the G5 shape and it will work in 2mm aluminum honest.

Off to the toys and making noise.
John

 

nice hmmm ... we all had enough of metal work, than plexi has come, now woodwork is on top of popularity and ... after one night everything will change... time to buy sheets of strong paper and school glue ... lets make mods from paper ...

Sorry John for this sarcastic speach , but i've got to say that you made me lought for more than 15min!!! I love It!! This is what i needed!! But stay with metal work your beter in it

I've got to say that this case will be better from original G5, i love pure design of G5 but this tiny baby will have very clean look. I hope that there won't be much work with assembling (glueing / soldering) those parts together.

I don't know why, but slim drive came into my mind. Standard DVD front bezel is big comparing to the tiny case. But all looks Very VERY Nice !!!

Good Work~!

 

Sorry HeXeN, cardboard had it's day already. Remeber the cardboard box mod?

@Jhanlon - I'd say you still have kindergarden level papercraft skills.

 

I joined here at may 2006 - but i can't remember of it but i will trust your words. Damnn

 

That's why I took up these new fangled computers in college(actually a couple). It's been fun but I miss the taste of the glue! Hasn't really been that long or has it:

John