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Case Mod - In Progress der_george - awsm htpc

Discussion in 'Project Logs' started by der_george, 5 Feb 2012.

  1. der_george

    der_george What's a Dremel?

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    Hey Guys and Gals

    Welcome to my new little casemod worklog. I’m not going to give away too much to begin with. Well to be more exact- just a single picture.

    Have fun guessing:

    [​IMG]

    If you’re good you will get an update in the next few days. :D

    So long
    :0)
     
  2. longweight

    longweight Possibly Longbeard.

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    You will get moved to the planning section :)
     
  3. Mosquito

    Mosquito Just 'Plane' Crazy

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    Looks like HTPC, or at least SFF to me.... given the case

    Also, Longweight is right, since there's nothing in here, I'd be surprised if it's still in Project Logs in the next few days
     
  4. nathandanielmorris

    nathandanielmorris What's a Dremel?

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    Big love for the FC5. Will keep tabs on this, whichever forum it's in...
     
  5. [- pio -]

    [- pio -] Minimodder

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    If it's this one, then it's one helluva sexy case!
     
  6. der_george

    der_george What's a Dremel?

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    ??

    Yes, HTPC is correct. :0) Well the project is completely planned. "Just" needs to be built.

    Thanks! Love the FC5 too - that's why i'm modding one. ;)

    :D. Yes, correct!

    Okay let’s go. I’m going to show you what I did in the meantime.
    First of all I would like to thank Christian from Streacom for getting a Streacom FC5 out to Germany for me before becomes officially available over here. Sadly I won’t be the only one to hold it in my hands for very long as they are coming to the German market soon – if I understood it correctly that is. ;)

    I unpacked it straight away of course. Sadly the feel of the Case doesn’t come across on the pictures.

    This was in the big black box: The Streacom FC5 Case and a little accessories box.

    [​IMG]

    Let’s have a look in the accessories box.

    [​IMG]

    Heatpipes, heatsinks and installation material.

    [​IMG]

    The heatpipes are very well made. No solder discolorations and very clean tips. Now let’s see how good the case is.

    Here‘s the beauty:

    [​IMG]

    I’ve got the silver one – there is also a black one. It has a great feal to it. The silky matte blasted finish looks really nice. Everything that you can touch is made of metal, even all of the buttons. Not what you see very often.

    [​IMG]

    Let’s see if everything on the inside is as nice as on the outside. Five little screws later and you can take off the lid (made of 2.5 mm thick aluminium!)

    [​IMG]

    First thing you notice is that apart from a few rubber-decouplings, a PCB and a Cable, it’s all made of metal on the inside too. It has enough room for a mATX Motherboard. The huge cooling fins really stand out too.

    [​IMG]

    Yeah. Thats right 10 mm pure Aluminium. No plastics, no bent aluminium, 10 mm pure aluminium. :0)

    [​IMG]

    The sides with the cooling fins are over 40 mm thick on the widest area of the slimmest side. Pure aluminium here again. That’s what I call quality. :D

    [​IMG]

    So let’s take it all apart. The ODD-Tray first.

    [​IMG]

    There we have all the parts. And I found something that’s not made of metal. The rubber on the feet. :D Well the rest of the foot is made of pure aluminium. ;)

    Okay taken it all apart now. Let’s get on to the rest.
    I orderd this stuf fas well… what could it be?... well the name says it all really.

    [​IMG]

    Jep! A PicoPSU + and an external Power Supply. Passiv Power Supply – CHECK!

    [​IMG]

    What could that be? Well, what could still be missing?

    [​IMG]

    A remote-controller!

    [​IMG]

    And this is where the first proper work began – reverse engineering…

    [​IMG]

    And the result:

    [​IMG]

    My - well for me at least – new idea is to rebuild the FC5 completely in CAD. Then I want to show you what I want to do in CAD first and then try to do it in real.

    Status CAD today: ca. 80%

    Still has a bit of time though as all of the rest of my hardware still has not arrived – still waiting for quite a few things. :0(
    Could also be that I can’t solely see to this project in the near future as I have applied to take part in the den we-mod-it casemoding contest. So it could be that I have to do two projects at the same time – shouldn’t be too bad as I’ve done it before.
    Thanks for reading if you got this far!
    So long :0)
     
  7. der_george

    der_george What's a Dremel?

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    Well I think I bored you with my last post. Lets see if this one is any better. :0)

    The painfully long wait for my new hardware carries on, but I will still give you a little Update to kill time.

    picoPSU-Modding Part 1:

    [​IMG]

    White connectors are ugly and that’s why I want to have a nice little black one on it.
    Using a Pin remover is not going to help because 24 Pins in one go is impossible. And I don’t want to ram it in there with such a force that the hooks bend in, because I want to keep on using the pins. Desoldering the Pins doesn’t work either (because of the little hooks) All that’s left is to get rid of the plastic.
    First I practiced on an old connector:

    [​IMG]

    After trying out all different methods, I worked out that the best way to do it was to use a Dremel with a grinding disk and very carefully cut away the plastic. It won’t be as easy as with the old connector, because on the picoPSU the pins aren’t separate but soldered together onto the PCB.
    I knew I had to be very, very careful because if I slipped once it would instantly cut through the fragile little pins and I have no clue where to get pins like that which you can solder from quickly..

    [​IMG]

    Slowly but surely starting on the first side

    [​IMG]

    The first side completed

    [​IMG]

    Carefully starting the second side

    [​IMG]

    And just finished the second side. Now I just have to get rid of the plastic in-between. After quite a bit of trying and swearing I carefully got it out.

    That’s what it looked like:

    [​IMG]

    Getting the new connector on wasn’t too difficult. ;)

    [​IMG]

    And this is what it looks like now.

    I’m really hoping the hardware I ordered will arrive soon, so I can start properly at last.
    Hopefully see you very soon.

    So long :0)
     
    peteski likes this.
  8. Baguette

    Baguette What's a Dremel?

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    Swaheeet! Good photos, I'm curious to see what you can do with such a box...
     
  9. peteski

    peteski long live the pc

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    nice work mate +rep for the connector :rock: :rock: :rock:
     
  10. Paladin | Patrick

    Paladin | Patrick LiveModder

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    Nice basic, the case looks very stable. Good photos...
     
  11. KidMod-Southpaw

    KidMod-Southpaw Super Spamming Saiyan

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    Looking great, quality case too. Can't wait for more! :thumb:
     
  12. der_george

    der_george What's a Dremel?

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    Thank you! I am curious too. :0)

    Hey thanks a lot for the rep!

    Thank you Patrick!

    Thank you too KidMod-Southpaw! Here is some more... a lot later than planned...

    Well the whole story started when after weeks of waiting I got mail. Sadly not the parts I had been waiting for but a letter from the customs office – 2 letters to be exact.

    [​IMG]

    Didn’t think much apart from that it took what seemed like years for anything to arrive.
    So I took last Friday afternoon off and went to Tennenlohe to the customs office. The first (bigger) parcel wasn’t a problem – the second one though. Customs had opened the parcels and checked the contents and a Customs-Officer noticed that the Blu-Ray Drive that I had ordered didn’t have a „CE“-Label. That was the reason why They didn’t want to give it to me and why it toook soooo long.

    The Problem was that I had bought an external Drive as it was cheaper than the internal Drive on its own. This casing didn’t have the “CE”. So I told the officer, that I could open the casing for him and show him the CE-Sign and if he wanted he could keep the plastic. It took quite a while to pursuade him and when I opend it the first thing we saw was the CE-Sign. I still wasn’t allowed to take it with me. The officer had top hone around and fill in a load of forms and after a loooooong wait I was able to leave the building (with the Case and all afterall :D) What a load of ***** and huge waist of time as I’m going to remove that horrible sticker anyway. :p

    Now I could carry on measuring -up and planning weeks later than planed.
    Oh, I forgot to post the pictures of the (whole, unmodded) CAD-Modell.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Well. I will start off by making following part. What could it be?

    [​IMG]

    I’ve got the material for it all.

    [​IMG]

    Well I’ll get to work and show you what I did when I've finished.

    So long :0)
     
  13. Snowcrash

    Snowcrash What's a Dremel?

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    does this remote only controls Windows Media or can it also control Wondows in general? I've been looking for one that can work everywhere in Windows, but they all seem to be designed for Windows Media only.

    good work, man :rock: keep it up :D
     
  14. kinghong1970

    kinghong1970 Just a Clumsy Ape

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    geesh that's a gorgeous case!
     
  15. amagriva

    amagriva Minimodder

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    Hi! I'like very much the style of Streacom cases so I'll follow your log very closely (I' thought for a while
    to take one as yours but my modding skills are too weak and my hand are too big for a case so tiny, so maybe I'll go with a FC8).
    Your bad trip with the custom man has made me remember a sixties song of Arlo Guthrie (Coming into Los Angeles) the story in brief is that Arlo don't wants the custom man watch in his bag because he is bringing in from London a couple of not better identified Kilos of something...Times has changed a lot it seems if a frustrated officer makes you waste your time for a CE sticker:wallbash:
    I'm not a photo expert so maybe I'll say a thing obvious or wrong but I find a lot of your photos too white. The parts sometimes don't stick out (emerge)from the background.

    I'm anxious to see updates flowing (like three per week. Am I asking too much?) :naughty::naughty::naughty::D
     

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