This was my test comp out in my shed. I just use it for backing up peoples computers before i fix them etc. I have recently got a newer second hand one to play with so my father in law wanted me to build the old one into an mp3 player for him. So far this project has cost bugger all, the whole thing is made up from cobbled parts, so far all for free. 500mhz celeron (from dead ibm MB) Motherboard (from a buggered gateway pc) 128mb of ram (god knows where that came from) 20gig hdd (donated from someones upgrade) PSU (from the netvista) Network card (no idea where i got that) The dvd player case i got for free asking around at repair shops for anything they were going to throw out. I still have yet to mount a slim line cd rom in-place of the dvd player drive (free cd rom from dead ibm netvista) I plan to cut a window of some sort and light the inside. I am retaining all the play/skip/pause buttons from the dvd player on the front to work through a usb keypad using winamp. The power button on the front is the only thing done so far. I am replacing the screen with a simple 16X2 green backlit LCD, still have to finish hooking that up yet. I grabbed a heap of green LED's from http://oatleyelectronics.com/leds.htm and ran five arcoss the front and a couple down the sides for the under case lighting. also going to be used inside. I hate cathodes. they piss me off. Its LED's all the way from now on. I have shortend the ATX cable down to about 3 inches long and then sleaved everything. Its going to be able to run without a keyboard/mouse or monitor. just power up and walk away, playlists and mp3's can be edited across the network. Click to view full-sized image Click to view full-sized image Click to view full-sized image Thats it so far, still a fair bit to do yet even though it doesnt look like it.
Managed to get a bit of work done today. The slim cdrom/floppy combo drive ripped from an old netvista needed a bit of work, The floppy was dead so that got discarded. The plugs were set up to go straight up, which would prevent the top of the case from closing (its still a tight fit anyway), so i cut off the IDE plug and re aligned it. I broke a pin or two and had to re-solder them back on. Click to view full-sized image Tested and working.. thank god. Click to view full-sized image I just have to make up a bracket to mount it on, and its good to go. I also cut the window and side grills. still have to clean it up a bit and repaint yet. Click to view full-sized image Thats it for today, should get a bit more done tomorrow.
Little bit of work done today, mounted the network card. Click to view full-sized image And finished the grills, still have to cut out the inside metal yet though. That will have to wait untill i take the whole thing apart again. Click to view full-sized image
Got heaps done today, i picked up a 10 dollar game pad from dick smiths, ripped it appart, configured the buttons to be key strokes, ran leads from the game pad to the existing momentry buttons in the front and then plugged it into the internal usb header. Click to view full-sized image The front hooked up. wiring has been hidden since this shot, the PCB fits nicely between the PSU and HDD so you can hardly even see it. Click to view full-sized image So now the front play - pause - stop buttons work through winamp. the cd eject button wont be used with the slimline cd rom so that has become a button to switch playlists through a winamp playlist switcher plugin.
Finally finished this thing. The green glow underneith was a bit too in your face and took away from the inside glow so i used a stip of frosted tinted perspex to dull it down a bit, it ended up looking quite good. The whole case is lit with about 15 - 20 LED's in total I borrowed defyants ram lighting idea as well. there is also a led in the middle of the cpu heatsink but you can hardly tell its there, really need a clear 60mm fan on there. The lcd is a blue and white text model, the original tinted perspex turns it a redish colour, i liked so it stayed. I setup a matrix orbital LCD in combination with a global hotkey plug-in for lcdsmarite to show screens like Play/pause/next/back etc and then set up total game control to execute two hotkeys at the same time (on a split second delay so they don't overlap). So what happens is when i press my "next" button the LCD shows a screen saying "Next Track" for 1 second, returns to the main winamp main screen and makes winamp play the next track. The CD Rom was scrapped because the father in said he would never use it. So its saved to be used for my own MP3 Player later on. Click to view full-sized image Click to view full-sized image Click to view full-sized image Click to view full-sized image Click to view full-sized image Click to view full-sized image Click to view full-sized image Click to view full-sized image
