Scratch Build – In Progress 1925 - An Art Deco Adventure, 9th December 2010

Oooo!!! This is cool.

Sub'd

 

Sub'd - love me some art-deco!

Out of curiosity, though, why an SSD in a HTPC? You don't really need the speed, and they don't save that much power...although I could see the benefit to the faster boot times for something you don't leave running 24/7

 

Silence. Nuff said!

 

Thanks Don't worry, I started with a dremel when I first started modding. Its still a staple tool. As modders we must work with what we have. right

Thanks

We'll see, I just love the eagle

No problem, I'm sure the board will run much cooler with the fixed heatsink. Sure explains why everyones Atom boards were running at 60C!

Also, if anyone is interested I am more than happy to fix an Atom heatsink for you(height correction), just pay shipping both ways. Shoot me a PM for more info.

Nice, Eagle was a good choice there

In order to supply the data rates needed for 1080p playback, and to make the OS partition fast enough to somewhat compensate for the 'slow' (vs an i7) Atom CPU. Perhaps you are right, anyone else want to chime in on the need for an SSD? I haven't bought one yet so I could be swayed either way at this point. Thoughts welcome.

 

The HTPC I'll be starting in the next few weeks will be using an SSD as its system drive as well. Personally I think the speed of function and boot times are worth the extra money. Not to mention having a dedicated drive for OS when your storing so much media is an absolute must have in my mind. My plan is to run a 64gb SSD for OS and what little software I might need and to ensure good speed on the front-end stuff and then a 2TB for media storage.

I will also be bringing this back and forth between my place, my girlfriends place, and friends houses on a regular basis so fast boot times is somewhat high on my list of wants. Not sure if you'll be running yours 24/7 or not but thats my personal application and justification for using the hardware I'm planning on.

 

I could be very mistaken, but I don't think it would make that much difference. Reviews of Nettops with Atom 330 + ION show they handle HiDef just fine, and almost always come with a mechanical Hard Drive. Apparently the ION platform itself makes the biggest difference, leading me to think it's got very little to do with the I/O of the hard drive, at least when we're talking modern interfaces.

However, by no means let me discourage you - the more people buy SSDs now, the more the price will be down by the time I'm ready to buy

 

I don't think transfer rates of HDDs are the limiting factor in HD playback in netbooks.
They're all SATA 3Gbps, aren't they?

I'd like to see a movie (available right now! I'm not talking UHDTV with 6600 Mbps!) that needs a SSD to run without stuttering.

 

Really nice - love the eagle engraving. Are you planning to get rid of the machining marks on the eagle plate?

 

Yes, ultimately, everything will be polished and clear anodized at the end of the project. This was just a test piece anyway, the final piece would have very fine machining marks and then be subsequently polished.

I believe SATA 3G is the standard nowadays.

True, my thoughts exactly, I will probably throw a small SATA 3G hard drive in as a boot drive, use the 2TB Samsung F4, drive and a spare 640GB Samsung F1 drive I have for storage. SSD upgrade will come when the prices drop under $1/GB. Thanks for the input everyone!

Also, update coming this weekend.

 

Mini update

A little taste of the current phase of modeling



Top left corner of the case. Brass and aluminum are the primary materials. Still working on the artwork for the top, sides and front. It will be machined.

Who wants more?!!!

 

Safe to say: We all do!!!

 

i love the art deco
cant wait to see more

 

Wow, I love the art deco style.
Good luck. Subbed

 

You got it!

Thanks

Thank you

 

1925 - An Art Deco Adventure, 9th December 2010 Edit Post

A real update!

Finished the first four pieces of the case a couple days ago. They turned out better than expected honestly. I feel they really get the iconic skyscraper-esque feel across that I wanted to acccent the corners of the case.

As the design has progressed, through much deliberation a clearer direction has been realized for some of the artwork. At the moment, I am sketching the left panel artwork, which will be done in a bas relief style, CNC machined in aluminum. The artwork will feature themes common to modern times, such as space, and high speed trains. The goal is that the artwork of the left panel will represent 'ideas' common to today, where the right side will be a reflection of ideas common in the 20's and 30's. By ideas, I mean things that are in some way, wondrous or magical to humans today, marvels of technology and human achievement. In the 20's and 30's, these things were objects like cars, air travel, and radio. Today I feel these things are much the same, just evolved. And 70 years before the art deco era, it was much the same, 'amazing' things were steam trains and telegraphs.

Art is always a reflection of history.
-Sue Chenoweth



The four pieces






The four corners lined up






My favorite perspective of the corners. Very reminiscent of late 30's streamline moderne.





Ultimately the front corner will flow into the back corner like so:








Rough mock-up of component positions







Hope this update finds everyone well!

Coming next: Case construction, finals are coming to a close, that means more parts, more updates and more madness!

 

Those corner pieces are nice! can't wait to see the rest.

 

Awesome build Sanatarium, looking forward to seeing this develop

Congratulations you've done a Godwins, that's two this month on bit-tech I've spotted lol

A Godwin

 

Those are some really nicely machined cornerpieces and you captured the style well. Btw what mill are you using? I like how you decide to have different themes on each side, very artish of you

 

Those corner pieces look incredible.

 

Thanks, keep your eyes out At this time the build should finish sometime before March.

Hahaha very interesting indeed

Thank you Gnu! These were done on our smallest Haas VF2 vertical mill, 3/4" solid carbide endmill.

Thanks, PM replied Checked out your Zenith Radio build, impressive stuff!