Ok so I'm going to start modding my computer soon and need somewhere to run my equipment from while I do it. So I found a plastic box at a local store that would be perfect. It will be a tight fit but it all goes in. Will also use this when I go home to my parents for Easter for "family reunion". Since I'm going without a car I need to carry everything I want with me myself and bringing a fulltower computer is not so easy. So I got this piece of PVC plastic that I got from the junk yard at a local sign making company (company logotypes etc) Well it was almost a perfect fit in the bottom as you can see. I also got a piece of plexiglas that I got formt he same place to use as the I/O shield and attach the PSU to. I bent the edge of the plexi to go under PVC plastic and then I'm going to bolt it together with screws. And the issue I have is that I'm not sure if the PVC baseplate is solid enough to have the motherboard attached to I since you can make large scratches using your fingernails in it and it's really cellular and I fear that if I start to move it around the screws might go lose and the board will not stay in place. Sure it will still be stabilised by the I/O shield but will that be enough?
since easter is not so far away, why not take with you your current case in a case bag, and move your hw after easter when you get back?
Cause my current case is a Lian-Li Pc 71 and it literary weighs a ton well not really but damn heavy. Have to walk about 1-2 km total between train, ferry and buses I need to take to get home. Want to be able to put the computer in my suitcase. Have moved it that distance before already and don't feel like doing it again since it was really hard to do it
You could try to bolt the Mobo to the plexi if you are worried about it working loose, but if it's bending and flexing when you are travelling I would be worried about damaging the kit. Dont those plastic tubs hold a lot of static? I could be wrong but I would definitely test it on some arm hair or something.
Yeah I was thinking of doing that too but the spacers under the motherboard is still what will keep most of the weight of the things in it. Though I might have found another solution with another piece of plexi that I had. Was saving that for something else but I could always get new plexi at a later time. I did also think about the static problem and was a little bit worried how that would work out though have been handling the box and fixed plexi etc. for some time now and it seams like it won't be a problem, did the arm hair test just now and not a single hair lifted up though it have been resting all night so will see if it's the same when I start fixing with it. was even considering having a layer of aluminium foil between the bog and plexi plate that the mother board are on and then ground it against the PSU that will lead of any eventual static. Yes cardboard box is an idea as well though I didn't have any in the right size here Only found moving boxes and they are way to big And go buy things you can't afford to get a box in the right size is not a option. Could go and see if I can find a used one at some store that they used to get stuff in. Though it's still a matter of that I want to be able to have it inside my suitcase and cardboard boxes aren't really good for that since they tend to break if you are pressing on them
Cardboard is your friend Top part Sectioned off from the mobo with a piece of cardboard. HDD and PSU And the outer view And going with your plastic idea, I also did this:
What first started out as just building a quick temporary box have turned into doing something more permanent solution. After I have finished my stationary computer I will use this as a server/semiportabel computer and use some old hardware I have. So I will turn this "need some advice thread into a Project log. Don't know if it need to be moved or not that's up to a moderator. It's not going to be so advanced so maybe not needed to move to the log section. Well anyway here it goes. First of all I scratch the black PVC plate since I didn't feel it was so stable as I had hoped. Also it feels like it gets static really easy so not the best to use with computer hardware So I made this to replace that one. I made that by using a heat gun a table and forces (think that's the correct word) that hold down the plexi against the table with the help of a piece of wood. Then I heated up the plexi and bent it with another piece of wood. The plexi I was using was spare parts so it had a piece missing on one side that I didn't want so I had to use my diamond cutting blade on my Dremel to remove it. I also smoothed down the edges with a sanding drum. Was not as easy as I thought since my Dremel is like Charlie Sheen...... Only have one gear.... GO! It did have low and high setting but it goes directly to high after years of service. It turned out that one side was not straight and was just to long so I couldn't close the lid on the box. Since I already cleaned up after using the Dremel. I guess I made some mistake when drawing the line to cut since it was exactly 5mm difference for the sides. Well anyway I decided to take a nipper and cut it of though the edge chipped pretty much Though I solved it by rounding of the edge with a file. It actually looks more professional now So the chip resulted in a better look Going to sand it down as well so it's smoother. This is what I ended up with. It was a really good fit since there is not much extra room to spare here. Well a quick So let's see how everything fits in there. Seems like it's good room in there Just for fun I even tried fitting in a radiator Hmm maybe a little overkill for a spare computer. But it would be kinda cool though So that's where I am now. Going to drill some holes and screw the back and base plate together where they overlap in the bottom and maybe tomorrow I will go and buy some Acrifix to bond the sides together. Also going to get some sandpaper and smooth out the edges. For the weekend I will take out the hardware in my stationary and put it all in there and cut out the side for some cables.
Thanks Will come with a update either later tonight or tomorrow. It's actually done now but will need to redo some parts since the damn Plexi breaks to easily. Since I need it over easter the time limit and the lack of more Plexi at home I had to use what I had I tell you this will be the last time I use Plexi as main material for building a case. It's ok for small design stuff but not as a main material Even if it's more expensive I will redo it in Lexan or Polycarbonate plastic instead. Found a nice place where they sell leftover pieces for low price Yes that was partly my intention. or atleast run it from my closet as a server when I get my main chassi done and use my old hardware in this Have to go pack now friend picking me up in an hour so need to finish packing and shower before I leave. Will update the first moment I can
Time for new update but with some disasters This update have alot of jumps in it. Since I had a time limit I didn't take pictures of all the steps so you will have to do with the ones I have So I started to do some fan hole sin the side. At first I was planingto use Acrifix to bond the pieces together but sicne I couldn't find anyplace that sold it here in Stockholm I had to use another way. So I bent two pieces of Plexi into L shapes and then made holes where they are going to be. Was a little bit tricky to find a good way to get them on the right place but eventually I came up with this idea. Then I countersunk the holes. Then I made holes for the I/O shield and the PSU Then I had to first trim down the top so that it could fit inside the box and also cut out holes where the graphic cards outputs should go out. Though here my first accident happened. Since I had short time I had to rush through it and wasn't careful enough so a big part of the plexi cracked. So I ended up having to cut out a big hole for all the expansion cards instead of just the graphics card. Well not a big problem though. I also mad a small hole at the base that the end of the graphic cards I/O plate could go in. Then I also had to cut out a hole for the PSU fan but here the plexi cracked again. Though I'm not surprised it did since using a 120mm hole saw so close to the edge was very much doomed to start with. Fortunately the damage wasn't that big so I could still use that piece. As you could also see the PSU mounting plate at the back also cracked when I tried to mount it so I used what I think was the tape of the Gods that Bill Owen used to mount a PC on a window. It looked the same but it's a different maker here in Sweden. Really hard to remove the top red protection. I also used the same tape to mount the plexi frame inside the plastic box. I ended up having the hard drive mounted in the lid instead of on the side as orignaly planed. At first I just screwed it onto the top but at first boot up I noticed the lid was amplifying the vibrations of the hard drive so I had to ad some rubber pas-through I had dampen the vibrations. Time for boot up and yet another disaster hit It looks like my graphics card was damaged when I removed the heat-sink to clean it. 10 times DOH!!!!!!!!!! The computer boots but have some "artefact" errors on the display in 3 phases. In DOS mode it looks like this: Then when it goes to the Windows start up it changes to this: And finally in Windows it looks like this: Well Windows refuses to start and I'm hit with a blue screen saying something about the display drivers are malfunctioning and then reboots and goes to start up repair. Here is a video with a presentation and showing the start up problem. Sorry about my mumbeling but it was very late and I was rather tired when making that clip. Also I accidently covered the mic in the end. I tried to cook the card in the oven at 200°C in 10 minutes as some say that might fix some issues like this but it made no difference what so ever. Well I got an old NVidia 6800GT from a friend just so that I could use the computer. That turned out to be more problematic then I thoughtit would be. At first the screen was black and got no signal from the card. Turns out it didn't give any signal on the DVI port at all So I had to get another spare screen since the one I had at the moment didn't have a VGA connection. Though there was still some issues and I first thought it also had some graphical problems but instead of "artefacts" it didn't show the normal DOS and start up screen but orderly placed coloured squares with arrows in them. Much to ordered to be graphical problems but it wouldn't start. As you can see in this clip. Well I turned it off and checked the connections if they the card was connected correctly and tried again. Fortunately I had to go to the bathroom so it had more time to start up and even if it still have the same weird boot screens it eventually started Windows while I was away. Once inside Windows the DVI port still refused to function and I got blue flashes when the hard drive was working I can still select the DVI monitor and it can sense it but no picture Well logically I tried to install the drivers for the card but they where hard to find on such a old card. Used nVidias question form on graphics card and installed it but no change. Well now I had that yellow triangle in device manager over the graphics card So then it hit me that the driver for the ATI card was still installed so I removed them. After a reboot I couldn't use higher then 800x600 resolution so that was weird. Well I could but bigger then that it went outside the display even if the display had 1680x1050 resolution DVI still wouldn't work. Though apparently even though I removed ATI drivers Catalyst control centre was still starting and complained I didn't have any ATI drivers installed. Tried finding the uninstall but no luck there. So I just disabled it from start up and rebooted. Now I got even more after reboot the resolution was just 640x480 and only 16 colours enabled and I couldn't change it. So then I decided to start over and remove all graphics drivers and program. so uninstalled the nVidia driver from before and removed the card from Device manager and searched for new hardware. The card then installed drivers but with errors so still that yellow triangle mark. So now I was starting to get mad and rebooted out of spite and anger. The start up comes and the resolution still looks low since the arrow that comes up is large and then the activity bar is missing. Then I glance at the DVI monitor that is behind and somehow it suddenly works. Well now it finally is running and works. To bad about the card but for the moment I don't use it for more advanced things then some Photoshopping and then a GF 6800 is ok. Was planing to buy a new card for the new build anyway just to bad my 3870 is not working as it should any more Was planing to run a server with that card with the rest of my old hardware. Well at least I now can show you the finished computer running even with an inferior graphics card. So here it goes the finished plastic box. A little bit hard to spot the start button but nothing fancy. Only the core button and noting more. I also added some sleeving. It was all black from the start and the last 5 cm was still unsleeved on the PSU cables. The fan cables was completely unsleeved. It's a little bit different colours but I had to use what I had since my stock was running low on small dimensions. The blue one is UV reactive and the silver sleeve reflects some light from the UV CCFL so when it's on it doesn't look that bad Well here is the night shots as well. Apart from the cracking Plexi and broken graphics card I'm actually pretty satisfied with the looks of it As you can see the SATA cables have a El wire in it so that ads some cool effect. Was the only one I had that was straight at both ends and not standard red or 90 cm grey cable. I hope you enjoyed this short log. Even if it is very amateur like. On next build I will take some more time and do a better job and maybe fix a light box so that I can take some more professional pictures for you to enjoy. Edit: If anyone know if there is anything I can do to fix the graphics card that would be very much appreciated
