Case Mod - In Progress Raspberry Pi in a bay

Ever since the release of the VIA artigo kit I've always wanted to have a second PC in a 5.25" bay but the price has always been too high.... Until now.

Meet the Raspberry Pi



Unboxed


Next to a 2.5" laptop drive for size comparison



The plan is to mount the Raspberry Pi in a 5.25" slot with the SD Card slot accessible from the front and cables based through modified PCI brackets.

First problem being that the power connector is on the same side as the SD slot so the plan is to power the RaspPi via the GPIO port directly.

 

Some progress on the PCI brackets.

HDMI > DVI


LAN pass through



USB pass through



Next will be the actually 5.25" mount which I'm thinking of just gutting an old CD-ROM and mounting it inside there. Unless I find a better place in the case where I can integrate it...

 

Very neat idea! Have you thought about mounting both the DVI and LAN on the same PCI bracket?

Subbed.

 

Love these small boards . A quad core version just hit the market not made by same company though. I am seriously considering modding one into one of those 4 bay external usb hdd cases. Pity they don have gigabit network or any sata ports. But I am still going to give it a go for a cheap nas or htpc not sure which yet. Sorry for getting ot. Nice idea

 

I did think about it but without a dremel decided it was going to be too much of a pain cutting a hole that would work. (Turns out old joystick ports are the same size as DVI which is where I got the bracket) The power socket I will drill into the LAN bracket.

Would be OK for a two bay NAS I think but anymore than that I think you would be pushing the bandwidth as the LAN and USB share the same chip and bandwidth.

HTPC it's a good fit, check out the OpenELEC thread on the Raspberry Pi forum. There is builds on a almost daily biases. Been able to play back both 720p and 1080p H.264 as well as DivX files perfectly.

 

A bit more progress....

Our victim today


And apart it comes


A pretty dodgy spray paint job later and we have



Unfortunately the lack of mounting holes on the RaspPi make it quite hard to mount so at this point I'm thinking of just busting out the double sided tape as I cannot think of a easy way....

 

When did you order it? Where did you order it from? What power supply are you using (I've heard a lot of problems going on with using phone chargers)?


I'm also looking into a R-Pi for a file/media/torrent server. I'll be following this mod very closely

 

It's actually my second RaspPi to arrive
This one I registered interest day one with RS components and only just arrived this week.
My first one came from element14 and was ordered a week or so after the launch date.

According to the foundation they are building 4000 a day and there is still a 6 week lead time!

I have been using an iPhone charger which has been working OK. Have also run it off a USB port on my main PC without issue.
For this I'll probably hack up a 2amp @5V wall wart and put a USB plug on the end of it.

 

GPIO power cord wired up (Pin out can be found here)




And the other end... Ran up both OpenELEC and Raspbian with out issue direct from my work PC USB port.

 

What's the purpose behind having a pico-pc in the drive bay? What are you going to use it for?

 

Mostly just because I can but it will be used for light web browsing, email, etc instead of turning on my main PC.

Main PC is an overclocked i7 920 which draws near on 300w idle vs the RaspPi's ~3.5w under load. So hopefully a bit of power saving.

 

How are you going to switch inputs for the monitor/keyboard/mouse? I can see manually switching cables getting to be tedious.

BTW, good call on using adhesive tape for fixing the Pi to the drive case - I personally like using Scotch M3 double-sided tape.

 

Probably an inbuilt KVM switch or similar

on another note, first post on these forums, very interested in what you're doing, similar to an idea i've had

 

I've got a KVM lying around that I'll probably use for switching. Was thinking of trying to hide the KVM in the case but I've already got too many cables hidden away.

It's about the only way I can think of, no mounting holes and the whole board is covered in components top and bottom. I'm just hoping that if I have to move it that the tape won't rip off some of the SMD components...

 

I will be doing something similar to my PI, i had my second arrive yesterday also so should be starting soon.

You can power the pi from the 5v from a molex

 

Watching with great interest as my first pi arrived yesterday and I'm also running a 950 with a 5870 and even on idle it heats my freakin room lol, can you see any problem occurring with it being a linux system fo example buffering videos or facebook?

 

Nice idea, I was going to try this when I first got my Pi, but it ended up id have no way to get power to my Pi without drilling a hole. So yeah I may just borrow the GPIO pin idea man keep up the good work.

 

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Neat idea, will be interested to see how this turns out...

 

As with you I´ve had for years a 5.25" VIA Artigo, and its mounted on my file server, I use it for downloading as it uses 12w as opposed to leaving the file server or my main pc on. Unfortunately it died last month, no idea if its the psu or the board, nothing smells burnt so wasnt sure if it was worth buying a psu on the of chance thats what it was so i´ve been thinking of buying one of these instead so will keep reading : )

 

Something that may be of use ill find it later as im using my mobile. There's a guide somewhere how to make an SD card slot extender which may be of use. I'll find it and post tomorrow.