I'm working on a special "NAS" project and I was interested in getting one of those spiffy LCD 5.25 displays to show hard drive usage on different drives. I have two bays available physically, the case only has two and I have no plans to use them for anything else. I don't really need fan control but I don't mind if it's included. I also wouldn't mind temperature display. Really though all I care about is hard drive usage, everything else would just be extra. I plan on running a Windows OS for the host, probably server 2012 or 2008 R2. The unit will be in a rack about 1-2 feet above eye level (viewing angle). I've come across a couple, specifically from nMEDIAPC, but the outdated software and poor viewing angles makes me a little worried. Everything else seems to be a fan controller/temperature display. I thought I would pull from the vast knowledge here as I just want something that will work well for this specific task and would rather not rely on trial and error. Any ideas on what you think would work or something I should take a look at that you are aware of?
Well, since I received no feedback, personal experience or any kind of pointers I decided to go the route I was trying to avoid and rely on trial and error. I settled on the nMediaPC pro-lcd model. It displays everything I was looking for with the ability to customize the display in several different ways. It works fine in server 2012 but the application needs to be running in order for the LCD to show the designated information. I got around this with an auto login script that locks the screen once running. The viewing angles aren’t very good but it worked for my install. I am very happy with it, and it only cost a little over $30. Just thought I would share in case others needed something like this. Check out the on-line manual for more info on what it can display. http://nmediapc.com/LCD/LCDManualWeb.pdf
Just googled the display. Looks like a nifty bit of kit. Have you got any pictures of your actual install ?
I have a couple I took after I installed it, I don't have the rack finished yet so I won't be able to give any live examples without pulling it. *Sorry for the blurry picture, I didn't bother looking at the shot before I shut everything down and racked it up. The "codes" are the strings containing $. So in the last shot there you can see both lines of the LCD are listed. The default examples have static text on the first line with the system variables on the second. I found that I can put in my own variables (that is to say, what already exists in the program) anywhere I want. For power on time as an example I removed the text line and put in the variable for the computer name, I could also ignore the intended purpose of any of these and add a 4th hard drive (the program has defaults for only 3) by putting in $HDD4TOTAL. This is just for OS/System of course. I can edit the "Auto User" section to include any of the sections you see on the left, or I can just highlight one of the sections and it will only loop info within that section. Brightness and duration of the information can also be set. SpeedFan integrates with it as well, though I can't figure out how to make it show F instead of C. I didn't have much time to play with it as I needed to continue with other sub projects of the rack. The HAF cases don't have retention on the right side so the LCD doesn't sit flush right now, I will be fixing that shortly. The LCD is easily removed from the provided frame and put in to a custom one. One other gotcha with this unit and server 2012; you need to make sure the audio service is running otherwise the program will hang during start up while it tries to detect your audio devices. Oh and I forgot to mention you can build custom graphics with it too, so if you have a symbol or want to do some fancy text you can create your own GC files that are shown.
I personally used a 4x20 display from lcdmodkit from eBay but it has all the typical issues of these displays - that is black on yellow, white on blue or white on red colors with bad viewing angles. It is supported by LCDSmartie. It is just a display, no remote or buttons on it. What is the most important thing and the reason i bought units from that eBay seller is how it is connected to the PC. Single internal USB connection. Yep, no 4-pin molex power, no floppy power - just a single 4-wire cable from the display with an internal USB header on the other side of the cable :
I'm not trying to be condescending, but you might have had better luck in the Modding section. You, sir, can have some rep for that link - they look pretty damn handy! I've built parallel port cables for HD44780-based LCD displays before, but this is altogether a much better solution. Now if only they had a USB interface for the graphic LCD modules...!
From electronics side they are indeed nicely done. From mechanical standpoint they are not as perfect, but acceptable (you must screw in the 5.25" mounts to the front of the panel, then you can cover the whole front panel with a supplied cover which glues itself to the front).
As long as it hides the gubbins it should be fine; I'm thinking of using one for HTPC purposes, so it won't be closely inspected. Plus if it's that bad, this is a modding forum - I ain't afraid of no dremel
Not condenscending at all! I pretty much never ask for any kind of help on forums. Once in a great great while I will ask for feedback on something or advice and I will usually get zero replies. I have this weird ability to create DOA threads is all. Wrong section, wrong time, wrong forum all together, who knows the exact reason each time. I cross posted this on several forums as well, didn't receive any replies from any other site either so it's just me. I've had better luck in the past with asking in the modding section though, not sure what I was thinking this time around! That LCDModKit looks interesting, I guess I will have to check out LCDSmartie and see how easy it would be to display this same type of information. The nMedia LCD sure makes things easy for what I am trying to do but is obviously limited by what it can display compared to yours. jinq-sea - Be aware that these cases only have 2 3.5 bays excluding any conversion of the 5.25. I've modded mine to support 12 3.5 drives without touching the 5.25 bays. They are a bit more lenient when it comes to 2.5 support.
I wouldn't mind at all, I will upload them when I get home. Just as a heads up though the pictures are from a work in progress, stuff still needs to be rounded, sanded and or painted. The functional aspect of the mod is 100% done, it's just not going to have the polish you would normally see around here.
As promised. My only priority at this point in the overall project is just making sure everything functionally works and that nothing is DOA, so behold the spaghetti! Everything is easily removed and put back to stock, I even bought a new motherboard plate to keep on hand if I ever revert this back as this one had to be cut down. Bottom right is one of the new 5x 3.5 HDD cages. You can see one of the attachment points for it in the bottom right of the picture, it is riveted to the cage but a thumbscrew is hidden behind the front face plate that unscrews. The cage is shortened a bit to make it fit. It sits right on top of the X Dock and a custom angled-aluminum frame that you can almost make out towards the front of the new cage (bottom of picture is front of the case, the cage opening points to the left side of the case). You can see half of the thumbscrew used to secure the bottom of the cage to the custom frame. I'm using these cages: Sans Digital HDDRACK5. The cage is cooled by one of the 120mm front fans. The standard motherboard plate has been cut down obviously to make room for all the drives. Which works for me as it was destine to be a mini-itx board any ways. The tray is fully removable just the stock version, there is a thumbscrew hidden by the Zalman fan bracket (it's cooling the RAID card while I was doing a burn in on the drives, it's not sticking around), and two of the stock thumb screws to the right just like it is from the factory. The tray is held up by another custom angled-aluminum bracket that sits between the second HDD cage and PSU on the bottom "deck" of the case. Second HDD cage. This one is cooled by the two 80mm rear fans. This one had to be cut down a bit more due to space so I had to create a custom bottom.. err side for it. In the first side picture you can see the aluminum frame in the background that holds up the motherboard plate. This cage is entirely fastened to the floor of the case. The Sans Digital cage has front and rear columns of rolled aluminum that allows for easy tapping/riveting. You can see the other two motherboard plate screws for easy removal. You can also see the last bracket for the first HDD cage right under the center support bar. You can also see the front of the cage here where the other thumbscrew is. This cage is held in place in three locations, one top and two bottom. So there it is, a quick overview. When I get around to finalizing all the other sub-projects I will come back and give it some elbow grease and will take more pictures of each specific modification. Kind of hard to see with all that extra crap in there!
I've been patiently waiting for Bit-tech to get hold of one of those cases but, as that could take a while, I've read a few reviews. I think they are great.
I didn't, unless they were rebranded of course. I know the name but I didn't come across them while searching. They seem a bit expensive though at first search as it appears you need to purchase separate software?
