MODS PLEASE LOCK - MOVED TO NEW FORUM :D!!!

Nice PCB, do you have etching/uv equipment at home or do you use the uni/college facilities?

Also, why VFD over LCD, just woundering?

 

I use www.custompcb.com for making my stuff, although now that I work for these nice folks (www.mri.psu.edu) I may start having them etch my stuff. Gary is an awesome guy though, does very nice work on my boards.

I went VFD over LCD because I didn't want to have to do anything fancy to get blue letters on a black background. The VFD filters plus my black tinted plexi will get that effect for me. The VFD being brighter too is a definite plus!

 

**Bump**

Please give us more.

 

starbuck- what software do u use for your PCB design? I took a hack at Eagle CAD a while back, but it woudn't pass the DRC! For some wierd reason it made all the traces too wide and overlapped all the pads that were adjacent (even molex HDD power pins!)

Any thoughts or suggestions for different software?

 

VFD Playing Animations (532KB, Divx 5.1.1)

Clicky for video

 

GOD DAM exactly how much did that vfd cost you?

 

IIRC $210 to my door from digikey. No cables (you've got to make those) and no software can currently drive it as flexibly as what I'm writing - hence the reason I'm writing it. Also, nobody elses (that's been released yet) is a multi-threaded application written in microsoft .NET

 

dang might as well buy a 15 inch lcd monitor

 

But where's the fun in that I can understand the sentiment though.

 

Yeah, that happened to me last week... I was messing around with LCDC and totally did not notice it override the default fan settings (100%) on the MO display (being all Panaflo L1A's, they make almost no noise as it is). Then I went off to do some cooking to come back later to a Dual Opteron system (with Radeon 9800) which had been running passive on a single BIX for the last hour.

Temps: CPUs 64c and 60c respectively, with system at 34c. Coolant definitely felt around 35c. Still, it was running stable and happy.

Kicked the fans back to 100% and within minutes temps were back to the 40s range. Yessiree, no matter which way you look at it, liquid cooling rocks.

 

if i click the link i get a page full of numbers and signs

Does the video allso work on divx5.2.1 or only on 5.1.1

 

FUnny thing you guys mention. I had my northwood overclocked from 3.0 to 3.6ghz at a stupidly high vcore for burn in process of 1.75v and completly forgot to turn on my single 120mm fan on the rad after an hour or so of benchmarking and then runing cancer reserch I noticed my cpu temp was in the mid 50's and climbing. When I touched my heatcore it felt really hot. I turned the fon on at 100% for 10 min and the temps droped to high 30's on both gpu and cpu, after 30 min the cpu and gpu were idling in the high 20's.

Watercooling is awsome.

Now I wish I could find a decent chipset block for this dang mobo withought it costing me an arm and a leg and constricting my water flow.

 

It certainly should. Try do to right click, save as instead of just clicking it. sounds like your browser doesn't know what to do with the mime type that my server is sending with that file. Saving it to your desktop (tiz quite small) should help.

 

The software that drives the display was written in VB.NET (.NET framework v1.1), and the GIFs themselves were ganked from Pioneer's (the audio folks) website, reduced to 2 colors (they were 3) and resaved in animated gif format.

I've written the whole thing as an extensible architecture so I can easily add plugins down the way, with the low-level stuff of writing to the display and rotating the plugins handled by the main program. The plugin just has to produce a 128x64 bitmap when its polled for a frame. Here's the source for the 'clock' plugin. The "it is now" text is a variable that can be passed in upon plugin creation, so thats why you don't see it anywhere.

Code:

PluginTextTest.vb:
-----------------------
Namespace Plugins
    Public Class pluginTextTest
        Inherits Plugins.PluginBase

#Region "Globals"
        Dim _screen As Screen
        Dim _notepad As New Bitmap(128, 64)
        Dim _note As String
        Dim _g As Graphics = Graphics.FromImage(_notepad)
        Dim _font As New Font("Arial", 8, FontStyle.Bold)
#End Region

#Region "Subs"
        Public Sub New(ByVal Note As String)
            _note = Note
        End Sub
        Private Sub buildScreen()
            _g.Clear(Color.Black)
            _g.TextRenderingHint = System.Drawing.Text.TextRenderingHint.SingleBitPerPixelGridFit
            _g.DrawString(_note & Date.Now.ToString("hh:mm:ss"), _font, New SolidBrush(Color.White), 0, 27)
            _screen = New Screen(_notepad, False)
        End Sub
#End Region

#Region "Stuff to talk to the interface"
        Public Overrides Function GetRefreshedScreen() As Screen
            buildScreen()
            Return _screen
        End Function
        Public Overrides ReadOnly Property PollInterval() As Integer
            Get
                Return 1000
            End Get
        End Property
        Public Overrides ReadOnly Property RotateInterval() As Integer
            Get
                Return 5000
            End Get
        End Property
        Public Overrides ReadOnly Property Screen() As Screen
            Get
                Return _screen
            End Get
        End Property
        Public Overrides Function ToString() As String
            Return "Text Test: " & _note
        End Function
#End Region
    End Class
End Namespace

Pretty simple

(Did I mention the main program is multithreaded?!?!? )

The next one on the plugins list is the Speedfan and system stats screen, that should be a real monster

 

Begin Encrypted Message: Cebwrpg Ybt Flfgrz unf orra pbzcebzvfrq, unpxrq ol Evpuneq Chtu! Jbexfubc vagehfvba unf orra qrgrpgrq!

Me: What the HELL is going on here

My intrusion detection system caught this single, fascinating frame:

Original: De-noised:
Inverse Gausianned:
It appears that this scallywag broke into my house and was spying on my project!

Forensic examination of a SmartMedia card left behind at the scene yielded the following.

EXIF Comment: Strange box that arrived at the MRI - with Starbuck's name on it. I could feel the energy radiating from the box, calling me, begging me to open it. "You must open me, fear not!"


EXIF Comment: I looked closer, the box appeared to be from the magical land of plexi and laser cutting, but the box may hold a curse too.


EXIF Comment: The cursed box's powers were simply too strong, I had to open it!


EXIF Comment: The box began radiating a strange glow, followed by a low, rumbling, vibration. Startled, I dropped it.



EXIF Comment: I am terrified.. The box continues to rumble, and slowly unwrapped itself, revealing its cursed cargo... I am terrified, I must leave!


End forensic evidence. I was greeted by the box, looking harmless, spread open on my office floor when I arrived home one day. It appears that the spy felt the impending curse which I was blind to seeing at the time, and fled the scene. I was very excited to see my hardwork embodied in 1/4" and 1/8" thick plexi, so I began to test fit the pieces.

The baseplate tapped in place with modeller's masking tape.


Perfect fit, my dimensions were dead on. The sides, top, and bottom all line up perfectly



The outer plate for the new front bezel, wrapped lovingly in plastic, still with its own plastic cover sheet intact.


The top and bottom plates taped into place over the baseplate. The top plate will stay as-is and the bottom plate will be glued to the baseplate, and painted to match the rest of the case.


Flashless shot.


Close up, flashless shot. The spot for the CDRW tray will be filled with matching plastic, but the bottom part of the panel needs to be recut. The slot for the DVD-ROM and hole for the CDRW were placed too high by about 500e^-6 m. No big deal there.

 

To the basement!
When making modifications to the housing involving drilling, dremmeling, or anything else that makes a huge mess, its a good idea to gut the system. Yes, I left the mobo and radiator and PSU intact for now - I'll be blowing everything out with compressed air before reassmbly.


Remember the rear faults in the powder coating that made the backside so damn ugly? Well... we'll cure that.



Laser cut 'acrylic fowlup cover and dressup plate' with custom etching (you guys will LOVE the etching ) In place, protective film on, holes marked for the centers.


Holes drilled in plexi and case, case tapped with 8-32, and plexi cover attached with black headcap screws. The plexi is a bit darker than that, but the flash washed it out. Quite difficult to photograph.


Money shot #1


Money shot #2 (SUP GUYS!?)


Money shot #3 (SUP GUYS!?)


Tapping the holes for the power plate after marking and drilling them. (forgot to photograph it for the top version)


Installed and held in place with headcap screws. (Ignore all the dirt inside the case, its mostly powder from drilling through the jbweld - it'll be cleaned before reassembly)


Money shot #1 (stupid ISO 100 equivalent camera!)


Money shot #2


BIG Money shot #2 (the crinkle coat powde coat and the plates look AWESOME together!)

 

Now, if I only had a door...OR the curse of Zittware strikes home... maybe the spy was right?
One small problem with mounting a hinge on the front of the case...


...Cured by judicious use of the Dremel!


12" of 304 stainless steel hinge (to be powdercoated in the future) aligned with tape to hold it, then clamped to be drilled.


Lower hole drilled through both sides of hinge, and case. (9/64" for the headcap screws) Damn stainless is hard stuff!


Hole in the top half to match (I couldn't put it in the same place as the bottom (2 knuckles in from the end) because there's no case structure underneath it to drill into/tap to hold it.


Drilled hinge setup in my big drillpress, 5/32" hole to be drilled (so that the 9/64" headcap screw can pass easily through it)


Size difference.


Case has been tapped with 8-32 tap, hinge attached!


Hinge lines up perfectly with the ouside edge of the sheet metal... but one small problem (which I anticipated) -- it can't close all the way!


Problem solved, mill a portion of the stainless out for the headcap to protrude through, and mill same relief hole in the baseplate. Everything closes up nice...




As I was milling out the groove for the hinge knuckle to ride in, diaster struck. Not because I dropped it, but because I was cranking the X axis and not watching where the work was going. I cranked it into the pillar on my millpress rig, and then a sickening SNAP. The spy was right, the parts are cursed.


DOAH!

No one was harmed in this update, and the damaged pieces will be recut. Until next update, my fellow modders in arms...

 

Very Very nice. I like the reflective surfaces as well as the warnings. Outstanding..

 

It just gets better and better

 

Sahhh-WWEEEEEE-TAhhhhhhh!