Guide All-in-one Mobo Front Panel...Dealy

Yesterday I found myself with some free time and a bunch of random junk getting in my way, so decided to cram some parts together to kill the day. So I give you the All-In-One Front Panel Dealy, usefull for whipping friends at close range and working on caseless boards in a simple efficient manner. Please forgive the pics but I think this is straight foward enough that you can get the idea without National Geographic level photos.




First, the parts needed:
1 front panel cable assembly (stole mine from a junked case)
1 serial port bracket (dug out of old AT system)
2 momentary switches and 2 leds (which can be the same parts attached to
the cable you have)
a chunk of protoboard, some solder, and some time



Unscrew the mounting spacers and pull the DB9 connector out of the housing. Mine came loose without hassle, but you may need to wedge a thin blade in the and jiggle it loose. Chop the port free and yank the cable out of the enclosure. Keep the spacers (or whatever you'd like to call them) for later use.



Nice and empty, ready to be filled to switchy/lighty goodness!



Now grab that front panel cable and chop the switches/lights free. Its a good idea to cut where the cables are still stuck together, as it makes it easier to fit into the enclosure.



Like so. Cut the cable down to the desired length, leaving enough to strip and solder. I made mine pretty short, as it was intended for temporary use. Seperate and strip the wires and heat up that iron!



Chop off a piece of protoboard or perfboard as I see it called from time to time. Mine is 3cm x 1cm and it fits pretty well on the enclosure. Depending on how you want to hold the board in place, you can avoid this next step in much the same manner as I avoided taking pictures of it. Grab a knife/file/drill and enlarge middle hole and either end of the board to allow the spacer thread to fit through. Don't push too hard, that protoboard is pretty flimsy. I ended up cracking a bit off of the end of mine, but as there was still enough there to slide under the spacer, I just left it. Alternately, you could glue the board in place.



Make sure to test fit the parts first. Or don't, its your toy. Here I've reused to switches I cut off earlier, but I've opted for new, smaller LEDs.

The photos for this step have been omited, firstly because this isn't a guide on soldering, and secondly because this project has the worst solder job I have ever pulled off and frankly I'm ashamed. ANYWAY, solder those wires you stripped before to the switches and lights. Remember that ground goes to the flat side of the LED. The switches, well, I just used a continuity test to find out which pins are which. With that done, glue/screw the board into place and you're done! A quick, simple device for running the board out of the case. Or whipping your friends. Although the motherboard is less likely to fight back....

 

So... they're just power and reset switches? And what's that about whipping people with it?

 

Coutsos, this is really useful for when you might have the front panel of your case off and still need to run your computer.

And if I were to whip somebody with it, I'd make the wires longer, but that kinda kills the point of making one of these doesn't it .

 

Yes, it is just a reset/power switch with power and hdd activity lights. As for the whipping, my roommate sits about 1 foot away from me in our office, so I'm always in need of something short range to get his attention for a round of Western Quake 3.

 

Whoops! Totally missed the part about the case. Sorry, Infamous... man I feel dumb. So I guess it's used for whipping while it's not connected. Makes so much more sense now.

 

Don't feel bad, the guide turned out good, the switches work, and you didn't end up with molten solder down your arm (been there, done that)

man my electronics teacher was a nub.

 

nice tutorial, this would be good for a test rig

 

Sounds like a great thing. I have the leds on the jumpers already for hard drive lights etc. But currently use a paperclip / scrap of wire / small screw driver as power and reset switches.

 

1 little thing that I think should be tried. Putting a tiny little speaker in the unit aswell. THat would be sweet, great for diagnosis

 

Great idea! A useful little do-hickey dealey that most of us could use. I mean, seriously, just about everyone on this forum has breadboarded a motherboard before and looked at it blankly going "now what pins do I touch the screwdriver to again?"

Well done.

 

My thoughts exactly. I'm building one soon, this would make a nice holder for the buttons and LEDs. Hmm... I actually have a spare DB-9 hood laying around, that I removed the cable and header to wire up VGA to an embedded board.

A small piezo-electric buzzer might be crammable on there.

 

Hey, glad to hear people find my doodadle usefull! I actually had planned to include a speaker but at the time I couldn't find one handy. I thought a good spot would be along the backside of the hood, with the wiring pulled through a small hole and some glue to hold the speak in place. My first prototype has found a semi-permanent home on my yet uncased htpc, so I'll be making a new one soon for use with the itx board I just picked up (part of a project I've been trying to gather parts for for some time...arr). Another suggestion for the speaker would be a DB25 hood, which would allow the speaker to be placed in line with the switches and lights. Who knows, maybe I'll have a little addendum by the end of the weekend!

 

nice tut.

I think i am gonna use some of it for my casemod

 

Humm nice

 

Yup, very useful, great mod!