Hello folks, some of you have followed my little journey on my Synology and Qnap quest... These little units work really well but i found myself still having a dedicated little machine for downloads, remote desktop and other general duties. It hasn't really been a problem and everything worked well. So why am i doing anything? Because i can't help myself! I also realised my entire audio setup looked a bit clunky and not really very uniform. I ideally wanted something a little more suited.. I also wanted something which could trick the untrained eye but also standout to a purist as not being quite right. I don't want to spend ages and ages making something which is super refined nor do i want it to look unfinished. I guess i need to have a middle ground on what is acceptable but also looks good enough to not stand out. My aim is something i can spend a few nights on without months of work to achieve this. I don't want to spend any real money at all either. Read that as I'm cheap and tight as a ducks hole. Essentially - I'll take a Marantz amplifier casing.. Strip it. Put a mini itx board inside and try to make it passive. Add sound card and SSD's. Add VFD... Make it look oem.. Sort of. Buttons don't need to work but making it look as though it does would be a bonus. Front usb would be helpful.. Not worried about dvd or bluray players as everything is downloaded these days. The big thing for me is no noise... Its unavoidable with rotary drives but not with SSD's. - i can also kill fan noise and with some passive radiators... It could have a good oem+ look if done right. I also want to try and use anything I have already. Is there likely to be some bodges? Probably. We'll call it lacking accountability and gloss over it.
I mentioned the setup i have already - and pictures help.. right? As we can see - a whole load of mess and jumbled up mess. The QNAP is staying as that will house the majority of my storage needs but it might be moved to another location for noise/isolation. The bottom right box is a pc and the thing in a wood box is also a PC. The wooden box actually contains the mini itx setup which I'll be using and the metal aluminum box contains a intel nuc - I'll be repurposing this for another project down the line. For the moment though, I'll be stealing the VFD from it What are we using as a platform? Poor thing doesn't know what's coming yet! Marantz M-CR603 Hi-Fi Network Streamer CD DAB Receiver System. Purchased cheap from eBay as a non functioning unit. They do them in black but they never seem to come up as spares or repairs. This one arrived - it had a no power issue. We had a go at fixing it but to no avail... so stripped it and chucked everything in the WEEE waste bin. It didn't take long and ironically i didn't feel too guilty about it either! General condition is good but it's a dodgy champagne silver which doesn't match the satin black of the rest of my setup. As i mentioned in the beginning functionality must haves - Look like a stereo, LCD/VFD Screen. Passive.. Buttons don't need to work but adding some led's or making it look like it would function correctly. From the front must look decent.. behind the scenes and under the hood - who cares. The next plan was to find something i could use to make it passive. eBay is full of all sorts of treasure. Some good.. some better. It didn't take long to find a rather battered looking passive mini ITX case - i guess luck more than anything that this would probably fit the bill. I didn't really do any checks to see if it would be the right size since i figured I could probably adjust and cut down the radiators either end. Interestingly this seems almost modular in it's assembly - everything comes apart as do all 4 corners!
Our victim i suppose - Q87T Thin ITX Combo - These are great as use an external power brick - low profile. This one houses a i3 4130 which is important as it has a low TDP at 54w... but enough grunt to do everything i could need at the moment. I have added 2x 8GB Sodimm modules. and it has a 256gb msata drive onboard. It has the benefit of being able to support 4x Sata sockets too. Pci express wifi card (i need to work out the aerials) The thing that has real appealed about the passive heatsink/radiators is i realized i could somewhat adjust the length of them. The Marantz case had not arrived when i took these pictures. ( i had major fingers crossed at this point and had hoped it would be a simple fit!) Going online and finding the dimensions of the Marantz unit showed some real promise that this could just bolt straight in.. i could adjust the heatpipes and it work flawlessly - could things really be that easy? 28cm wide. The exact same width as the Marantz. Looks tidy so far and with any luck will work well.
The bit which i guess everyone is waiting for? Can mojo cut a straight line to save his life? no is the answer.. I didn't take as many pictures as i wanted at this point - i wanted to just crack on but will try to do more as i go along. Now i did say that i wanted it in, done and dusted within a few days - so there is some dodgy bodges and work here... so sorry people of Bit-tech. Radiator lined up nicely internally - cut out some of the back (will make tidy soon) and the sides needed some fettling to allow the radiator to passthrough. This also meant the sides needing to be adjusted for that OEM + look i mentioned after. Cut with an angle grinder - went through it like butter... Now in hindsight i should have centralized the radiator... but i didn't. Once it's painted and screwed together - I'm sure it won't be an issue... Both sides were cut - filed straight and smooth (not in this picture) The back cutout looks bad... but i do have a plan for that... watch this space. Simply needed to just make room to do some testing.
Moving forward with getting it looking like a stereo - that VFD screen fitting. I did say that there would be some horrendous work right? It gets no better here folks and this is testament to how much bodging i am prepared to do.. to get this working. I looked and hoped that there would be enough room with the PCB in place on the front for the screen to fit in.. but alas.. no. Fundamentally - i needed a power button.. a power on switch.. perhaps USB socket and the VFD. I don't want the buttons to fall out... so keeping the pcb somewhat intact would work. Slimming down some of the plastic on the rear of the facia... Very crudely and since i had the angle grinder out anyway - i sheepishly (read that as savagely) attacked the pcb.. literally 30 seconds to make it fit. Unfortunately i only have a red on black VFD. I'm on the hunt for a white on black which would then match the rest of the equipment - if you have one.. please PM me! And powered on - looks alright! Some adjustments to brightness and contrast and that'll look the part! Powered on LCD Smartie and got it displaying some specs. Also very crudely soldered a header on to the back of the Enter LED just to see if i could use it as a power LED. It actually looks quite good. I am debating doing the PLAY button the other side - i could use that as a HDD activity but i think the flashing would irritate me. Perhaps could add in a slow fade or pulsing module so it looks like its pulsing? Not sure.. I encountered my first real problem of sorts i suppose - the power on button. Wiring off the back of the switch showed me that it's a push to break switch not a push to make. This means that it's as if the power button is being held on all of the time. I couldn't get around this and decided that perhaps i could add a vandal switch here instead - black.. and once the unit is painted - it perhaps wouldn't stand out so much... So drilled the front facia plastics accordingly for this to fit... I'm not proud of the quality of the hole - but it does what it needs to do. I won't be using any fancy fixings or anything special - likely black hot glue to hold everything in place..
Ooo. might be an unwanted level of complication, but you could get one of those cheapy 2.4 wireless control pad keyboard things and wire the d pads on the case panel to the dpads on the controller so that they're functional. https://thepihut.com/products/rii-i8-plus-mini-wireless-keyboard-with-touchpad
I thought i could use something like this - Player X USB Games Controller PCB | The Pi Hut - Think that would do the trick... if i ever get to the point of wanting to do that
Tonights efforts - Prepping the panels for painting - removing that Marantz badge was a bit of a pig as the glue was nothing like i've seen before - Dremel soon saw it out though!
Everything had a lovely little sanding down with 320-grit paper... 2 coats of Amazon's best white primer which went on pretty smoothly. Excuse the rather crude scribbles on the pictures - didn't want to publically post my address for all to see! Also decided at this point that opening the back up would be a good idea... I plan to put a sheet of steel across the back and make a beauty panel at a later date - but can at least get this prepped for paint! Remember folks to wipe down between coats to avoid any contamination!
Everything got a good 2.. maybe even 3 coats of satin black paint. Again - went on nicely without drama.
In the beginning, i decided that i would use the original mini itx mounting plate since i didn't know if i would end up using some of the other bits. I rather crudely drilled through the top plate into the bottom one and mounted these with m3 screw and nut.
I kind of couldn't hold my excitement in - so after only a few hours... I have been trying to put it back together...
Alignment of the radiators is a bit tricky since i forgot to get new black screws... and the paint is soft. I'd opted for some tape just to hold the sides on. Another Amazon order and I'll get this sorted pretty quickly. Looks good though! The radiators will be straightened and tightened up in situ once the sides are screwed in and on. I know I'll be taking the front panel on and off for a while until i can work out the buttons. Ultimately with this being an 'audio PC' it should have a dedicated audiophile soundcard right? The intention is to fit this beautiful Asus Xonar sound card. I need to work out how the fitting will work - i also need some adapter cables to get this running properly.
Like an exciteable schoolkid - i had to try and get the screen and front on. In my rush - i managed to mark the front... i knew this would happen but... it's no issue to rub it down and spray again... especially since I know i have so much more work to come.
So a wee little update - So thanks to @The_Crapman encouraging bad things - i have here a Player X USB Games Controller PCB - details can be found here - essentially this tiny PCB connects to your PC, Mac, or Linux machine with a standard micro-USB cable, and appears as a USB games controller. Just a case of soldering all of the buttons up. More to follow on that when i can find the time. Cables to connect up the sound card power and front mounted usb which hopefully i can get to fit! The next problem i had - how do i mount that sound card so that it's not just flopping around inside the case. i wanted to do a bodge effort - but it still needs to be safe. Purchased a vertical graphics card mount - in the hope that i could adapt it or modify it to fit. Few different bits on this but interestingly - it has a long piece which has magnets on the side.... kind of interesting Losing the long panel seemed to be the best fit with what i was trying to achieve. I haven't yet worked out the fixings.. and it's wonky donkey but it might just work! I figured i will need some stand offs which screw to the bottom casing and then attach that leading edge somehow Still yet to test the card works in that configuration but maybe later today.
