Proj formally known as Sunsail - Sept 05

u r a really sunray killer!


I LOVE IT!

 

Been shopping. Been drilling and cutting

Have to resize pics and stuff. I am doing the dual suns now. Got myself some bike brake cable (thanks ferry) and some alum tubing and I'm intending to run all the drives cables and power cabling between the two enclosed in these. I am re-excited now that I have direction.

 

big trouble in little Oz

Well it's been exciting and annoying. After about five different attempts to make it fit I have had no luck with the Board.



As you can see the Ram is not going to fit. I was going to cut a hole to let the PCI card come out of the case (sort of like the way the air filters come out of a modded Car), but I didn't think I'd have to make the ram stick out too. It's just so damn thin down at the bottom of the case. If it was square it would be OK but it tapers and that is making it impossible i think because if I changed it it would no longer fit into the sail shaped holder.



Since everyone puts in a cat shot.... I thought I'd show what my cat thought of me quitting on this. She attacked my hand with gusto!

 

So I am now thinking I might have taken on something too big for a first Mod. I have another idea and I think what I can do is use the sunsail as an external device. Either mount a DVD burner in it or maybe a big drive and use it as a network storage device or something.



This thing sneaking in the proj is the new case....

 

http://itx-warehouse.co.uk/Product.aspx?ProductID=151
and they deliver worldwide

 

still think your gonna get watercooling in there LOL!

 

hehe. Damn thing's so small. I could always seal it up and drop the whole thing in a water bath. That'd be water cooled.

 

Thanks, great lead. That ram is very low profile. But I don't think it's going to help me. The sunray board that came out of it has the smallest profile heat sinks and little or nothing that extends above the board very much. And now I can see why.

Making it into the network storage might work and it keeps it in the overall project. Anyway. Working on it heaps this weekend som will have some pics and info on sundya night, and we'll see what happens.

 

new directions

Well. That's it. Not one to give up easily I gave up quickly instead

So now I gutted something else. Today I cut out 3 bits of plexi and made some base mounts for the MBD, DVD and Hard drive. In the pic the MBD is mounted temp on it's base, backing paper still on. More pics later after I've cleaned up the rough edges.



The case already has some perforations and that's the theme I'm going to run with. Holes, lots of holes. And light, and orange acrylic. The HTPC will live, just not in a small house like it was going to.

 

Not sure if you're up Sydney way, but maybe you can make it look like the Opera house with three or four of those. Some cool lighting in the base would really add to the effect, especially if both bases were synced.

 

Got a bit done, lots of little crappy things like cutting off bolts and bits of steel from the case.

I have taken an Indy case made by Sgi:
Like this one:


There was a lot of stuff jammed in the case. A motherboard and two daughter boards for scsi and video stuff etc. The case is actually small though as sgi indys don't have an optical drive. So the Via board is still the choice. I am now going to put the DVD burner sideways across what was the old powersupply case (it's modular and uses one screw to clamp it onto the case proper.

This is with all the bits roughly laid out in it (except for hard disk):



Hard disk caddy from old gateway:



Modded for me:



Cutting the first window for the hard drive caddy:



Motherboard base (on risers for the look )

 

Shame it wont fit in the old case, but good luck

 

Yeah I'm pretty bummed. But the new case looks like it's got potential and is still small. It should look good with some lighting and be a good cheap alternative to a shuttle or something.

Does anyone else break cutting wheels on their dremels or is it just me. Mine came with 10 and I'm down to one. I thought it was my technique as the first 7 went real quick and then the last 2 lasted for ages. But sheesh, this will be a pain! Am I cutting with the wrong stuff?

 

steel mate... will fight you like a bitch!

if you dont put too much pressure on it works alot better and they last alot longer

that case looks alot better, will be nice to see it progress

 

Somthing of a philisophical question here, but why so small? When i do my first mod (as soon as I get back from holiday) I'm going to use the biggest case I can get my paws on. This is partly because I like big cases, but also because I'm looking at it as a learning expierience and so I literally want the room to make mistakes. Just somthing to consider...

 

Shame about the orginal case. What ideas do you have for the indy? Looking good at the minute tho.

 

I have a couple of pc's and a server and such, all normal sized cases, but for a home theatre setup i wanted something smal; and unobtrusive. And looks good so it can sit with the TV etc and not look too crappy and also not take up a lot of space. I also thought it'd be a challenge - too much of a challenge.

 

It is a shame as the case of the sunray looks a million bucks. I still don't want to write it off because i think it might work as a dvd burner, hard drive, wireless hub combo something type thing

I've had the indy sitting around for a while and wanted to mod it and now it happening. My plans: The case inside is pretty small actually as the indy's don't have optical drives normally. I plan to mount the DVD burner sideways so it stealths out the side of the case. The hard drive is going to be mounted in a removeable housing on the left hand side of the case with easy access for removeall if I need to upgrade. I intend to move the DVD drive controls to the front of the case and power switch also. Put in some lights and lots of orange plexi (because i have a huge sheet of it left over from a theatre project, and paint the whole thing with this cool paint a friend introduced me to that dries like stone. And that's about it. Tonight I am hooking in to get a lot of it done so pics later.

 

Can't wait to see it. sounds like a good mod

 

Retired

Update in archive:

Canned the project as it was waaay to hard for me as a beginner modder. It was just too damn small, and getting into CF disks and stuff wasn't for me....yet.

I'm starting on another project and i'm going to use the sunsail as an external hard drive/network storage sort of thing. So it'll still have lights and some funk about it but i won't have to put more than a hard drive in it - which is almost all that can fit anyway.