Project: Modular Jukebox - On Hold - Oct 9th

Hopefully this is going to be a fairly short project log as I don’t intend on spending much more than a couple of week building the jukebox. Its more of a proof of concept for the desktop I want to build next if I have time over the summer before I move. Its far simpler than the Serverama design to make and as a result should take far less time to build (fingers crossed).

Beyond this i want to make another bow, the same siz to go underneath the jukebox housing some kind of amplification which can be attached to the main case, possibly using some of the maplin amp kits depending on the quality etc. In addition two speakers would then also be able to be attached to that unit to make an all in one box, or just the jukebox would be moved, thats something of an extention to the project to be looked at later, for now, it just needs a new case for the computer itself.

Currently the jukebox is rather…ghetto.


Took me a couple of hours to make with all the cardboard and tinkering with it to make things fit, but everything works nicely and it’s a good compact design.

In essence the design hasn’t changed, the only difference is the CD drive and Hard Drive are the other way round. The only reason the power supply CD drive and motherboard connectors were on the same side was convenience for the location in the kitchen where it was first made for.

The frame itself is made of 3 layers, one at the bottom for the PSU and Drive cage to mount to, a top which has an 80mm fan in the top to cool the motherboard (ram/cpu/gpu/etc). The motherboard itself mounts on a shelf which attaches to the sides of the case suspending it above the PSU and drives.


The metal was fairly cheap, just over £12 for all of the bits apart from the sides, which are more 1” x 1/8” flat bar. The idea is to make everything on each layer and then work out exactly what size the sides need to be.


To keep each corner square a jig made from ¾” plywood and some scrap bits left over to hold the metal in place while it’s drilled.


With two piece of the bottom done they need to be attached, but the jig wont hold them in place, to solve it the angled side of the jig was cut off to form a 90 degree angle to the back then the left side of the jig was attached to the right side to hold it in the opposite way.

I’ve not got a picture of the jig at the moment, probably take one tomorrow when I make the other layers of the case and test fit the parts.


The base is square although I have forgotten about the bolts which hold it together in the design, which frankly, is a bugger but shouldn’t be too much of a problem as there is enough tolerance in the design to allow for a few adjustments plus the sides which are yet to be cut.

 

Looks like tis asweet design, is that a mini ATX motherboard?...

 

That design look pretty much like one I was about to make to be a testbed.. Loving the ghetto look of the straight-corner-device

 

Micro ATX i think, looks like an MS-5187 Super Socket 7...
Could be some OEM board though.

Looks good, im working on a similar project myself.

 

that is great design
but u might want to move the power plug to the psu to the back unless u want this to look ghetto
which is good!!

 

If I'm not mistakin' he's turned the drive around.....So

 

Like the idea, looks like a great start

 

Day 2

Firstly before today work, a few things.

olly_lewis and Kivi - Its not as you suspect M-ITX, its infact a very old boad i got from a family friend who retrieved 3 of these from the school he worked at when they upgraded a couple of years ago. The board is pretty much unknown, cpu is an AMD K6-2 450MHz with a spare 256MB stick of PC133 RAM i had lying around, tried running it on 64MB of ram with Win XP on there... it didnt like it...

rowin4kicks - the drive is being reversed so that the connectors are all at the back as Bullitdodger said.

right, on with the work.


As i said yesterday the old ghetto case fits indide the new case giving a bit more room for air flow, cables and supports.


First thing on the joblist was the top of the case, just an exact copy of the bottom, which didnt take anywhere near as long as yesterday while making the jig.


Time to rip open the old 'case', sad as it was to see it go, i was somewhat surprised how well it'd held up to the last year and a bit, not to mention that it was almost bomb proof, took a good few minutes to rip it all appart.


With the part free'd from their cardboard tomb the PSU and CD drive can be put in the new frame to see how they will fit.


The edge of the drive bezel hangs out from the side of the drive leaving a gap between it and the frame. Trimming this would allow the drive to sit square against the frame which will have holes to attach it soon.


I forgot to take a pic of the mezel trimmed down but its not overly interesting . Another central crossmember holds the otherside of the drive up and will fix it in place.


The next major piece to make is the motherboard shelf, essentially the same construction as the top and bottom but with two differences. Because of the location of the holes to mount the motherboard a piece 1 1/2" is needed at the back to support it. Had to modify the jig a bit, but it worked.


This is how the mobo fits onto the completed shelf so that the supports can be marked and fitted (once i buy them).


This is the support itself with 1 1/2" bar at the back and a 1" bar at the front where all the holes are in a straight line.


The shelf fits over the drives and psu although the final height will be slightly more once the brackets to hold the panels in place are attached.


the HD needs to be mounted above the CD drive, originally the HD was going to be attached to four vertical supports connecting the CD drive to the HD via a 3 1/2" ->5 1/4" convertor. Having looked at it, the width i got the metal cut was slightly too short to allow this design. Instead the HD needs to be attached to the motherboard shelf.


The drive is mounted using two 3" pieces of 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" angle beam which the drive is attached to with a couple of screws on each side. This was actually attempt number three at a mount, the first one used two beams attaching to the underside of the drive between the two rails of the mobo shelf and the second was basically a mistake in the deisng of this one using the wrong holes. (d'oh)


The drive attaches to the front crossmember with two bolts above the CD drive.




Instead of using a nut between the drive and bracket, the bracket is threaded to accept the M4 bolt. This makes everything much neater and i may well build the whole case this way when/if i make a new desktop using this design.



The shelf is pretty much complete now besides the 5 mounts for the motherboard itself which shouldnt take too long.





A Quick mock up of the case shows roughly how it should look eventually and what kind of size it'll be, not too bad so far.

 

Looks good so far! (And will be even better once finished )

I have a board similar to yours (Celeron 500/MSI MS-6178M --> OEM version) and that one really sucks when it comes to playing music. I don't know what I make wrong, but it's always at 90%-100% CPU-usage I'm suspecting the sound-chip to not work properly. I have to investigate this...

Is that NIC a Realtec? If yes, you will have much "fun" using it as it eats CPU-time and RAM if you have more than two connections open. I made this experience with a Pentium II 350 machine and 128MB RAM: it was dead slow. Once I replaced the Realtec with a 3Com-Card everything was fine


Sorry for the slightly off-topic towards the end

 

The board seemed alright when i was using it before, the only thing running was winamp and XP with radmin used to control it over the network. i had a realtek in my main computer for a while a couple of years back (this may even be the same one) and it was alright, hopefully 256MB of ram should solve all the problems i had before.

 

I really like what you've done

The layout you've used is identical to that of my original design for my MP3 box, but I've since changed it to make it a little more compact by removing the optical drive and replacing the ATX PSU with a mini HTPC number.

Looking forward to see what you do with this, keep up the great work

 

will be interesting to see how this turns out

 

Quite wonderful the things you do Phat, keep it up!!

 

Finally got round to some more work on this (i remember somewhere this only taking a couple of weeks...)
Firstly the periodic work thats happened when ive not had a camera to hand.

The side of the case were trimmed on the table saw which works remarkable well given the thickness of the alu going in small steps taking a little at a time.


The only other work done before today was the mobo mounting on the shelf which i didnt have a camera handy while i did it.


Irritatingly maplin dont have the plastic stand offs anymore (at least not at my local one) so i had to sue the metal ones and hope they're were in the right place


The top, bottom and sides are drilled and the frame tapped for the same M4 bolt as before.



Each side has four bolts holding it in place and are countersunk.


With the top fastened in place the hole for the intake was cut, which took frankly ages to get through and resulted in a quick hosing down in the back garden to get handle it.


The thicker material actually gave a nicer finish than the thinner, softer material so the panel needed very little other work.


The hole sits just off centre from the heatsink which should give a reasonable airflow over the other mobo bits, the cpu and to the psu.


The (almost) finished top and bottom sections


The sides of the case join in the same way and give a good ide aof how the case should look.



With the sides in place the top can be put on to see how everything fits together before its all bolted down.


The PSU and mobo fit well inside although theres loads of room above the mobo.


The side will be cut down another inch or so as i'm going to use the same fan for the intake as ive used on Serverama, which are half thickness so by the size of the 1" fan in there theres a sizzeable chunck can come off.

 

This is coming along nicely, i cant wait to see how oyu do the curves that were on the cardboard mockup.

 

Great stuff as usual, really like the layout. What finish you going with on the alu?

 

That was just on the cardboard version for its location, this one doesnt really need them, although i may do something similar.

Not sure of that yet, might brush it and seal it or test the finish i'm planning for Serverama which is either a proper airgun/compressor and car paint or some halfords type car spray can stuff.

Got the fan fitted today, need to sort out some kind of grill for it, not sure what to use atm, might just sue the same mesh ive used elsewhere.


Ive 'borrowed' one of the slim fans from the mobo tray of Serverama, just needs attaching to the top of the case.


The only way to hold the fan in place was with a 3" G clamp, something i bought years ago and have since forgotten why, handy now though






Previously the fan was well over an inch above the HS, somewhat excessive.


With the sides cut down the fan now sits between an 1/8" and 1/4" above the HS, more than enough to operate.


With the fan in and the sides cut down, the rest of the frame can be installed to match.




Should have more done in a few days, the rest of the frame will be done and the front and back need doing next.

 

I like it. Really good job so far. How are you planning to make the round corners in the front?

 

I'm not atm, i may do but cant see it being a problem, the only reason it was done on the original was to stop the hot air being blown across the table/counter when it was in use, instead it was blown to the side and off the edge. Cant see a reason for it now, but as i said, i might still put this in.

 

IMO i thought that the curved front made it look more like a jukebox:

Instead of just a alu box. Its something to consider, although i cant figure out how you would even make the curve out of the alu... maybe roll it?

But i dont think your going for the nostalgic jukebox look, just a functional piece of machinery.