Zap, Yeah, your wood choice is a little complex. However, have you thought about seeing if you can reshape an entire new cover? That piece from your mouse isn't that big and looks to be (when laying flat) a curve of not more than a couple inches high...you could probably sculpt it out of a piece of scrap from your 2" board. The beauty of wood is it's able to be shaved, trimmed, and cut...a dremel, a chisel, some sandpaper, and some patience would give you a beautiful result to replace that plastic cover with. Why work on covering something that you can just replace entirely? We don't attach our waterblocks to an air-cooler HSF assembly...
An option you might try is using many thin strips of veneer, and then sand it down a bit to smooth the edges.
Tried that. Da Dego that is an option, I will probably try. But it's going to be the last thing I do probably. The renderings have been updated: The difference is the Antenna sticking out the back. That is the antenna that came with my Linksys WIFI NIC. I have a shorter one if it bothers me too much. It looks even more like a retro radio then before. Mr. Red challanged to add a dial and go the whole way. It's possible to keep totaly modern and add a solid state Ipod-style dial. Qprox makes a chip that does it. But I want to keep my symetrical faceplate. /Edit: More updates: The case will have two polished brass hinges at the front bottom. It will allow me to open the PC from the back.
What if you used copper tubing for the watercooling? It would look very good with the color of the wood and you will be able to bend it around the video card with no problems. The only tough part would be working with the components and installing components after the tubing is in place.
I think I mentioned that. I do plan on having polished copper, and I already have the copper and pipe-bender. It's an add-on however. The taps I have can work with either copper or plastic tubing.
Very nice, zap. I like it a lot. The QWheel may unbalance the front, but honestly I think it would look very nice. Would take it a step more towards a modern beauty than just an old radio. Or perhaps you could come up with a reason to have 2 of them? Maybe replace some of the front buttons with a wheel on the side or something?
I did a lot of research on the QWheel last night. It uses a SPI serial interface, their evaluation board comes with a SPI to USB adapter, which I would have to build from scratch also, as I can't find a resonably priced stand alone adapter. The Matrix Orbital display in fact has a Dallas-1-Wire Serial interface, but Maxim only sells 1-wire to I2C interfaces, not SPI, otherwise I could wire it through that. Then again it may be worth just buying the reference design kit, and using it as is, the software shouldn't be too hard to write to control at least volume the PC. My only grip about the reference design is the wheel is quite small (Ipod sized) I would rather have a large looking dial to fit the retro look. http://forums.bit-tech.net/showpost.php?p=873976&postcount=45
i just love your work zap. its creative,clean and just great. lile the idea of a jogwheel in the front. i think with the right pleasment it would look great on the front. when do you start building? and if you allready started when do you gone have a project log?
zap: about the qwheel thingie - does it require a finger, like an alps touchpad, or could you somehow surface mount a big 'ol stereo type tuner wheel to the facia, with the qwheel behind it - and have something, say a teflon taped pencil eraser that actually actuated the touchwheel. i noticed that it can be set to read thru up to 3mm of panel, including glass. just an idea ...
As far as I understand, it needs to be your finger...it is set off by a capacitance change that is passed through the plexi.
I have started a lot of the modding, with a project log to follow. (People get teste when you post plans, with a little modding ) It seems the vote is for a wheel, and I will see what I can do in a rendering to make it look good. Well the front will be seemless (No indentations or holes beside DVD) like Version 1.0, and the QWheel can do that. 3mm is pretty tight, especialy with a curve on the surface so I may not be able to do the wheel in the end, but I will work on some renderings right now to see how it may look.
Crap I'm blind. I would prefer the copper look especially if you gave it a dark petina look. It would look good with the dark grain of the wood. If you want to see how petinaed copper check out my website. Www.rogelioyanez.com go to fine art and then metals. You will see a globe necklace with a dark petina.
That is nice, but I think I want a shiny polished look. Your in town so I may hunt you down if I change my mind -------- On the QWheel, I am confused, and mabye rusty on my serial protocols. Does SPI directly interface to RS232? Because the same brand of IC that Qwheel use's in their evaluation board is mounted to the back of my USB LCD from Matrix Orbital. And that company only makes USB to Serial chips, I can't find SPI anywhere on their website.
So just a knob with a pencil eraser would work to make the qwheel function? I thought it worked differently....then again, I'm not any electronics guru. Anyhow, looking forward to seeing the wheel designs. Yeah, the SPI to USB would be a big PITA, but I don't know how just an ipod wheel would look on the front of the case, either, so I understand the dilemma. I'll have to see what you come up with in renderings. And people get testy in project logs? Naaaawwwwwwww...
Ok I have the dial faceplate designed. The dial will still be solid state, if you have used an iPod, you know what I mean. But I need your vote.... No dial 8cm Dial 7cm Dial /Edit a fourth option: Wood dial: Another reason I am liking this design is that it opens up more room inside by moving the DVD and LCD. I could fit two harddrives if needed. In order for a asymetrical faceplate the DVD has to be mounted left of the graphics card. There is no other position it can be besides top center. The cuts in the dial are what the PCB under the plexi will look like. The edges and center of the plexi will be lit. /Edit: 80mm lines up with top edges of buttons and LCD 70mm lines up with middle of buttons and LCD. I like the 80mm dial best myself, more like the older radios.
80mm dial it lines up with the top (dvd) and bottom (buttons?) and makes the design look more unified and complete in my opinion.
