You've all seen them. The ugly purple cable that comes with ATI's AIW cards. Not only is it purple, but it's huge. That thing is like 12 oz. of solid rubber. Anyway, I've got more than evough garbage on my desk. I can't have anything else getting in the way of my case of empty pop cans, and overflowing ashtray. Here's the solution. It's a stock drive bay 3 1/2 drive bay cover. The center area where the actual plugs are is recessed the thickness of the plastic. They are mounted to a small piece of black plexi. The whole thing is kinda funny. The ATI thing is big. About the same height as a 3 1/2 cover, but too big to fit inside one. I cut a piece of a clear cd to the exact size of the inside of the cover. Marked center on it, marked center of the plugs on the ATI box. Next I had to cut the ATI box down to fit inside the back of the cover. Funny part #1 This was really fun. Sanding drum on a dremel. Took the entire front lip off of it, then took the height down about 1/4" to fit in. I had a pile of rubber dust on the floor. Kinda funny part #2 Next I made a template of the plug locations from the CD piece. Lined it up with my black plexi and made the holes. Next cut the hole in the cover. It's all pretty basic, no rocket science here. BUT it was about 5 below F, not C. and there was no way I was digging through the garage to find drill bits that would be the exact size I needed. I used a conicle dremel grinding wheel for EVERYTHING exept the straight cuts on the cover. Funny part #3 There'e no glue, or fasteners holding any of it together. I did a couple small test areas that worked really well, so I "welded" the entire thing together with a butane soldering iron, and a flat tip on low heat. Definitely Ghetto modding at it's finest. It's hard to tell from the pictures because of the glares, dust etc but it looks factory. You can't see the purple around the holes except with the camera flash. There's nust enough room around them for the RCAs to plug all the way in. Here's the inside Just the cover clips holding it in, and it's plenty secure enough. I've already done some video capture, and pulled cables out without it budging.
Good idea , I think I'll have to give something similar a try with my AIW, maybe get a spare off of Ebay or something and tinker with it.
