Ok I need a portable computer that I can take with me and have everything ready to go when I get to my destination. I would like to be able to fly with it or ship it so it will have to be rugged to survive handling. I have a ammo box that I ordered when zap ordered his but this has turned its self in to a handy tool box and the gun powder smell is still there after 3 months so I don’t think I will be able to travel with it. I found this case at all electronics and its inside dimensions looked big enough to hold a full ATX board so why not. This is what I am looking for It will have a built in display so there is no need for hauling a monitor with it. Specs AMD Athlon 1666Mhz or XP2000+ Asus A7n8x-x Power color Radeon 9200SE 256Mb DDR 40GB Seagate This case With foam With out foam The board The Mother board tray is made from .25" plexi with bolts run through it for stand offs. I did run out of nuts last night and I am 2 short but that will be no problem, as I will run to Radio Shack tonight to get some. The 1666 Everything put together Testing No 1666Mhz displayed =( Questions Comments are welcomed. I have not proper name for this project.
Very interesting idea, i do like these rugged looking ammo PC's and would love to build one (being a poor student sux). You thought of mounting the keyboard in there too or is it too big?
pranks7er, if I didn't know better I'd think you were spamming... 486hawk: It's good to see someone go a bit against the flow. Fitting a full ATX motherboard in a portable case... I think this might turn into one helluva cool project, I'm staying tuned!
Its not on the carpet its has a .25" piece of plexi bolted to it That’s what I am after here. To build it so the not even UPS could break it. I had thought of keeping a keyboard inside the case but the keyboard I have is the same length as the outside of the case so it won’t fit in. =( Thanks!
well 486 you might consider getting one of those fold up type keyboards and fitting it into the case so that this way when you open the case you have the lcd display on one side and then on the other side it has the keyboard with all the parts underneath it, or maybe conside making a new housing for the keyboard so it fits, i just think it would be really cool to have the keyboard mounted inside the case with the rest of the PC. Also when i think of this i think of those suitcases that the gov't has for the president to launch nukes while hes mobile (seen in movies of course). Maybe you could build a name off that
I might get one of those role-up keyboards for normal use but I would not use one for games. as for the name i’m probably going to let my fiancé name it as she can think up of really cool sounding names from her Greek class as in this.
May I recommend one of the Zippy Mini-EL Keyboards, or are you all for full size? Anyway, I really like the idea of this. I have a trunk [ yes, trunk, like foot of the bed truck ] that I wanted to fit with a flat panel in the roof [ on the inside ] and both my mac and pc inside as well. Unfortunately, it's awfully constructed and the project has been scrapped, so do the idea in my head proud!
looking very interesting and that case is killer! i saw it on allelectronics the other day as well and thought it would make a killer mod! well good luck with it... i also like the keeping ATX and none of the SFF boards in this... thats wut im doing with my HTPC cuz... as much as i am for modding i always have performance in mind anyway looks really kool and to go along with the theme i was thinking you could use one of those palm keyboards (im not sure if this was what some1 else meant or not) but you could keep it external so your hands dont hurt after a minute of use and it would look sweet... something like this you can get these easy adapters for em good luck man
There are a few of those mini keyboards around the lab for our scopes, in my opinion they’re a bit small. I prefer a full sized keyboard. That fold up keyboard is cool but it looks laptopish. Anyways the keyboard I have is a spar that only cost me about $3 new. I don’t have the flat panel yet (stupid out of stock status on new egg) so I have no idea how it will be attach to the lid, how it needs power, or its actual size. Last night I got around to trying to attach the motherboard plate to the back of the case. Unlike my router the motherboard in this case needs to be mounted more securely. Where the extendable handle is enclosed looks like a good place to mount this. But the height of where the plate will rest and where I can attach was about 1" from each other and the longest bolts I have are .75" so I need a plate in-between. A scrap piece of plexi from a miscut looked just the right width to fit between the bolts that hold the handle to the back of the case. With this cut to length I marked where I wanted the holes to be. I drilled the holes for the motherboard plate and the middle plate first bolting them together as I went along so that the holes would line up. I did the same thing with the holes for the handle and mid plate. After I had put the handle back in and mounted the mid plate I realized that I flipped the mid plate when drilling the holes for the handle so the holes for the motherboard plate and the mid plate did not line up. After remarking the holes on the mother board plate, the mid plate matched up perfectly with the handle, I redrilled the holes going back several times to make the holes bigger for the bolts. When I tried to put everything together I noticed that the mid plate would get pushed back so that the bolts would not reach the motherboard plate. I had to add a few more nuts to both sides of the plate to keep it from being pushed back, so what I have now looks like this. The tops of the bolts holding the motherboard plate look a little high so I stopped there for the night. I will be going back and placing washers between the plexi and the nuts and that should increase the clearance between the motherboard and any metal parts. If it does not I will add another nut on the standoffs so the motherboard sits higher. The power supply will rest along the bottom between the wheels. I should be able to place some bolts for the power supply in the wheel mounts. There are higher res pics everything here.
Cool, it's going to be like one of those ancient "laptops", only with the specs of today! Zap's your friend? Make him do some crazy circuits and etch an image into the case for you
Ancient laptop? I intend to be able to take this thing on trips with me so I don’t want to make too many modifications to the outside of the case. The case meets ATA guidelines and I don’t want to mess it up. As for zap I will get him to cut pieces that I need high detail on...
edit: I think I fixed it. If this does not work this should. http://www.asdffdsa.net/thehawk/pics/pc/ I did get a chance to add washers to most of the bolts and tightening up everything. I also added another layer of nuts to the stand offs on the motherboard plate and mounted it.
still can't see the pics, nor the website - wierd (sorry for hijacking the thread) anyone else had difficulty?
