what will become my media center

[Maverike-prime]

Greetings all. I've recently what I consider to be my first real case mod. The mod it self will be in two stages. One is a conversion stage, and two is the construction stage. Here's what I'm doing:

1) Taking a Tower case and converting it into a Desktop case (Just for clearification, I mean I'm taking a standing tower [tall] and rearanging a few components so that the case will be lay down case [low and wide])

2) Creating an Acryllic Shell for the newly converted Desktop case so that it will nice when put with the other AV/Stereo equipment.

Thats the over all plan. Fairly simple I guess.

[Maverike-prime]

Greetings once more, I have compleated the first section of my project and finished converting the case. I do not have pics yet, but I should be able to shoot some later week and I'll post. But here's the worklog for the case:

The biggest thing I needed to do with this case was to change the orientation of the 5 1/4" bays so that the DVD drive I install will sit parallel to the length of the case as opposed to perpendicular. I did this so that when I lay the case down on it's side (What will become the bottem) the DVD drive is in fact horizontal.
While I'm aware most DVD drives are fully capable of working will standing on their side I had other reasons to do this. The biggest being my parents. The finished system will be in my parents living room and my mother is somewhat technophobic. It's taken me 4 years just to get her to use the DVD player. So I wanted to make the case have some resemblense to something she already uses.
In order to mount the drive 90 degrees counter wise relative to how it would originally be I needed to change the mounting rails. Upon inspection of the case I intended to cannabalize for this project I found the mounting cages to be literally part of the super structure of the case (FYI never buy the $20 case unless you intend to strip it down). So I couldn't just remove the cage and turn it. So instead I opted to take a second case and mount it's 5 1/4" bay cage inside the first cases cage. I would loose a bay slot, but it's of little consequence since the finished system is only going to have 1 optical drive anyway.
So I aquired a second case from a friend and removed the cage. I then cut the bottem out of the cage and using screws suspending the two peices of mounting cage inside the mounting cage of the first case.
That's pretty much all there was to it. I'll post pics as soon as I can.

Comments and feedback always welcome.

[AJ@PR]

Sounds good!

any pictures possible?

What software will you run?
Windows?
Linux? MythTV?

[Maverike-prime]

Like I said, I'll get pictures up probably later this week.

I'm just gonna go the easy, and lazy route and run Windows MC 2005 on it. Probably use the ATI All in wonder 2006 edition card for the actual video interface.

[Maverike-prime]

Has promised, here's the images of my case work:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a316/maverike_prime/case-001-1.jpg
Here's the case stripped of the bezel, the side panels and all the wiring. It's a basic little $20-30 case I got at work by fishing it out of the garbage.

Here is the case with the modified bay:
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a316/maverike_prime/case-02-01.jpg
Notice the bay is three bays tall as opposed to the 4 bays long it was. I look an additional bay to mounting screws so I'm left with 2 full 5 1/4 bays. Not a huge problem since the finished system's only gonna have 1 dvd drive.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a316/maverike_prime/case-02-02.jpg
Here you can see the nuts and bolts I used to re-attach the mounting cages following the mods.

From here, the next step is to messure up the acryllic for the case. I'm built the power switch into the 3 1/2 inch bays in the middle of the case, so that the power switch will be right in the middle of the case when compleated.

[tybrenis]

Looking good, can't wait to see what you do with the acrylic!

[simon275]

Good to see a media center mod. :up:

By the way nice wallpaper.

[Maverike-prime]

Good to see a media center mod. :up:

By the way nice wallpaper.

:lick: it's my mother's work room

[Maverike-prime]

hey all, Just wanted to say thanks for all the help and I thought you all might wanna see the post in my blog about my computer modding efforts thus far.
http://maverike-prime.blogspot.com/2006/12/not-warhammer-related.html#links

[simon275]

hey all, Just wanted to say thanks for all the help and I thought you all might wanna see the post in my blog about my computer modding efforts thus far.
http://maverike-prime.blogspot.com/2006/12/not-warhammer-related.html#links

I was looking at your blog you are a warhammer 40k player nice. I play Grey Knights. Well I havent played a game in yonks but meh.

[Maverike-prime]

Well, I picked up the video card for my media center today. I'm going semi-low end cause I don't need massive graphics power for this puppy. So I'm going to slap in an ATI 2006.

[Maverike-prime]

:dead: :dead: :dead: :dead: :dead: Well some bad news, I was installing Windows media center on a secondary drive on my main system with the intention of installing the hard drive in my media center. Well there was virus on my computer that shut down the install mid-way. The aborted install did a real nice job fragging my Hard ware registry. IN short, heres what my main system was doing before the aborted install:

registering all 4 hard drives
Registering my Media Card Reader
Registering my Media Capture hard ware
Register that I have an ATI x800 XT Card
Connecting to my home network

Here's what it's doing now:
Registering 2 hard drives
Registering "Generic AGP Video"

So my updates are going to be a bit few and far between for the moment, not to mention lack luster as I am unable to obtain pics of project.

However, that does not mean I do not have an update. I was working on some of my case this past week (Thank you for the holiday:banana: :bunny: )
and I built the mounting plate for the Power and Reset switch. Due to lack of photo graphic ability I'll try to describe the peice.

I actually cut out the mounting braking for the power switch from the front bezel of the case I'm using in order to mount the power switch (Why do more work if I don't have to right?) and shaved it down so that it was 1/8" shallower then when he was part of the bezel. I then cut the hole for the power switch, I started with a 1/32 drill bit and worked my way up to the 3/4" bit to accomidate the switch.
I then drilled out the 3/8" hole for the reset switch.
I then cut out the peice of acryllic using a Band saw.
I then used Weld-on to afix the mounting cup to the back of the plate for the power switch.
I cut two shafts of Sprue tree from some war hammer models and used Weld-on to afix them to the back of the plate to mount the reset switch.
THe power switch just snapes right in nothing more needed.
The reset switch needed to glued in place and I did that using hot glue.

[Maverike-prime]

Well, good news bad news.
Good news; the media center is built.
Bad news: I neglected to messure the cabinet height to confirm it would allow my modified case to fit. Short of a long, it wouldn't fit! (Yes I missed that bit when I started)
Thankfully I had a back up plan. I took my old Antec Lanboy case, painted it black and did a few details in silver and rebuilt the system in that case. It won't fit in the shelving of the stand, but I can put the system next to the shelves and it won't be this glaring silver tower.
So, here it is my first Case mod. Total tools used: 2. 1 can of Black paint, 1 Marker of silver paint :dead: .

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a316/maverike_prime/DSCN3103.jpg