New project (first actually)

[Drew]

Looks like it'll take travelling a bit better like that.

+rep for keeping going with SketchUp. I gave up.

I suck

[Bucko]

If it's foldable like that, where will you route the wires to the speakers? If they are external wires, they will eventually break from the bending.

It will take a long time though. Think about wires going into a car door, they last and last and last, plus I bet a drivers door will get more use than this ever will.

[xmastree]

Plus, you lose all the space behind the speakers, they won't work so well in those small enclosures. The wires will break from all the bending, and the whole thing is generally weaker.

[Nagoshi]

I dont think your current fan placements will do anything... since both of them are located on the upper side of the box and your motherboard is on the bottom, it won't get much air. Maybe you could, like, place both of your fans on the top, and make a funnel with the one blowing air in, that will be directed to the motherboard... cooling the CPU and crucial mobo components at the same time. And the other fan would draw the air from the case outside, don't need a funnel for that one.

And underclocking the CPU would be a nice thing to do, since you don't really need speed for listening to MP3 and it would kill any kind of heat produced by the motherboard if you reduce the CPU voltage too.

If you don't mind losing some performance from your fan, you could use a screening tissue to block any dust entering the case from the fans. It will interfere with the air flow, but if you can keep the case cool (or if you can use more than 2 fans actually, or bigger and more powerful fans) it could be a solution. Screening could also be used everywhere where there might be a hole between the exterior and the interior of the case.

Finally, you could use a CD drive stealthing strategy, like hiding it behind a flipping panel to reduce contact with the outside, and with of course a small button to still allow to use it. If I have the time, Ill get a picture of those that came with my new computer.

[john_smith_scot]

Ok guys think that we are getting there now...

The speaker wires will go from the front right on the left speaker and front left on the right speaker, there will be holes drilled in the front with rubber seals to protect them, the cables themselves will be insulated with heat shrink tubing (queue the hair drier) these cables will then feed into two identical holes in the front board and then up to the amp internally.

The CD and USB port will be moved to the front of the unit (probably to the right hand side of the lcd.

The positioning of the carry handle will be moved to reflect the new centre of gravity from the case redesign.

Regarding the fan placement and heat issue, I don't want to place the fans any lower as this may suck in more sand, the mobo and proc that are being used are using a passive cooling system and are both low power devices (they were scavenged from a shuttle pc) so cooling shouldn't be too much of an issue, there is a lot of open space in the box and heat rises.

Think this is almost ready to get the boards cut....

[Indybird]

Hey I really like where this mod is going, ill try and stay updated!

EDIT: where can I get the picture of the car on your screen?

[john_smith_scot]

sorry no idea about the car on the screen, it was part of a model for an lcd that was in the sketchup 3d warehouse. But the res was quite low there.

[Bucko]

Just looking at your design, that is still a lot of empty box to be carrying around.
If you mounted the motherboard vertically, you could make the box smaller, needing it only as wide as the amp or power supply. The CD player could go in the side to ensure it fits.
By having the motherboard vertically, cooling fans could be mounted to actually get some airflow across it.

So it would be shaped more like this:

[john_smith_scot]

You are right about the less space thing, but the two amps are going to generate a lot of heat, hence I think the bigger space will allow it to disapate better.

[Nagoshi]

then you are going to need the two 120mm fans in the box...