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Projects

September 05, 2017
Choosing the right DC-DC PSU

August 27, 2015
AMD's Project Quantum

August 13, 2015
The Redstone PC is the ultimate Mini-ITX Minecraft Machine

October 09, 2014
The "Restomod TV"

April 09, 2013
Installing NAS4Free

February 28, 2013
Building an XBMC 12 Home Theatre PC

January 25, 2011
XBMC Guide updated to version 10.0

August 06, 2010
Building a Green PC

February 15, 2010
Building an ION powered HTPC with XBMC

October 10, 2008
The "Cambridge Autonomous Underwater Vehicle 2008"

Mini-ITX Online Store

September 12, 2008
"Florian", the DVD burning robot

September 05, 2008
The "i-EPIA"

May 22, 2008
The "GTA-PC"

April 14, 2007
The "Digg" Case

January 19, 2007
The "ITX-Laptop"

December 07, 2006
The "Tortoise Beetle"

October 02, 2006
The "DOS Head Unit"

August 31, 2006
The "Janus Project"

August 05, 2006
The "Leela PC"

June 26, 2006
Nano-ITX in a Football

May 17, 2006
The "EPIA Alloy Mod"

April 11, 2006
Neatorama's Collection of Case Mods

February 18, 2006
The "Rundfunker"

October 24, 2005
The "ITX TV"

October 06, 2005
The K'nex-ITX

August 05, 2005
The "Waffle Iron PC"

July 21, 2005
The "Supra-Server"

July 18, 2005
The "Mega-ITX"

July 07, 2005
The "Encyclomedia"

May 25, 2005
The "Accordion ITX"

Mini-ITX Online Store

May 16, 2005
The "FileServerRouterSwitch"

May 15, 2005
The "Mini Falcon"

May 13, 2005
The "Bender PC"

May 11, 2005
The "BBC ITX B"

May 10, 2005
The "Frame"

April 20, 2005
The "Jeannie"

March 09, 2005
The "Cool Cube"

January 30, 2005
First Nano-ITX Project?

January 17, 2005
The "iGrill"

January 15, 2005
The "Gumball PC"

December 15, 2004
The "Deco Box"

December 03, 2004
The "TERA-ITX"

October 06, 2004
The "Coealacanth-PC"

September 17, 2004
The "Gramaphone-ITX-HD"

August 26, 2004
The "C1541 Disk Drive ITX"

August 25, 2004
The "SEGA-ITX"

August 13, 2004
The "Quiet Cubid"

August 06, 2004
The "BMWPC"

July 14, 2004
The "Moo Cow Moo"

July 02, 2004
The "Mini Mesh Box"

Full alphabetical archive on right hand side of page...


"Aunt Hagar's Mini-ITX"
By Greg Sowell - Posted on January 31, 2003

When I was ready to make the lid, I reached for some masking tape ($.50) and a marker. I wrapped the top of the box to protect it from the marker. I then held the pegboard ($3.00 - $4.00) on the top while Kristi traced the shape onto it. The wall thickness on the box is ¼” so at all of the corners I put a dot a quarter inch in. I then traced between the dots and cut the lid out. After dry fitting it I marked where the floppy drive would sit. I went back to the jig saw and cut that out. Kristi then sprayed down the cover with adhesive ($2.00) and wrapped it (wrapping material $5.00 a yard, half yard was plenty). I drilled a hole and mounted the knob ($.50). The screw for the knob was too long so I cut a piece of my Bic pen ($.20) to fill in the gap. Have a look below at the before and after… Nice!


Cut pegboard


Kewl lid :)

Moving on, I sprayed ($1.00) the bezel of the DVD drive black and wrapped that as well. I test fitted the drive on the lid and noticed that the top of the door was hitting the top corners of the drive. I took out the file on my Leatherman and rounded them off. I then touched up the freshly filed corners with some paint.


Filed bezel and lid knob

At this point I soldered the wires to my new switch ($2.00), drilled a hole for it, and mounted it to the box. I then began to mount everything else inside. I had to remove the mounting bracket from the modem, because it was in the way. I once again cut a piece of my Bic pen to use in between the modem and the bottom of the box. I ran a bolt (10 for $1.50) through the modem ($10.00), through the Bic, and out the bottom of the box. Everything else went in and was strapped together.


That's how it all fits

I filled in any divots with wood putty ($1.50) and purchased a stain marker ($2.00) from the hardware store to cover my efforts. I also used the stain marker on the inside of all of my cuts. It really cleaned up the holes nicely.


Finished product


Switch at back right near the bottom


Wow, I need to clean the back!

Conclusion

This project did take me slightly longer than I thought, but I finished it all in one weekend. I hope that maybe this gave you a few ideas for your next project. Be watching for my next Mini-ITX project, because it’s going to be slightly more outlandish! If you weren’t paying attention to all my costs it was around $300.00. Although I did have a lot of extra materials left over. Any questions, comments, or foul language can be directed to me. Thanks for reading, and if you want to see more, then email me! Feedback is greatly desired!

PC Specs for the curious (in case you were wondering what was in there)...

- VIA EPIA 800 motherboard
- 20GB Maxtor 7200 RPM Hard Drive
- Intel PCI 56k Modem
- 2 Sticks generic 256 Meg PC133 memory
- Aopen 16x DVD
- USB Mitisumi Floppy Drive
- Wireless M$ Keyboard and mouse
- Windows 98 SE

Project kindly donated by extensiontech.net



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