|  | 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" 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" 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" June 17, 2004
Jukebox ITX May 24, 2004
The "ERN005PC" (KANA) March 13, 2004
The "Underwood No. 5" February 04, 2004
The "Humidor CL" Full alphabetical archive on right hand side of page... |
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The "Frame"
Introduction
As with most people interested in PC construction, I have been putting together computers for many many years and was always depressed by the ugliness of the boxes available. The choice of "container" for your PC ranged from the medium box to the big box, only expanded recently with the small box. All these are boxes, and usually beige.
So as soon as small motherboards and importantly small PSUs became affordable I began to think about what I could do to hide a computer and perhaps turn it into an object that was unusual. I also wanted (and this is very very important for us married types) to get a PC into the living room, an area out of bounds to PCs due to my wife’s exclusion policy for the room. The Frame was born.
The "Frame" sits almost silent by our fire side (fire never used!) and is accessed remotely over the wireless network connection. The "Frame" is used as a file server, providing Video and Audio files out to other computers in the house. It is, however, still possible to connect the usual monitor/keyboard/mouse/speakers etc.
Parts List
The project needed a small motherboard, small PSU and small HD. The following components were assembled:
• EPIA V10000 motherboard, 128MB RAM
• PW-200V PSU / EPIA-80W-Brick
• Maxtor 120GB HDD
• 54Mb Wireless USB LAN card
• Blue Sound activated Electro Luminescent (EL) string
• Blue Lazer LEDs
• Large picture frame (from a craft shop)
• Sheet of polycarbonate (scrap bin)
Measuring up and mounting
I picked a frame that would fit all the components, arranged to produce the lowest profile possible then mounted these to a sheet of polycarbonate cut such that it will mount onto the back of the picture frame’s box sides.
The frame’s surround, made of wood, was cut to accept the motherboard’s utilities and painted black.
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