|  | 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 "Gumball PC"
Introduction
Our I.T. Guru came into my office the other day and said, "Hey, check this out!" as he commandeered my PC and brought up Mini-ITX.com. After viewing a number of the projects, he suggested that I needed to build something to submit. I suggested that he do it instead. Then, he pointed out that I'm the one with too much time on my hands. Since he was right, I started thinking about what could I build that hasn't been done. As I was staring out my office window, an idea hit me. I have three gumball vending machines on the windowsill and the "Skittles" machine sales have not done well. (I collect gumball machines of various vintages and clean them up for display, and the occasional candy fix.) Now that I had a start, I began a list of the components I would need. At the time, all I had was a Gumball machine, a spare 10 Gb Western Digital hard drive and the usual stuff everyone has in the "I-can't-throw-this-away-I-might-need-it-later" spare parts box. So, the list was easy to complete, I needed everything.
I took the Gumball machine home, got online and started shopping. But, where to start. In the background one of those William Shatner/Leonard Nimoy commercials was on the TV. I heard Shatner's voice and heard "Captain Kirk" saying, "Power Scotty! I need power!" OK! Let's start with a power supply. My choice was based more upon dimensions than output. I found a 250W supply that was 5" deep x 3" wide x 2.5" high. Next, I had to "Put it on the viewer, Lt. Uhura." A nice 17" flat-panel LCD would be great. I haven't heard of "Rosewill" monitors, but the price was right. And, since I was boldly going where I haven't gone before, nothing short of a cordless keyboard and optical mouse would do. (Ok, Ok. No more "Star Trek".) The "Logitech" Cordless MX Duo fit the bill perfectly. Oh Yeah! And, the thing that started this in the first place, the MII-10000 Nehemiah 1Ghz. Within a few days, everything was delivered. Now all I have to do is put it together. The easy part, right?
Construction
First, the case. This is a "Northwestern" vending machine from the front...
From the back...
And, from the top.
The Nehemiah 1Ghz with 1Gb RAM.
The smallest power supply I could find was still too deep to fit entirely inside the case. Using my Dremel with a metal-cutting disk, I cut out an opening that would allow the power supply to expose a little over an inch outside the case. Cleaned up the sharp edges with a grindstone.
Next, I had to fabricate a mounting device for the power supply. I made a template from posterboard. I added an extra inch to the middle of the bottom in order to make a "Z" fold. This "Z" fold creates strength by adding two additional layers of material across the one-inch fold. Then, I traced the template on some tin, used tin-snips to cut it out and folded it into shape.
The mounting bracket complete, holes were drilled to attach the power supply.
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