|  | 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 "ToAsTOr"
By Joe
Klingler - Posted on December 2, 2002
Introduction
I wanted to make a small
quiet computer for use as an MP3 server, DVD player, surfing,
and occasional gaming. I also wanted it to be small enough
to fit in a bag so that I could take it to friend's houses
or to work. When I set out to build this bread and butter
computer ;-) I found the Mini-ITX form factor motherboards.
I wanted to build something unique. I thought I would go to
the antique stores and find something cool to rebuild as a
computer. I wanted something built out of metal for RFI and
EMI shielding.
I thought that a toaster would be cool and
have the DVD/CDRW open out of the toast slot. The problem
is that all of the toasters were too small to use a full size
hard drive, video card, LCD, etc... Then I found a large toaster
(1960 General Electric) with a sizeable crumb tray/warmer.
This monster toaster used 1200 watts! So, I had to open a
business account to buy the EPIA motherboard at the only place
in Atlanta that has them. I then took it to the antique store
to determine if it would fit. It would fit but only if the
mobo was about an inch off the crumb tray. When I went to
purchase the toaster the salesman mentioned something about
whether or not it worked. I told him that it did not matter
I was going to toss the inner workings and make something
crazy. I pulled out the motherboard and he said, "You
are going to make it into a robot?" I snickered and said,
"no, only a computer!" I have skills, but damn -
a robot? :-) I never tried it to see if it still worked as
a toaster.
Editors note: This is not the only "ToasterPC".
The first EPIA
based one was probably here...
The "ToAsTOr"
This is what the toaster looked like before
I started.
This shows the mailbox mounting straps I used
to strengthen the cdrw/dvd bracket. Also, The two fans are
blowing up directly above the two blue vents to suck in some
cool air and blow it out the toast slot. You can see the mounting
of the cold cathode and the LCD screen.
The narrow gap between the harddrive and the
cdrw/dvd is about 1/4 inch at one edge. The brackets that
are visible from the outside are covered in auto trim blackout
tape.
You can see the cold cathode light and the
edge of one of the fans blowing air up toward the toast slot.
The cold cathode and the transformer that
is mounted on top of a floppy blank to insure it never touches
the metal walls.
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