|  | 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" |
|  | | | 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" Full alphabetical archive on right hand side of page... |
| |
|
The "BlueBox"
By Mathieu
Poignant - Posted on July 25, 2002
Introduction
No - this new project will not get you
free
phonecalls, and it's not made by Cap'n Crunch, it's Mathieu
Poignant's new mini-ITX based project. Like everybody else
on these pages Mathieu (or rather his girlfriend) wants his
new mini-ITX PC to look like ANYTHING but a PC. What does
a man in Gay Paree use to house his gleaming new media-pc?
A neat looking flightcase - and the finished product looks
stupéfier. Faites-le vous-même!
You can contact Mathieu
here
and us at feedback@mini-itx.com.
Do you have a Mini-ITX based project we should be seeing here?
Contents
- The Components
- Modifying
the Box
- Mounting
the Fan and Hard Disk
- Mounting
the Motherboard and Power Supply
- The BlueBox
in Action
1.
The Components
I discovered the VIA Mini-ITX boards in the
beginning of July 2002. In fact, I was looking for a way to
add a new hard disk, but I had no spare IDE channels. So I
had two options: buy an IDE controller card, or a brand new
PC. As the EPIA is cheaper than an IDE controller, the choice
was quickly made. But there was no case available to put this
little diamond in. As my girlfriend didn't accept the "drawer
way" ("What, you want to set the flat on fire?")
I had to make a case on my own - so the "BlueBox"
was born.
Nothing flash, just a plain working Linux
file server, cool (25/30°C) and silent (no more than 20 dB).
The main component is of course the Motherboard,
a VIA EPIA C3-800Mhz:
On the top right, you can see the home-made
switch and LEDs. The LEDs come from a trashed Dell case (not
mine !), and I bought the switch. The connector is an old
IDE cable I've dremelized to fit with the motherboard pins.
And on the bottom right, you can see the screws I used, with
grooves for spacing the board from the edge of the box.
Next comes the Hard Disk - a Seagate 80GB,
silent and cheap:
On the pictures, you can see the screws I used to space the
disk from the edge of the box. These screws are generally used
to fix Motherboards to standard cases.
The Power Supply is a 250W 1U Enermax, which
is very expensive (in fact, as expensive as the Motherboard).
But it fits inside the lid of the box, so...
As with everything inside the BlueBox, it is
fixed using screws.
Last, but not least, the Fan I used to cool
the box - a NoiseBlocker S2:
On the picture, you can see the 80mm grill,
the wonderful Fan, and a 12V to 7V adapter, provided with the
Fan. At 7V, the Fan produces only 11dB :-).
|
|