| | 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... |
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"The Log Cabin PC"
By Greg Sowell - Posted on March 3, 2003
This next section is all about wiring up the various parts of the cabin. I purchased a Chieftec wireless mouse and keyboard set. (Schweet bluuuuue color!) The receiver is built into the front of the cabin. I removed the factory antenna and used a larger piece of wire to replace it. The new antenna is the blue wire running around the perimeter of the cabin. I went to the shack (Radio Shack) to try and find some plugs that would fit onto the Motherboard pins for HD light, power light, etc., but they told me they just don't sell anything like that. The little hamster inside my head started running. I ended up using the audio cable that runs from the CD-Rom drive to the analog-in on a sound card to wire into the Motherboard pins. I hooked up the power button, HD, and power this way. Also, the Epia M series Motherboard has one RCA type connecter on the Motherboard. Using a jumper you can select whether this RCA will be analog video-out or digital audio out. I wanted the ability to EASILY select between the two. As I'm sure you can tell everything fits inside the cabin pretty tight, so there was no way I could get my hands in there. What I did to remedy this was to take the shunt off of the jumpers and throw it away. I took one of the aforementioned audio cables and cut it in half. I wired it to a DPDT (Double Pole Double Throw) switch. I then stuck the audio cables on the jumpers. Now I can select between audio and video without having to open the case! The PSU power connecter had to be extended so that it could be mounted on top of the DVD drive. I simply soldered some extensions to it.
HD on right. Wireless receiver bottom
Homemade jumper switch
Kristi doing it up
Front right
Opposite side
It's ALIVE!
Power button
Ohhh yeeaaaah, that's bio-dome
HD light flickering
Window in the dark
See the funnel under the chimney
Log Cabin PC - The Movie
"The movie contains picture out-takes, and well, of course video of the PC in action. Music by Dread Zeppelin in this movie. Maybe some of you remember, the song, and or Dread Zeppelin, or maybe not. You'll need to save the movie to your Computer - it is zipped, 53 seconds run time, and is about 1.5 megabytes in Windows Media Format." ~David
Log Cabin PC Movie
Conclusion
In conclusion, I would have to say that this project was pretty fun. I think I learn something new with every build. Whether that is: hard work pays off, take your time and do it right, or hot-glue has hot in its name for a reason. This baby runs like a top! I also watched a few movies on it...purely for testing purposes. The Mini-ITX form factor integrates into the home multimedia environment seamlessly. The ability to build a small system, add it to your home theater with digital audio and not break the bank is just incredible. I tested the digital audio on Luke's home theater system and was blown away. He was a bit shocked to see that I could build this system for half of what he paid for his DVD player! Needless to say, I'm probably going to be building him one soon. Questions, comments, and slander can be directed to me, or take it on in the Forums. Thanks for giving my article a read.
System Specs:
Epia M 9000 mainboard (933 MHz C3, on board video and 5.1 audio)
10 GB Maxtor Hard Drive
1 stick PC2100 256 MB DDR RAM
Pioneer slot load DVD drive
Cheiftec wireless keyboard mouse combo
230 watt PSU (Micro PSU)
Project kindly donated by extensiontech.net
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