Posted on October 24, 2003
Introduction
For those thinking of building a mini-itx project, I've summarised the process below:
1) Come up with a good idea
2) Recognize that the good idea actually sucks
3) Come up with a great idea
4) Spend 3 days surfing the internet for parts
5) Realize Velcro will work better than 90% of those parts
6) Make 10 trips to the hardware store for the wrong size screws, nuts and bolts
7) Burn out the motor on your dremel
8) Repeat steps 1-7 for each portion of the project
I noticed several years ago how much better a party was when you had a massive hard drive full of MP3s to DJ from instead of a pile of badly organized cds. This was no problem when the party was at my house, but what to do when its somewhere else? Moving a whole PC setup across town (or cross-country) was too much trouble. I considered getting a laptop, but they seemed too expensive, have small hard drives, and aren't upgradable. Then I stumbled upon Mini-ITX.com <cue church music>.
I was very impressed with the Lunchbox PC. Compact. Stylish. It didn't look like an insane amount of work. As I shopped around for the right box (Underdog, Hong Kong Phooey, etc) and measured out what I wanted to put inside it, I realized a lunchbox wasn't going to be large enough. Even if I managed to squeeze in a dvd player, I'd still need to carry around something to put the mouse, keyboard, and power cables in.
I spent the next 2 weeks critically examining any object bigger than a lunchbox, but smaller than a PC. Finally, wandering through a thrift store, I found it - a vintage Osh-Kosh vanity case. It was perfect - sturdy construction, plenty of room, portable, retro stylish, and slightly absurd.
The Construction
The lid was begging to have a monitor built into it. Not wanting to spend a fortune, I was about to buy a crummy 5" playstation monitor when I came across this 10.5" LCD for $100, which fit the lid precisely. As an interesting bonus, the monitor is powered from its own pci card -saving me the trouble of another wiring connection.
I stripped the LCD panel out of its casing and screwed it to the lid. The bezel was cut out of Lexan, masked, and painted blue.
Now it was time to break out the dremel and cut holes for the various ports. You'll notice from the photo that I didn't do the best job here. It turns out the reason the luggage is so sturdy is because the walls are made out of 1/8" hardwood - which made it difficult to get the motherboard and the holes lined up. I cut a hole in the front for ventilation intake, and one in the back for the power plug.
Here's a shot of the motherboard installed.
The more observant among you will have noticed notice 2 large slots cut out above the standard ports. One of these is for the DVD player. The other is for an AVI All-in-Wonder VE video card. Why did I need another video card (considering I already had 2)? During early testing using a video projector, I noticed that while the M-9000 plays MP3s with no difficulty, it was excruciatingly slow at running Winamp's Milkdrop visualizations. Now, I really like funky lights with my music, so adding a video card with better 3D graphics became a high priority.
Quick Links
Mailing Lists:
Mini-ITX Store
Projects:
Show Random
Accordion-ITX
Aircraft Carrier
Ambulator 1
AMD Case
Ammo Box
Ammo Tux
AmmoLAN
amPC
Animal SNES
Atari 800 ITX
Attache Server
Aunt Hagar's Mini-ITX
Bantam PC
BBC ITX B
Bender PC
Biscuit Tin PC
Blue Plate
BlueBox
BMW PC
Borg Appliance
Briefcase PC
Bubbacomp
C1541 Disk Drive
C64 @ 933MHz
CardboardCube
CAUV 2008
CBM ITX-64
Coelacanth-PC
Cool Cube
Deco Box
Devilcat
DOS Head Unit
Dreamcast PC
E.T.PC
Eden VAX
EdenStation IPX
Encyclomedia
Falcon-ITX
Florian
Frame
FS-RouterSwitch
G4 Cube PC
GasCan PC
Gingerbread
Gramaphone-ITX-HD
GTA-PC
Guitar PC
Guitar Workstation
Gumball PC
Hirschmann
HTPC
HTPC2
Humidor 64
Humidor CL
Humidor II
Humidor M
Humidor PC
Humidor V
I.C.E. Unit
i64XBOX
i-EPIA
iGrill
ITX Helmet
ITX TV
ITX-Laptop
Jeannie
Jukebox ITX
KiSA 444
K'nex ITX
Leela PC
Lego 0933 PC
Legobox
Log Cabin PC
Lunchbox PC
Mac-ITX
Manga Doll
Mantle Radio
Mediabox
Mega-ITX
Micro TV
Mini Falcon
Mini Mesh Box
Mini-Cluster
Mobile-BlackBox
Moo Cow Moo
Mr OMNI
NAS4Free
NESPC
OpenELEC
Osh Kosh
Pet ITX
Pictureframe PC
Playstation 2 PC
Playstation PC
Project NFF
PSU PC
Quiet Cubid
R2D2PC
Racing The Light
RadioSphere
Restomod TV
Robotica 2003
Rundfunker
SaturnPC
S-CUBE
SEGA-ITX
SpaceCase
SpacePanel
Spartan Bluebird
Spider Case
Supra-Server
Teddybear
Telefunken 2003
TERA-ITX
The Clock
ToAsTOr
Tortoise Beetle
Tux Server
Underwood No.5
Waffle Iron PC
Windows XP Box
Wraith SE/30
XBMC-ION