Things going very slowly on the project. Im getting married and buying a house - but I will not forget about this, its my big fun!
-- on a nother note -- Accidental Update: Shut the fans down to blow the case out with some canned air for cleaning (I smoke too damn much, that's what... dust... ick.) I'll be glad when Im married and can't smoke in the house - machines will stay cleaner.. I cleaned it out, all was good. Decided to go take a shower before nip/tuck came on. Looked at houses. Looked for ministers for the wedding online... All of a sudden the box starts making a hell of a lot of noise, the fans kick up to 100% (the bios QFAN warning trip on the CPU was set to 55*C). I look and realize what I had done. I had never turned speedfans automatic fan control back on after I had turned the fans down to 0% each. Anyway The FANS WERE OFF FOR AN HOUR!!! I immediatly check temps: CPU: 55*C Water: 37*C (HOLY SHIT!!) Turned automatic control back on. temps slowly down. About 5 minutes later: CPU: 46*C (this in reality means 34, damn IC7 is off by 12*C!!) Water: 28*C 1 hour at passive and this system was solid, given, it was only web surfing, but still that's damn good. 28*C to 25*C is nominal water temp on this rig. Fans run at near silent until the water temp hits 30, then throttle up accordingly. And now as I finish this, temps are back down to normal. 42, 27*C on CPU, water. Nuts. Crazy. AWESOME! |
Video Preview of the Chassis Control Board
http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...videotitle.jpg Video Preview: 14MB, DIVX Video. ~5 minutes. I narrate for about functions of the board and some other stuff. Check it out, its worth it. http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...s/ccb_both.jpg The whole setup - messy, I know. Keep in mind this is ONLY a prototype setup; all of what you see and more will be combined onto one board. http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/.../ccb_brain.jpg the 16F872 powered brain, on prototype board from www.SparkFun.com http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...inputboard.jpg the input board prototype, as outlined here |
Amazing.
So, eh, where was this case sourced from anyway? |
www.centrix-intl.com - server parts or something like - SC5000/hudson by intel.
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respect thats a amazing case! geez well done! *big thumbs up!*
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Thanks a lot man!
--- Well, turkey day (at 1:50AM my time) update. I'll be hitting black friday like a mad man and goliath will get a few presents... a pair (or possibly 3) of 19" LCDs. Word. So here's the update... I was at grandma's house earlier today and its been a long day that was full of food, and made me very tired. I drake lots of caffiene on the way home, leading to sleep deprived goofyness: my most creative mood! I capitalized on this by doing up the window design for goliath, something inspired by the Nip/Tuck Opening credits. More on the credits (and the entire sequence) available here. Anyway, the simulation imho doesn't do justice on the future Carbon Blue Metallic paint job... I'm not sure how to model that in photoshop. Anyway, here's the concept: http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...tion_large.jpg |
So... how is it coming along?
Did you end up getting those LCDs? |
its going ok. I did get the LCDs, but I only got a single 19" and a single 15". I ended up guilt-tripping myself out of the $380 19" though, as I wasn't happy with its performance (25ms response) and it only had an analog input. So I sold it to my boss for more than it was worth!
The system hasn't changed much, other than me adding a gigabit fiber card to it which is run direct crossover to my media center. Moving those 4GB files is a breeze now! |
oh, and here's the setup while I had it...
http://premium.uploadit.org/Starbuck...latscreens.jpg Now we're back to a 19" tube and that 15" LCD. |
Quote:
I'm thinking of getting a LCD sometime in the next few months. It HAS to have DVI and good specs for gaming. I also had a room like that, a nice big lcd/plasma display would be nice for that angled wall. :) |
80% done on the front ports: 2 usb, 2 firewire (1 mini, 1 normal) and 2 headphone jacks (1 front port, 1 rear port) (not installed yet).
The process: - take slot cover template that the ports came out of and mark their outlines on the bay cover (which screws in, sweet) - mark holes for headphone jacks - make sure everything is centered nicely - cut with a dremel - take existing ports - cut in half - solder in an additional 12" of wire - seal up solder - sleeve it. Whats left: - Have bracket powdercoated, will be done when i have enough stuff to be taken to Nittany Powdercoating. small run <> cost effective. - buy headphone jacks - install and wire up headphone jacks Bracket with wires fed in the back. Will still need to be painted. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...rontports1.jpg Wires coming out the back mobo side as I'm feeding them. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...rontports2.jpg Plug them into my mobo (with fiber gigabit card beneath!) http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...rontports3.jpg .. and i'm not taking that card out to photograph the firewire connectors! Installed and ready to rock. (works great, all solder joints solid and valid) http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...rontports4.jpg |
Nice case. I just re-read the thread and enjoyed it all. Especially when you talk about about more than what went right; you talked about what went wrong. The best lesson is one that someone else paid for. Thanks for paying for it. :D
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Thanks Brian. I'll have to keep in mind that some people do like reading and seeing my mistakes.
I'm sure there will be more. What really scares me is that I'm coming up on probably the 2 year mark for this project. The project may be slated to get a new mobo and CPU and gfx card by the time its finished. I've been eyeing up A64-FX setups for a while, as well as an asus v9999 gamer edition. I think i'd rather spend that $1000 on finishing the case, the custom electronics, and the paint. Wise eh? |
I couldn't find software to make my VFD Display do what I wanted it to do.... so I wrote my own in .NET utilizing inpout32.dll and noritake.c by Henry Skipari of LCDInfo fame. Henry's code was indespensible when coming up with a library (VFDFunctions.dll) to talk to the LCD. I haven't tried any of the fancy scrolling stuff yet (as I haven't had the time) but the set brightness functions work, as do the set column and set row commands. With those working, I wrote something to put a test bitmap on the screen in .NET as well (VFD FrontEnd Tester), and here is a shot of it at about 2am last night (I was up late, what fun this is!) of it displaying the test bitmap.
http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...27/vfdwoot.jpg Woot! Now I can make it do all sorts of crazy crap. Whatever I WANT in fact. Plans are to at least do graphing (cpu, temps, net usage, fan speeds, clock speeds (<3 speedfan)) and monitoring everything speedfan gives me (I've got a .NET module that interops with speedfan too!) |
For those interested, my home made waterblock. Click for linky.
http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...ock/block1.jpg Not bad for my first try at a block, and not bad considering it was done all with a slide vise and drill press. |
The circuit for the ICCB is DONE as far as the design is concerned. The board layout, that's a different story. I'm going to have a hard time fitting all of this stuff on the board size I have to fit it on unless I go to SMT (surface mount) components. My regular place of buying stuff might carry it, and it'll be smaller but it might not be too much fun to solder it. We'll see I suppose.
So, teaser ;) Integrated Chassis Control Board Preliminary (Unchecked) Schematic Preview http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/...th/28/iccb.gif A N D I N E E D I D E A S ...On how to combine the light from 2 or more LEDs into a single piece of plastic optical fiber for my front indicators, a preview of which was seen before in the thread, and is seen again below. http://premium.uploadit.org/Starbuck...ctivity_on.jpg I'd prefer to keep the LEDs on the PCB ofr the chassis control board, but i've got no idea how to get 3 or more LEDs "light" into a piece of fiber. I got my fiber from hacking up spare TOSLINK optical cables (bought a buttload of them for this purpose for cheap @ compgeeks last year). Ideas? |
use a single tricolor LED
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Won't work, I want blue, white, and red as my colors. That means I need combinations of the colors available from the RGB LED, and therefor additional circuirty to determine what colors to turn on. It would up the chip count too high to do this, even using i^2c PWM chips. That would be 3 of those chips per multi color indicator! ack!
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Arright, perfection takes time. I'm nuking the ICCB in its current state (all the logic and optocouplers driving the status leds) in favor of a 2nd PIC 16F872 to do the lighting control. Fsck me, I can't believe I'm this anal?
Or is it: fsck me I can't believe I'm this detail oriented :wacko: Anybody know if the 3m heavy duty tape will... - stick to powdercoat strong enough to hold on ~ 2 pounds of plastic + a foot of stainless steel hinge? - stick plexi together to the point where there's no way in hell it'll ever move? |
Hey mate, I've seen you pop up around Bit-Tech several times. Haven't seen this project on their forums though. The actual reason I subscribed to these forums is to tell you how sweet this project actually is. Mod on!
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It's in project logs on bit-tech too, man. Same title and everything. lemme know if you want me to dig up a link. Thank you very much for the compliments, they make it all worth it along with the satisfaction of the project.
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Think I must have read over it on there than... I'll have a search on bit-tech :) Thanks!
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http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/eChina.jpg
The software that drives the display was written in VB.NET (.NET framework v1.1), and the GIFs themselves were ganked from Pioneer's (the audio folks) website, reduced to 2 colors (they were 3) and resaved in animated gif format. I've written the whole thing as an extensible architecture so I can easily add plugins down the way, with the low-level stuff of writing to the display and rotating the plugins handled by the main program. The plugin just has to produce a 128x64 bitmap when its polled for a frame. Here's the source for the 'clock' plugin. The "it is now" text is a variable that can be passed in upon plugin creation, so thats why you don't see it anywhere. Code:
PluginTextTest.vb:(Did I mention the main program is multithreaded?!?!? :D) The next one on the plugins list is the Speedfan and system stats screen, that should be a real monster ;) |
Begin Encrypted Message: Cebwrpg Ybt Flfgrz unf orra pbzcebzvfrq, unpxrq ol Evpuneq Chtu! Jbexfubc vagehfvba unf orra qrgrpgrq!
Me: What the HELL is going on here My intrusion detection system caught this single, fascinating frame: Original: http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/001.jpg De-noised: http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/002.jpg Inverse Gausianned: http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/003.jpg It appears that this scallywag broke into my house and was spying on my project! Forensic examination of a SmartMedia card left behind at the scene yielded the following. EXIF Comment: Strange box that arrived at the MRI - with Starbuck's name on it. I could feel the energy radiating from the box, calling me, begging me to open it. "You must open me, fear not!" http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/101.jpg EXIF Comment: I looked closer, the box appeared to be from the magical land of plexi and laser cutting, but the box may hold a curse too. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/102.jpg EXIF Comment: The cursed box's powers were simply too strong, I had to open it! http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/103.jpg EXIF Comment: The box began radiating a strange glow, followed by a low, rumbling, vibration. Startled, I dropped it. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/104.jpg EXIF Comment: I am terrified.. The box continues to rumble, and slowly unwrapped itself, revealing its cursed cargo... I am terrified, I must leave! http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/105.jpg End forensic evidence. I was greeted by the box, looking harmless, spread open on my office floor when I arrived home one day. It appears that the spy felt the impending curse which I was blind to seeing at the time, and fled the scene. I was very excited to see my hardwork embodied in 1/4" and 1/8" thick plexi, so I began to test fit the pieces. The baseplate tapped in place with modeller's masking tape. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/106.jpg Perfect fit, my dimensions were dead on. The sides, top, and bottom all line up perfectly http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/107.jpg http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/108.jpg The outer plate for the new front bezel, wrapped lovingly in plastic, still with its own plastic cover sheet intact. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/109.jpg The top and bottom plates taped into place over the baseplate. The top plate will stay as-is and the bottom plate will be glued to the baseplate, and painted to match the rest of the case. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/110.jpg Flashless shot. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/111.jpg Close up, flashless shot. The spot for the CDRW tray will be filled with matching plastic, but the bottom part of the panel needs to be recut. The slot for the DVD-ROM and hole for the CDRW were placed too high by about 500e^-6 m. No big deal there. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/112.jpg |
To the basement!
When making modifications to the housing involving drilling, dremmeling, or anything else that makes a huge mess, its a good idea to gut the system. Yes, I left the mobo and radiator and PSU intact for now - I'll be blowing everything out with compressed air before reassmbly. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/213.jpg Remember the rear faults in the powder coating that made the backside so damn ugly? Well... we'll cure that. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/201.jpg http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/202.jpg Laser cut 'acrylic fowlup cover and dressup plate' with custom etching (you guys will LOVE the etching :)) In place, protective film on, holes marked for the centers. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/203.jpg Holes drilled in plexi and case, case tapped with 8-32, and plexi cover attached with black headcap screws. The plexi is a bit darker than that, but the flash washed it out. Quite difficult to photograph. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/204.jpg Money shot #1 http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/205.jpg Money shot #2 :D (SUP GUYS!?) http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/206.jpg Money shot #3 :D (SUP GUYS!?) http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/207.jpg Tapping the holes for the power plate after marking and drilling them. (forgot to photograph it for the top version) http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/208.jpg Installed and held in place with headcap screws. (Ignore all the dirt inside the case, its mostly powder from drilling through the jbweld - it'll be cleaned before reassembly) http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/209.jpg |
Money shot #1 (stupid ISO 100 equivalent camera!)
http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/210.jpg Money shot #2 http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/211.jpg BIG Money shot #2 (the crinkle coat powde coat and the plates look AWESOME together!) http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/212.jpg Now, if I only had a door...OR the curse of Zittware strikes home... maybe the spy was right? One small problem with mounting a hinge on the front of the case... http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/214.jpg ...Cured by judicious use of the Dremel! http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/215.jpg 12" of 304 stainless steel hinge (to be powdercoated in the future) aligned with tape to hold it, then clamped to be drilled. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/216.jpg Lower hole drilled through both sides of hinge, and case. (9/64" for the headcap screws) Damn stainless is hard stuff! http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/217.jpg Hole in the top half to match (I couldn't put it in the same place as the bottom (2 knuckles in from the end) because there's no case structure underneath it to drill into/tap to hold it. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/218.jpg Drilled hinge setup in my big drillpress, 5/32" hole to be drilled (so that the 9/64" headcap screw can pass easily through it) http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/219.jpg Size difference. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/220.jpg |
Case has been tapped with 8-32 tap, hinge attached!
http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/221.jpg Hinge lines up perfectly with the ouside edge of the sheet metal... but one small problem (which I anticipated) -- it can't close all the way! http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/222.jpg Problem solved, mill a portion of the stainless out for the headcap to protrude through, and mill same relief hole in the baseplate. Everything closes up nice... http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/223.jpg http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/224.jpg http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/225.jpg As I was milling out the groove for the hinge knuckle to ride in, diaster struck. Not because I dropped it, but because I was cranking the X axis and not watching where the work was going. I cranked it into the pillar on my millpress rig, and then a sickening SNAP. The spy was right, the parts are cursed. http://www.personal.psu.edu/mss26/ar...ath/30/226.jpg DOAH! No one was harmed in this update, and the damaged pieces will be recut. Until next update, my fellow modders in arms... |
Nice handy work! I'm in the middle of my case mods too, so I can also appreciate the mess that it can make... :D
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Thanks BB - what are you up to? Something insane like MMZ's system revision?
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