Okay, so here are some pictures of my side on my case, I’ve ordered red, pink, and blue ccfl lights to put in here so I can change the color of the ghost. There are also some pictures of my other case on top of this one.
Okay, so this guy that I’m really jealous of, Jamie, has several arcade machines and got tired of keys breaking off because people would walk by and bump them because he left them in the machines. So to solve this problem, he got a key box. Okay, what is so special about it? He took some coin door bezels and put them on the key box to make it look like a coin door, check it out! Anyway I took his idea and did the same thing, it was not my idea, I got the idea from his site.
Total cost for me was about $15, why so cheap? I’ve had the coin box for a while and it was on sale at Frys Electronics. The coin door bezels I got from my former employer who owns quite a few machines on site and carries around parts and had what I needed to spare.
Anyway…pictures!!!
So Trevor and I won those parts in the case mod contest, I also won a 2GB module of Kingston HyperX DDR3 memory, almost everything needed for a new computer. So before the con was over I ordered a motherboard, case, and internal card reader. Just the other day I also ordered an 850 watt PSU for the system as it has the video card that we won in it. Anyway…a plain case just wont do here, it is unacceptable. So I did a case mod, staying with the Pacman theme though. This case has a ghost on the side of it, and for the eyes on it I ordered some 40mm fans to use as intake (they hardly move any air but oh well). Anyway I finished that case tonight, and I also put a ghost on Rocky’s other computer that is in Ryans room. On my case I plan to get some blue, pink, and red cold cathodes and put a selector switch so I can change the color of the ghost.
Here are some pictures of them before mounting (paint is still wet)
So Trevor, Brittany, Dakota, Cole, me, and Rocky went to Quakecon 09, this being Trevor, and my third time to be (07, 08, 09) it was fun, and maybe the best year yet! Anyway, recently I posted an article about Trevors case mod that we did, well we entered it in the case mod contest at QC and to my surprise won first place in the fabrication division. The prizes were a Nvidia GeForce GTX 285 (about $400) a Nvidia GeForce 3d vision kit (about $200) and an AMD Phenom II X4 965 (about $250 and just released 3 days ago) as well as a ticket for the raffle for the 2010 Shelby Mustang (ended up not winning, but congrats to the guy who did) so we got about $850 worth of stuff for a $100 case! Since I helped build the case Trevor and I worked out a deal with the winnings, he is keeping the video card and 3d kit, and I get the CPU (partially cause I won some ram) I ended up with about 14 shirts, I had more but I ended throwing them out in a crowd because I had quite a few, a 2GB module of KingstonHyperX DDR3 1333 Memory, a mousepad that I had caught, a waterproof 4GB flash drive , a neat little metal case, and various pins, stickers, and other little hand-me-outs. This year Iactually volunteered and did door check/security for the event. I also bought 3 cases of Bawls, 2 geek beer, and 1 cherry. And now time for some pictures!!!
And also here is a video of Trevor onstage with his case, skip forward to about 1:13:30 to see him, this is actually a video of the hardware workshop…worth watching!!!
So I’ve modded my case, Rocky’s, Cole’s, and now….Trevors.
Trevor had an ammo box that he picked up at an army surplus store for $15 with the intent of turning it into a computer case. Well, now with my help and his money….it has been done.
For the power input we used an XLR jack that is commonly used for microphones, he ordered a panel mount male XLR jack and a female cord end XLR jack.
For USB we used some 5 pin microphone connectors for mobile radio equipment. USB only uses 4 pins, the connectors we are using have 5 pins…hmm…what to use these extra pins for? I had the good idea of putting +12 volts on there that way we could make a cable for like an external hard drive and just power it off of the computers power supply, thus eliminating a wall wart, and being cool at the same time. To wire the USB ports to the headers, I used a 10 pin ribbon cable and some 10 contact header blocks (2X5) just like what is used on USB. I just crimped the connectors and soldered to the microphone connectors. If you look in the pictures you can see the red and black wires for the 12v to the USB ports. I wired all the black wires to the ground on the USB port that way we could get more current out of them, instead of having the ground go through the motherboard.
For sound we just got a regular 1/8″ jack and soldered some extra Cat5e cable on it and soldered a 1/8′ connector on the other end.
For network we got an old network card since it would be easy to mount, and I took my grinder with a cutting wheel on it and cut the end of the circuit board off. (Wearing proper visual and respiratory protection as this stuff is toxic if inhaled) and soldered the necessary wires to the network jack and covered in hot glue to help insulate and keep the wires from tugging on the solder connections.
Power switch, for the power we just used a momentary N.O. toggle switch, so it is just like a regular computer power switch. But since this is in an ammo box we put a flip up safety cover on it for looks.
For video Trevor managed to find some 1′ DVI extension cables somewhere and we just used them to run from the video card to the panel.
The frame on this thing is made of angle aluminum, and some old telephone line warning signs that a friend that works for the phone company gave me. I’ve used those things on everything. To keep the frame as large as possible, yet still able to fit in the case I used rivets to secure the frame because of the small head on them. There is room for 6 hard drives but I think Trevor is only going to put 5 in there, there is a 80mm intake fan and a 90mm exhaust fan to help with cooling. There is also a small fan by the power supply to help it move the heat up.
And now for the fun part…..pictures!
So, my friends mom (who is also a friend) is getting married tomorrow (today actually being 1:20). But anyway I was talking to the friend and he mentioned some good ideas for the car, but I had a good one. I had seen a video online of a car trick that someone had done, they wired the horn to the brake lights, so that when the brakes were applied the horn would honk. Well, we did this, it took all of about 30 min tonight. I can’t wait ’till tomorrow to see when they get in the car to leave and hear the horn, they will know who it was, but I don’t care. I hope to post a video!
Here recently I’ve been acquiring a lot of tools, for work on the CNC machine I went and bought a small drill press from Sears, for my birthday earler in the year I was given another battery for my drill (which has proved to be quite useful) I recently acquired an older battery charger (one of the big ones you can use to start a car) I got this from a co-worker who wanted me to look and see why it wasnt charging batteries. Come to find out, the fan had locked up (from sitting outside too many times) and had caused the selenium rectifier to melt. Anyway a new rectifier was going to cost more then a new charger so he decided not to fix it. So I just got a large ac transformer, what to use it for? I’ve been wanting to get into welding but can’t convince myself to buy a welder, while checking hack a day I have seen a microwave oven transformer used to make a welder. With the microwave transformer way, you have to cut off the secondaries of two transformers and rewind them and connect the secondaries in series and you have the required power. With the battery charger putting out low voltage and high amperage (like a welder) I didn’t need another transformer. It is still in the works, and I will post pictures and schematics when I get to it.
But among acquring tools, I’ve been looking for a table saw. I found a co-worker who has one but he has yet to bring it to me, or tell me what he wants for it. In fact, just this morning he commented that I had not posted anything in a while, so hence why I am posting now. It made me feel good that I acctually have people checking my site. I know Cole, Trevor, and a few other RSS subscribers.
(you know who you are)