Wooden computer case
From Grahams Wiki
This is my first project trying to make something really useful. The case is strips of wood glued together then wood-dyed.
Contents |
[edit] The case
The case is made from a base of 5 1/4"x16"x1/2" two half inch pieces of wood. and then built up in strips round the edge. The edge stripping is 6/16" thick. The bottom strips were nailed to the base as well as glued. This is because i wasnt sure of the load bearing capability of the glue. While building up the sides, they were kept straight using a pair of metal right-angle tools which i'm sure have a proper name, but it escapes me at the moment. Once the case was done, it was treated first with "Jacobian Dark Oak" wood dye from B&Q. I then applied some slightly darker dye to give it a deeper colour. It was then Laquered. Which took three coats.
[edit] The rear
Only the two sides and the front were built up this way. the rear was built up after i fitted the power supply and the motherboard. I put a bar between the top and worked downwards from there.
I cut some metal (Not very well) using a jigsaw for the rear plate and the power supply, and then filed the inside relatively smooth using small files. I rounded all the corners and neatened the edges using a bench grinder. Both plates were then spray painted black to try to cover some of the mess i had made of cutting. It seems to have worked.
I put to the piece of wood on the top of the cards because i couldnt think of any other way of stopping the cards moving.
[edit] The front
[edit] The buttons
About the only parts I actually bought for this system were the two buttons, they are actually intended to be vandal resistant, but i thaught they would like nice. I would have preferred a colour other than blue, but Farnell didnt have any others in. It seems i'm the only person in the world these days that thinks that Blue LED's make a project look tacky rather then really good. They are farnell parts:
- 4389451 76-6910B Switch, Ill. Push Butn Blu.
- 4389426 76-5910 Switch, Push Butn 15MM
[edit] Cut out for the CD drive and the tape drive
This was a pain in the arse, and i really should have done this before i glued everything. Unfortunately when i was cutting it out, the jigsaw got snagged, so now the cutout has that lovely dip in the middle you can see. Fortunately its not so noticable normally, as the drives and the wood dont contrast that much, but the camera flash brings out the contrast.
[edit] The Computer itself
The computer it bits i had lying about, and it shows.
- Athlon 1800
- 256Mb DDR2
- SCSI tape drive DDR-3 Archive Python
- NEC SCSI CDROM drive CDR-1910
- 2x36Gb SCA disk drives.
- 300W cheapo PSU
- GeForce 2 duel head video card (32Mb)
- Adaptec AHA-2940 2 channel SCSI card
- Adaptec AHA-2940 2 channel SCSI card - one LVD channel.
- A 3com 3C59x 10/100 network card
- A USB2 card
[edit] SCSI
The decision to put the scsi drives on their own ledge was made because when i got the motherboard in, i realised that i hadnt left enough space between the edge of the board and the front. As such the board with the drives on it is raised about an Inch above the bottom of the box, which leaves enough space for the wires to connect to the front buttons.
As the drives are intended for Servers, they require some additional cooling. These are provided by two one-inch fans which have been in by toolbox for years. The plate they were mounted on was cut out of sheet aluminium and the bench grinder was used to get rid of the edges. They are plugged into the 5V supply rather than the 12V supply so they dont run so noisilly. Well, that was the plan. Of course a pair of 15K Server hard drives are easilly the noisiest part of this machine. When I have a chance, i will swap them out for a cheapo IDE disk, which will probably run cooler, and have vastly more space.
The disks are SCA disks and are connected using a pair of adapters which i got off ebay for a fiver.
The CD drive and the tape drive are mounted on a bit of board which is then screwed to the case. I was planning to use an LVD DDS-4 tape drive, but it turned out to be duff, so i used the old DDS-3 with a 50 pin connector. However, this has meant that I can keep the number of cables going to the top bit to a minimum. as i was able to attach the SCSI cable to the underside of the board to keep it out of the way.
[edit] Wiring
The SCSI cables were yoinked from an old Dell Poweredge server they were chucking at work (As did the CDrom and tape drive). Those flat cables are worth yoinking if you can. They made routing much easier, and flat SCSI cables are almost impossible to buy, The earlier servers also have stand-alone PCB's for their SCSI drive section, which are also worth yoinking if you feel like making a SCSI tower at some later stage. You will have to make a custom power harness, but its really not difficult. (So make sure you get the power connector to that board as well)
The wires to the switches were cut of an old case, and soldered to the new switches, and the speaker was removed from it as well. As you can see, i have tie wraps and am not afraid to use them :-)
[edit] OS
I put Ubuntu on the machine. I was pleasantly suprised when it saw and used both the SCSI cards, the disks, the tape drive and the SCSI cd rom without any prompting. The disks are not raided, although i may re-install and do that at some later stage. I have installed all the software I regularly use, and I havent even hit 10Gb yet. It also doesnt seem to have an issue with only 256Mb of ram.
The only downside is that the Ubuntu repository only seems to have KDAT as a tape backup tool, which is quite frankly, not great. Not suprising as Ubuntu is a desktop OS and only nerds like me that just *have* to use that stupid piece of junk in their computer. However, if your not adverse to using the command line, i found the "tar" command worked perfectly acceptably.
[edit] Notes
Well it works. When i get around to swapping the disks for something more ear-drum friendly, it will be quite nice. Its not great, however, i'm sure i will do better next time. The wood was a factor. B&Q seem to supply expensive timber which is not great. Wickes is cheaper, but its still not great wood. I havent got any pictures, however, the two pieces of wood on the bottom are slightly warped. This may have had something to do with why it had been in my wood pile for so long.
Building boxes using strips of wood is probably the easiest if more time consuming way of doing it. However, as well as being easy to make look nice, I like the effect so Meh.
Oh black spray paint laquer does indeed compensate for a lot of problems.
[edit] What i did wrong
Lots of things:
- When cutting the front gap for the CD drive, i was jig-sawing a bit too hard, and the blade cought and split the wood. This is why its not straight.
- The top i noticed is imperfect at the front. (look at the top left) However, i only realised this after i had dyed and laqqered the wood, and i didnt want to re-do it all.
- I need proper tools to cut the inside of metal. I was using a drill and jigsaw. You can get neat cuts like that, but you need substantially more skill than I have. I will have to invest in a Dremel i think. on the other hand, the Bench grinder makes easy work of finishing the outside edges of metal.
- The top isnt quite straight. Its actually part of a shelf i had lying around. Again, as Power tools can reduce required skill, i need to invest in either a longer mitre saw or rotary saw.
- My measuring sucks arse. This is reflected in a number of things, not least of which the fact that the box has a hard drive Shelf, and the fact the machine doesnt have a floppy drive like it was going to have.
- I should have used dowels instead of nails around the base.
