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Steampunk Computer Case From Oak Scraps


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Here's the start of a little project made from some scrap pieces of Oak I got from my friend Ron who passed away the 23rd of September.

I'm sure Ron would have got a kick out of this project.

 

It will end up being a test bed style computer case.

The lower section is an old AT style case from the old 486, Pentium 1 days. I'll be using it for mounting my power supply, drives, etc..

Here's the Oak frame that will be replacing the old beige plastic front. It's not quite finished, but will give a hint of where this is headed.

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Front of frame.

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Rear of frame.

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Sliding door set in place.

 

 

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Sweet! That's gonna be really cool.

Do you think there will be any problems with stray RFI?

Thanks Lew.

As to the stray RFI interference the drives will be enclosed in the metal AT case.

The motherboard will be mounted to a removable motherboard tray from an ATX computer case that will be mounted on top of the AT case.

I have some beveled glass windows that I salvaged from some old doors that I might use to enclose the motherboard area.

I've got about a five gallon bucket full of the Oak scraps that are all about 15" long, and of varying thickness's that I'm working with.

 

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Here's the old AT case I'll be using for the lower half of the case. The hole in the top is for routing wires to the motherboard.

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The lower AT chassis that will house the power supply, and drives.

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Here's the ATX motherboard tray I'll be using.

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A test fit of the Oak frame to the AT case.

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The ATX motherboard tray in the position it will be mounted. I'm making Oak slides for it to fit into that will be tied into the front frame.

ATX_MB_Tray_on_AT_Case.thumb.JPG.4d53bf6

 

 

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Looks like everything is going to be grounded really well.

I used to have a giant, vertical case that had a sliding front cover over the CD drive, and 5.25 floppy drives. 

I've probably still got one of those server cases, it housed one of my homebuilds.

It had a SuperMicro motherboard with dual 1 Ghz Pentium III's, and 1 Gig of ram. At the time it was fast!!!

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I managed to get the motherboard tray side frames assembled, and test fit.

Here's a few photos of the progress.

This view shows the tracks and mounting tabs for the motherboard tray.

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This view shows the side that will show on the outside of the case.

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This view shows a test fit with the motherboard tray, and front frame on the AT case.

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This is a top view of the test fit up.

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Still a long way to go!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hope you are feeling better, Larry.

I'm at about 1/4 human now Lew. :blink:

Before I got feeling lousy, I did score a few parts for the machine at the local recycle yard.

I'll have to post photos later but I scored 4 fan grills,and a power switch, audio, USB, led panel from a Dell Vostro machine that I believe will work quite nicely.

I also scored something I didn't even know they made a Mitsumi Model No. FA404M floppy drive, USB 2.0 card reader combination unit.

I know who uses a floppy drive anymore? Well, I do. I've got one of those early digital cameras that used a floppy disk.:wacko:

 

Total cost for all items $1.00. 

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Lew,

The place I went is a basic recycle yard. They take almost anything that is metal.

They don't normally sell computer parts due to state regulations concerning the disposal of computers.

As long as it's not a hard drive they can sell the parts. 

There is another place that recycles computer parts, but they have prices like the parts are made of solid gold. :angry:

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Nice. I have to admit I had never heard of "Steampunk"  Had to look it up. 

Although many works now considered seminal to the genre were published in the 1960s and 1970s, the term steampunk originated in the late 1980s as a tongue-in-cheek variant of cyberpunk

Now I have to look up Cyberpunk :D

Ron,

There's also Dieselpunk. :lol:

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Ok, after my recovery from a 3 day knockout punch

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from "Vinnie the Virus" I've managed to get a bit more done on the old Komputator. 

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Before "Vinnie" put me down for the count I scored a few parts for this from my local metal recycle yard.

First was this power switch, dual usb, audio, and led panel from a Dell Vostro PC.

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It required a little modification work for easier installation into my homemade case.

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As you can see I removed the top set of original mounting tangs, and added another 90° tab for mounting purposes. I simply soldered the tab to the metal housing.

The following 2 photos show the assembly installed in the wood case.

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There will be mounting screws in the two tabs.

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I also installed the power supply and drives in the old AT lower part of the case.

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That mess of wires comes out here.

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And then gets covered with the ATX motherboard tray, and Asus M3N72-D motherboard.

The next 3 photos show the case with the drives, motherboard, and 1 video card installed installed. There will be 2 video cards to support 3 monitors when this is done

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I'll be making a copper faceplate for the switch, usb, audio, led panel.

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I'll also be making an upper case with beveled glass front, and mirrored sides but I'm now at the point of loading an OS and doing a burn in run before I do.

After the burn in run I'll be adding the copper finned Thermaltake orb coolers to the memory sticks, and video cards.

So, I''m off to load a couple OS's to bring this old beast back to life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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