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Waiter, theres a robot in my soup..

dnam1x

Posted in Uncategorized on November 20, 2008 at 12:45 am

In the last post, I had finally gotten the enclosure up on the wall and all the components installed. The cooling pump had been primed and everything was up and running. Yet again, however, I didnt really have an idea of how I was going to implement a few things before I started building. Basically, it was a matter of crossing that bridge when it came up, now I had reached that bridge: In this case, Im referring to the power+reset switches and the power and hard drive activity lights. No pre-wired ones here since this case was being built from scratch.

After sourcing a couple of push switches from Maplin, I took a look at the front panel and decieded on a location for them. 3 quick holes later and I had this:

Now for the power and HD activity Leds. Hmmmmm, just drill some holes and pop them in?….Nah, that would be a bit boring. then it hit me !!……..

‘Evil’ Bender

During the planning stage, I had a thought that the inside of the enclosure would be big enough to house a model figure or model car of some sort, if only just for a bit of added interest. I still had the idea in the back of my mind during the build, but it wasnt until I came upon the need to place the Leds that I put the 2 together:  And the plan for Evil Bender was hatched.

He is evil because is eyes would be replaced by 2 glowing red Leds and the tip of his antenna could be the HD activity light.

I chose Bender because he fit the bill for what I wanted to do. He had the right eyes, and wasnt too complicated like some of the other superheroes/video game characters I considered.

I also love his sense of humour in the Futurama series.

So first up, after a quick search online I found what I was looking for: At Forbidden Worlds. Luckily they have a branch in my area so I popped down there and found the wobble head figure I saw online. These are the type that sit on a car dashboard and wobble or nod with vibration (sort of like that annoying ‘Ohhh yes’ Churchill dog).

The first step was to disassemble him, so with a bit of brute force, I pulled him apart. Out popped his springy spine. Then Bender took a drill bit up his……ahhh yes, I had to route the wires up to his head somehow. Luckily he was already relatively hollow but nothing that a little brain surgery wouldnt fix!

I drilled out the eyeballs with probably the smallest bit in my possession. and widened out the opening in the body for the wires to pass through. The holes in the eyes were just big enough for the 2mm Leds to fit snugly, but it was impossible to push through 2 sets of insulated wires for them. I solved this problem by stripping the insulation of one set of each pair.

Now, the eye transplant was ready. I soldered the wires to each Led. In order for the wires not to touch, I used wood glue to hold them in place as close as possible. Hopefully the connections would remain intact when I pushed the lights back into their sockets

For the HD activity light, I hollowed out the antenna the best I could. Because its rubber and so small, it was very difficult not to split it. Its not perfect, but that explains why I dont earn my living as a surgeon. But, I do think the desired effect has been achieved.

In order to fully hide the new wiring through Benders body, it was time for some leg surgery. Using a progressively bigger drill bit, I managed to hollow out his left leg. The wires could then be passed down into his base and onto the headers on the motherboard

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So With the Leds in place, and the robot reassembled, I give the world Evil Bender (cue mad scientist laughter)

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(He did come out of surgery with a bit of a limp, but I think its added to his gangster credentials)

So thats it, I can now turn on the PC without having to touch 2 bare wires together, and the Leds are in place. Just a few more things to finish off:

A black painted acrylic strip to hide the wooden batten at the back of the shelf. Also added a matching usb hub/card reader above the shelf for easy access

Mesh strips to tidy up the right end of the enclosure (mesh used to allow the ventilation of the playstation 3, Wii and PC PSU).

On the subject of ventilation, the PS3 and Wii have their veltilation slots on the right. Theres also space at the back of the PS2 to allow heat to escape. The PC is cooled by a 120mm fan in the base with the rad fan also sucking air out at the left side. Also in use are the Asus supplied fans for the northbridge heatsinks around the cpu.

With all the components housed in the box o tricks, I inevitably had a mass of spaghetti coming from everywhere! I tried to cable tidy, spiral wrap and trunk as much of it as I could but it still looked messy! So grabbing a panel of perspex I had lying around, I made up a cover to hide the wiring underneath the enclosure. I made cutouts in it for easy access to the mains plugs and router. Heres some before and after pics of that process:

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And at last….. My box o’ Tricks is complete….

So here are the final pictures: 

Both PCs (mine and the wifes) are connected to the 40″ TV and the 19″ Monitor. The monitor is a standard Iiyama 19″ job.  The wires are run in trunking over the door. Her PC is behind the desk with the monitor.

Here are some night shots:

So There it is, my custom built PC. Im really glad how its turned out. I play games across all platforms (although Im a Crap player), so integrating my consoles and PC into one central location was my main task. Its acomplished my goal of creating something unique and visually stimulating, and I’ve got an extra shelf to put stuff on . It was fun making the idea into reality. There were times that I thought that this will never be finished, but it was well worth it in the end. It isnt the most highest spec, multi GPU’d, supercooled monster thats generally seen on these pages but hey, I do think that it is something different from the norm.

Right now, the system is running at stock speeds, but I will be attempting a little overclocking tweaks in the near future. I also need to get the noise level down a bit. Will be adding some right angled usb leads to the Playstations so I can access their usb ports too.  I’d like to thank custompc mag for the reviews and recommendations that helped me decide which components to buy.

I hope that you enjoyed following the plog. Please feel free to leave any comments or questions about it.

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Component List:

• Asus P5K Premium Wi-fi Ap motherboard
• Intel E8400 3GHz Dual core CPU
• 2Gb Corsair XMS Dominator 1066Mhz DDR2
• Samsung  HD753LJ Spinpoint F1 Sata 750GB Hard drive
• corsair HX-520 520w Modular PSU
• XFX 9800 gtx graphics card
• Swiftech  h20-120 compact watercooling kit
• Optiarc Litescribe 7201s SATA DVD recorder
• Optiarc Slot load AD-7630A DVD Recorder
• Zalman ZM MFC2 Fan controller

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