PacknPlay

Joined: Jul 04, 2006 Posts: 28 Location: The Back 40

Hi guys!
I'm new around here, so I started this mod awhile ago (DEC 07) and I'm just now getting to the "fun" parts So I figured I'd repost the first part of my work log here to catch you up, then add new as I go! First one will be long!
CrazyBillyBob

Joined: Jul 04, 2006 Posts: 28 Location: The Back 40

I know the "briefcase PC" Isn't all that new or original... But This is a mod born out of need... I'm traveling Allot for work by Air. And I'm sick of not being able to game when I'm not home, and giving up the performance of my desktop for a crappy company Laptop... So hopefully I can give this old Idea a new life and in the process keep you all interested in it.

The goal with this mod was to pack the most computing power that I can afford into a package that can be carried onto a domestic airline flight... Total cost must be less then a comparable laptop Smile

To make this goal I needed a case that fits within the 45 linear inches (9 inches by 14 inches by 22 inches) that most domestic air carriers allow as a carry on. It also means that the case and hardware installation must be rugged. There will also be a space limitation that will be looked at when choosing parts for this build.

I started off the build by hitting E-bay for a suitable case...$26 later I found this Gem.
Outside View:

Inside View:

With the foam liners removed...

Now comes the Start of the Hardware...
PSU and Video Card... A nice Start.

I'll be using a Micro ATX Motherboard those are 9.6"x9.6" So I need to see how I can lay out the hardware and leave that much space free..

Is there enough free space????

Next the Base plate... For a good foundation.

The Baseplate for the Rig is 1/8" Aluminum.. A Nice solid non-flexible base.
A paper template of the case was made. This template was then Transfered onto a larger plate of Aluminum..

After a brief run in with my Jig saw and a quick clean with some sand paper (to knock the sharp edges from the cut edges)
The Base Plate was ready for a test fit.

Perfect!!!

I've ordered the Mother board it's a GIGABYTE GA-MA69GM-S2H AMD AM2. It should be there when I get home this weekend so I can see for sure if I have enough space (not real worried about it not fitting). I'll also re-make the PSU mounting Bracket..I made it once but ended up putting the mounting tab on the top instead of the bottom...oops Smile

(pics to come).

As I'm traveling allot I'm limited in the amount of time I've got to work on this mod... But I've got a good incentive to get it done quickly!! (GAME TIME!!!)

SO, Other then Shoveling snow I didn't get much done this weekend...
But I did drop the Mobo into the case to see how it would fit.

I'm thinking now that I'm going to try moving some of the parts around and see if the wiring gets easier.

The other thing I found was the perfect Keyboard. It fits in the case with a bit of room to spare on each side. The Keys are a bit tight but I've been using a laptop for so long that I have problems typing on regular Keyboard so it's perfect fit for me.

Now I said before that I made up 1 PSU mount but found that I had put the mounting tab on the wrong side... Well here it is

It's upside down, but turned out looking good. I'm hoping to get a new one made up and get a bit more time to work some of the details out.

Happy Holidays Everyone!!!

I've been focusing on the HDD mounts lately. Because it's a portable rig I want good shock / Vibration protection. So I went looking for what was on the market what I found was not so great and over priced.... Off to the local ACE hardware where I found expanding rubber stoppers of just the right size, some Stainless 6-32 cap screws and stainless washers.

So what are expanding rubber stoppers? well there these thick rubber washers with a lip on one end and a integrated brass nut in the other. When the stopper is put in a hole about the same size the screw with a washer is threaded in from the lipped side. The Screw puts longitudinal pressure on the stopper causing it to deform into the hole.

I used screws that were long enough to go through the stopper and in to the HDD. With this setup there is no metal to metal contact between the HDD and the drive cage. This keeps the shocks received in travel from being transferred in the HDD and damaging it. As well as the vibrations created when the HDD is running from traveling to the drive cage reducing operating noise.

Ok, so the theory section is over. To construct the drive cage I just put a 90 degree bend in some 1/8" Aluminum. To get a sharp bend I used my moto-tool to cut about 1/2 the Aluminum from the bend point and used a little 18" bench brake, but you could use some angle iron and a vise.
One side of the cage is mounted to the motherboard tray with rivets (this was done because of a clearance issue under the PSU) The other side is held down with Stainless cap screws.

I also went ahead and mounted the Motherboard, so I had to show you all how it looked in the case.

OK, So I've also loaded the OS and played some BF2142 with too Smile

I've got a good bit of "Dressing" to do yet but I couldn't leave it that close and not "TEST" it.

More to come!

Let me know what you think!
CrazyBillyBob

Joined: Jul 04, 2006 Posts: 28 Location: The Back 40

(This One is new as of 9/10/2008)
It seems that getting the Razer case done has made my modding bug perk up, so I'm back to the PacknPlay. I've been using this as my main Rig (It's really a bad Idea to start using your mod too early, then you never want to finish it! Smile

I'm designing a motherboard cover in because the motherboard would be exposed when the pc is in use if I didn't, fingers, kitty's, and other conductive things could "fall" into making the pc's life very short with out it.

For the cover I broke out my sheet of 1/8" expanded PVC (sintra). I've got an area marked out that will be enough to cover the whole motherboard, PSU, and Hdd. I'll cut down to this sheet to make it easier to handle (it' a 4'x 4' mother sheet I'm starting with)

From the smaller sheet I cut the Covers to fit around the parts like the CPU heat sink, the ram, and GPU. Then I glued on the side rails (pieces to mount to the case, and connect the two covers together).

One of the benefits to using the PVC board is that the parts can be glue welded together using Pipe Glue.

This makes a strong bond because it causes the PVC on each part to melt a little and fuse together.

Once the glue dried the parts looked like this.

The one on the right covers the Motherboard and the one on the left covers the PSU, and HDD.
I must have test fitted these things like 10 times, and never got a pic of the covers in place. I'll take some this weekend when I'm back home.

This last weekend my wife and I took a little trip up into the Blue Ridge mountains of Western North Carolina (nice place if you've never been). On the trip we found a bunch of rocks (Quartz crystals, and other semi-precious gem stones). As we found them they gave me an idea...

I took some of the Crystals, some LEDS, a few pieces of PVC board, and a hot glue gun...

And came up with a "Power Crystal" to run the PacknPlay (TSA is going to love this Smile

)

Mind you I put this together in my Hotel room and took the pic with my cell (that's why there a little fuzzy) So it's not finished or mounted in the case yet...(what you don't travel with your dremel, and a hot glue gun?) So I hacked a Usb cable to test out the LEDS.

I need to make up a circuit to make the green leds twinkle and/ or fade.. maybe add some UV Led's for the Glow in the dark effect... But I like the look.

That's it for this entry .... Next time I'll mount the Power Crystal, and get some pics of the cover in place.

Also what am I going to do with these ???

Till then! Keep your stick on the ICE!

CrazyBillyBob

Posted:Wed Sep 10 @ 3:28 pm

Awesome project. I've do the same thing. I get tired of lugging a big honking machine around and I have yet to make (in my opinion) the perferct elegant traveling PC. I think the briefcase route is one of the best done and I think yours will no doubt prove to be just as fun to watch in the making.

The Mobo cover is cool, I've always wanted to try that ever since seeing Dyfiant do his. This should be a really cool project. Interested to see how you tie in the power Crystals too. Great work.

Posted:Wed Sep 10 @ 3:39 pm

Oh wow! awesome! Are you going to go the extra step and add an LCD to the upper lid?

Joined: Jul 04, 2006 Posts: 28 Location: The Back 40

Yes, I've got the LCD, and the mount... Now I just need to make sure my CPU heatsink doesn't hit it... If it does I'll have to change it out (the heatsink).

CrazyBillyBob

Posted:Wed Sep 10 @ 8:54 pm

sweeeeet. I always wanted to do that.

Joined: Jul 04, 2006 Posts: 28 Location: The Back 40

Hi all,
It's been awhile, and boy have I been busy! I plowed trough allot to get the Pack-N-Play to a usable point for Showdown Lan ILL. 2008 (Sept. 26-28 )
So I think I'll break it up into multiple entries, just for ease of reading.
Where did we leave off... Oh yes the "Power Crystals". For the Crystals I wanted a throbbing
light effect, kind of like the warp core on that Trek show. So I did some research and bread boarded
up a circuit to test.

The test looked something like this MP4 file
I liked the effect, but not the colors... I think I'll only use Blue, Green and Yellow.
So the next step was to create a PCB (Printed Circuit Board) , I normally don't like making double sided PCB
at home (very hard to solder without vias) but I did it this time.

It took about 8-9 tries to get this but it looks ok so I stuffed it full of parts.

That was 3 and 1/2 weeks, a half a dozen transistors, and 2 op amps ago.... And it still doesn't work Sad

So as you can guess you'll be seeing more of this Circuit
In future worklogs as I plan to remake the PCB.

I'm planing on having the power plug into one of the Covers, this way one plug will power both the PC, and the monitor.
(Power port will be in the upper right corner in this picture)

As you can see here, there is very little clearance between the PSU and the Wall of the enclosure.

So the Power plug into the PSU needs to be a low profile model, which no one makes. That's ok I'll mod one!

I stared with a stock Power cable.

Then Trimmed it down to size (utility knife works great on this rubberized plastic).

The wires are reconnected using the crimp ends that are in the plug. It takes a little gentle prying with a small screw driver to open them up enough to get the old wires out and the new wires in, but it really wasn't hard.

Now the bare wires are given a liberal coating of hot glue to protect everything (everyone) for getting zapped!

The Jack came from an old machine (I don't remember for sure what it was, it's been in my junk box for years... An external tape drive maybe?) But it has a nice filter setup and mounts with 2 screws... perfect for this project!

The finished Harness...an't it a beauty? (Bonus points for anyone that see's that there is no plug for the monitor in this pic...It took me a few hours to
Realize I forgot that part...It got spliced in up by the receptacle, but I forgot to snap a pic of that setup)

Now everything gets test fitted into the enclosure... This Pc was test fitted and re-fitted three dozen times trough out the build
The most I've ever had to test, because everything is so close I had to make sure no two things got in the way of one another.

Here's what things look like at this point. (The round hole in the bottom right is for the power switch)

In the next installment we'll cover what goes in Here!

Please post Comments!!
CrazyBillyBob

Joined: Oct 08, 2008 Posts: 23

Thats going to turn out awesome, are you going to have wireless mouse and keyboard?

Joined: Jul 04, 2006 Posts: 28 Location: The Back 40

I do Have a wireless keyboard for it. But my wireless mouse died Sad

so I'll be going with a corded mouse for now. In the next few updates you'll see the usb ports turn out to be very easy access Smile

Toss on a hub and it's a one cord hookup!

CrazyBillyBob

Posted:Fri Oct 17 @ 8:21 am

this is mad! im impressed nice work man wana see this progress

Joined: Jul 04, 2006 Posts: 28 Location: The Back 40

So, Many of you all have wanted to know what's going here:

This will be the monitor’s new home!

So What I started with was a HP 15" LCD... I know it's not the largest monitor but it had to fit into the space I had. Plus I got a great deal on this monitor! (thanks Z)

Front

Back

The Base of the Monitor is held on by 4 screws, which should give me a nice way to mount the monitor into the case

Before I can mount the monitor I want to layout the cover for the monitor (this odd order will make more sense here in a minute... I promise).

So I start with a raw Sheet of PVC, and cut it down to correct size for the top of the case.

With those nice square corners finding the center is easy. Then I got to use my High School Geometry for the first time (ever out side of school Smile

) To layout the
monitor mounting holes.

After rounding the Corner and drilling the mounting holes, the monitor was test fitted to the cover, and one of my supervisors stopped by to inspect my work. Luckily she approved of it. Smile

Ok, I forgot to take a few pics here, builders focus. What I did was use the cover as a template to mark the holes onto the inside of the case, So that the monitor was perfectly centered. Then the center of the cover was cut out; as you'll notice in the next pic.

Once the holes were drilled in the case and the cover center was cut out. A way to still use the adjustment buttons on the monitor was needed... So The buttons Locations were transferred to the cover and holes were drilled to receive some custom buttons.

For the custom monitor buttons I used some of the Diamond cutouts from the HDD fan guard on the bottom cover as well as some rectangular shafts, these were glued together so tat the button on the monitor is depressed when the Diamonds are pushed in.

Once the Buttons were mounted it was time for a test fit.

Well that just about wraps up this installment.

Next time we’ll look at the Copper mesh vent covers and start the painting process.

Thanks for watching, and as always leave comments.
CrazyBillyBob

My YouTube Channel · Modding God Joined: Feb 23, 2007 Posts: 725 Location: U.K.

Wow! That looks like one Phat Laptop!!

Remember the first "mobile" phones? You could get a UPS and run it for 10mins just like them!!

It does look good mate, I'm keeping an eye on this one!!

Have fun all,
Brian Smile

Joined: Jul 04, 2006 Posts: 28 Location: The Back 40

Here we are, The monitor is test fitted, the bottom cover is test fitted.

The $100,000,000 question at this point is will that massive CPU heat sink let the case close with the monitor in there......

The Answer is coming. But first Wink

I want to dress up some of the vents in the cover with a custom grill. So I started with some copper mesh.

Two methods were used. For the PSU vent the copper mesh was pressed into the vent opening with the piece of PVC that was removed from the opening.
This created an embossed cover (top one in photo). The second is a box form (imagine folding a 5 sided cube out of mesh) it will fit into the top of the blower fan in the back of the case. (Bottom in Photo)

Next you guessed Test fitting!

So everything fits.... Not quite That mondo CPU cooler is in the way Sad

so a quick trip to newegg brings this.

It's a Dynatron 1U server CPU cooler. It's review said it was a little loud (50dB) so I ordered an extra 70mm quite fan just in case. But it really wasn't needed.

This diminutive little cooler, lets the case close and keep the CPU nice and cool.... Perfect for this project :banana:

Now that the Case closes, the covers are removed and prepped for paint.

Everything was giving 5-6 nice smooth coats of white primer.

The final base color choice was left up to my wife (the choice was between matte black and silver metallic) the end choice was silver metallic. Everything got several coats of the silver metallic paint (lost count).

Now fast forward 48 hours the paint is dry, the covers are reinstalled and here we are.

That's where I'm at right now... I've got a few issues mainly the GPU that's hanging out in the middle of everything, and I'm planning on using the copper mesh to cover the square hole above CPU and over the ram.

This is the CPU and Ram area I'm talking about.

What do you guys think?

I'm not really sure what to do with the GPU.... I could make a copper mesh cage around it, the big thing is that it needs allot of air to keep cool while gaming (or folding)
So a solid plastic a cover is pretty much out.... Ideas?

Here's a close up of the exposed Gpu.

I'm really looking for thoughts, Ideas, and comments on the covers, I really like the clean look and would like to make it carry trough in those last few areas.

Till next time!

CrazyBillyBob

Joined: Jul 04, 2006 Posts: 28 Location: The Back 40

My original plan was to have the bottom on solid piece. This proved to be impractical due to the height of the Video card Vs the CPU.

I have made a change in the setup. I'm planning on upgrading the Video card soon to a larger model (11" long) To increase the cooling and make things fit better I'm planning on installing on of these

Flexible PCI-e extenders. This will let me lay the Video card on it's side, that way I can make a PVC shield with Vents around it. Should solve the cooling and Stealthing issues I've got.

Bod, I'm going the direction you talked about.
With the new card the cost of the extender is justified (to my wife Smile

)

I've also got to check into where all the pic links went.... Might be time for a new Web Host!

CrazyBillyBob