Kitchen Computer

[Crazy Buddhist]

I started building a computer for the kitchen before going into hospital. The donor PC is an HP Vectra PIII 733Mhz. She will play music and google recipes - Oh and relay my digital TV to the kitchen through her old analogue TV card.

I wanted it small and to be able to close it to protect against kitchen goo and yuckiness. I might duct air through a hole in the wall from my living room so she is always under positive pressure when on.

This is the filebox I am buildng it in. I will put it on 1 1/2" rubber feet so the lid opens flat revealing a screen and keyboard:

http://freedomforall.net/KitchenPuter/FileBox.jpg


I'll post pics of the donor PC and mock up tomorrow. I'm possibly going to be making a custom hard disk mounting that uses two ajacent and superfluous PCI slots as its fixing.

Here's how she looks from the front:

http://freedomforall.net/KitchenPuter/FileBox2.jpg


There will be a flatscreen that will roll up into the top of the box and I will probably cut up a keyboard and mount what I want in the lid - loads of space. And a close up of the innards Motherboard and PSU roughly in place:
http://freedomforall.net/KitchenPuter/MoboPSU.jpg


It willl close up and take hardly any space. Will be running cut down windows 2000 because it has a ATI Radeon All in one Video Adapter/TV card which has no linux driver. I will broadcast the TV out from deskpooter on a standard analogue TV channel and tune in on this one so she will have 30 channels of TV too :) .. not bad for a baby PIII. Got a 40G hard drive Maxtor 1 yr old going in (I rate Maxtor 8)), a DVD drive and will end up running the 2.1ch Logitech speaker set I just bought or a pair of Labtecs I picked up to go to with my new portable cd player. I'm catching up with the times ;)

not.

:)

[calumc]

Gonna be a handy little thing when its done, good luck with it!

[xRyokenx]

Cool dude. Looks nice so far, are you gonna do any other painting to it?

[Crazy Buddhist]

Ant

I may spray it silver :)

[xRyokenx]

Ant

I may spray it silver :)

That might fit with most modern appliances than that blue.

[tybrenis]

What do you plan on using to rise the motherboard a bit?

[Crazy Buddhist]

What do you plan on using to rise the motherboard a bit?

As with Deskpooter the donor box will be hacked to pieces to make a motherboard tray and any brackets I need. It's part of my "love-hate" relationship with white boxes: I hate them and love hacking them to pieces. Here's the donor:

http://freedomforall.net/KitchenPuter/Donor.jpg


In making Deskpooter I used offcuts of wood glued in place to get the MOBO tray and backplate for the PCI cards that I had cut out of the old box level and fixed.

As you can see there is very little equipment inside the box which is one of the reasons I think I will easily get it all inside the new case. I am playing with mounting the HDD like this on two currently spare PCI card slots as it will be a really easy way of making a mounting for it and gives me the excuse to cut up some old and no longer used PCI cards in the process:

http://freedomforall.net/KitchenPuter/HDDplacement.jpg


Then the optical drive could be fit in really tight as well. Though I may not need to be so tight: have to work out how the retractable screen will function before finally placing or cutting anything.

http://freedomforall.net/KitchenPuter/ODplacement.jpg


So thats the donor and the project. I'm still umming and aahing (Brit english for undecided) about the enclosure. I saw this little filebox and thought a PC would fit in it but I would prefer to have the KitchenPuter in a wooden bread bin: "Boston bread bin" type would be my number one choice. I just didn't find one quite big enough yet. And maybe this fileBox would make a better home for my music/fileserver which will be based on exactly the same PIII spec - as I was given a couple of these just recently.

This is what I mean:

http://www.thaitradefair.com/fairin/bigoct03/exibi_images/product_images/tomsgrou3.jpg (http://www.thaitradefair.com/fairin/bigoct03/exhibitor/key_catalog.php-al=5&page=48.htm)

:)

[chaksq]

That filebox makes me think of an old Lisa. Sounds like a good plan. Good luck.

[alexanderH]

buddhist, this thing is NEAT. I like the idea, hide it in a cupboard or something. Kicks ass, and make recipe storage a whole lot less messy. Props and Rep mate.

[Crazy Buddhist]

buddhist, this thing is NEAT. I like the idea, hide it in a cupboard or something. Kicks ass, and make recipe storage a whole lot less messy. Props and Rep mate.

Thats pretty close to my plan: actually I intend hanging it from the underside of a kitchen wall cabinet so its easily accessable without wasting counterspace :) ... unless it endsup in a breadbin box ... in which case it will get counterspace :) ... we'll see.

[Torn]

breadbox all the way in my oppinon! it will look allot more nice! and will blend into the kitchin as a theme..

[Crazy Buddhist]

breadbox all the way in my oppinon! it will look allot more nice! and will blend into the kitchin as a theme..

Looks like I am making a bread box then. {{{thinks}}} ... yep got some nice pine ... will go with the spice rack.

I want all the puters in my gaff stealthed and networked. Except one ... been planning an artputer ... acrylic case, thin, maybe 2 1/2 - 3" deep by 36" square - all the cards flat on ribboncable risers and hang it on the wall.

First job when I leave here is deskpooter's glass top, then kitchen computer though. In wood again ... my fave material.

:)

[alexanderH]

Thats pretty close to my plan: actually I intend hanging it from the underside of a kitchen wall cabinet so its easily accessable without wasting counterspace :) ... unless it endsup in a breadbin box ... in which case it will get counterspace :) ... we'll see.

You know, my friend used to have a breadbox that was hung from the cabinet. It was really cool, because it had a sliding door on it that was made of wood slats. So because it hung from the cabinet, the handle for the door was at the top and you'd slide it down to reveal the contents.

I think that you could go with a breadbox theme, and it would be really cool. But don't limit yourself to the idea that a breadbox is usually found on the counter. You have a lot of awesome ideas, not to mention your artputer but you can come up with something simple and effective that says "thats buddhists breadbox, aint it cool! What? It's a computer?!"

By the way, with this art puter. when are you starting? I know you've got lots on the table as you are right now. But that sounds like a PHENOMINAL idea. And if you want any ideas/research let me know and i'd be more than willing to help you out.

[Fuganater]

First job when I leave here is deskpooter's glass top, then kitchen computer though. In wood again ... my fave material.
:)


GLASS TOP??? Woot! Gotta see that!!

[Crazy Buddhist]

GLASS TOP??? Woot! Gotta see that!!

look at my sig pic very closely or click on the deskpooter link under it ;)

[Drum Thumper]

I've got plans (on hold at the moment) for a similar idea, with one addition: a recipe wiki using the same software that were are running here for our modder's wiki.