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phoneboi
12-30-2005, 09:06 AM
Obsidian, defined by dictionary.com as the following:


n. A usually black or banded, hard volcanic glass that displays shiny, curved surfaces when fractured and is formed by rapid cooling of lava.

Not quite the look I'll be going for, but the name seemed appropriate.

The inspiration for this case comes from a William Gibson novel, Idoru. In the book Gibson describes a computer that is a simple black cube, no visible controls or indicators of any kind. When active, the computer's case had several different colored lights inside of it, and they would display different patterns and sequences based on what the computer was doing.

The original plan was to create a case mod based on this design, however since is the first mod I'm attempting, I thought it might be best to start smaller and work my way up.

This design is similar to my original thought, although instead of a simple black cube with multi-colored lights mounted everywhere, the lighting will be concentrated on the top and along lines moving across and down the case.

A second inspiration for this case came from a walk thru a local store's electronics’ section. I happened upon a small clock radio, who's face was backlit with multiple colors. The display cycled thru the color spectrum smoothly and created a very cool "ooh shiny" moment that had me transfixed for quite a while.

The thought is this:

Upon first powering on the system, the center square and lines would be softly illuminated in white. After a length of time, the center square would transition to blue/green/red/yellow.... etc. The color would appear to "spill" across and down the white sections of the case, creating another of those "ooh, shiny" moments.

Here are a few concept sketches, and be forewarned, I'm definitely no artist.

http://static.flickr.com/36/79324410_f10deb8cdc_m.jpg http://static.flickr.com/36/79324409_f0fda347dc_m.jpg

Zeus
12-30-2005, 10:40 AM
sounds like an interesting idea. I will have to keep an eye on this. Especially with how you pull off the lighting effects.

Rankenphile
12-30-2005, 03:16 PM
What ^he said. :D

phoneboi
12-31-2005, 02:06 AM
Conceptual Models

I broke out some modeling software and whipped up a quick rendering of what the case might look like when I'm finished.



http://static.flickr.com/43/79662923_b7485c07ab.jpg?v=0 http://static.flickr.com/43/79662923_b7485c07ab.jpg?v=0


I was a little quick in getting things built, so much of the detail the case will have has been left out.
(Need to brush up on using Truspace (http://www.caligari.com/) again.)

You're basic run of the mill computer stuff that's not easy to get away from, such as:


a cutout and front bezel for the cd-rom tray
switches under the base for power/reset/cd-rom
ventilation holes (intake)
fan/backplane/expansion card cutouts


Lighting Effects

For the pulse, color changing, "ooh shiny" effects, I need to start with my light source. After thinking it over, I decided that I could go in one of two directions.



Clusters of Red, Green and Blue LEDs, spaced at regular intervals across the lighted "bars" of the case.



"True RGB" LEDs (http://www.superbrightleds.com/TriColor%20LED.htm), not much different from #1, except that the red, green and blue emitters are housed in a single 5mm led package.


For this project, I think I'm going to go with the slightly more expensive single package "true RGB" leds. There are many other ideas out there for lighting something like this, (sideglow fiber, endglow fiber, color-wheel with diffuser, the list could go on and on), but I'm going to try my hand at using something new.



http://static.flickr.com/40/79662927_a7f78fb21d.jpg?v=0 http://static.flickr.com/38/79662925_38e49951ef.jpg?v=0


To drive the LED's I'll need either a somewhat (more*) complicated array of PWM circuits, or a somewhat (more*) complicated microcontroller and program to do pretty much the same thing. See a sample circuit for 1 LED on this page (http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2002/08/28/rainbow_led/1.html) from bit-tech.net and Dave Williams.

* Note: The argument can be made that either method is more (or less) complicated than the other, depending on a person's background in electronics and digital circuits.

I plan to use a PICAXE (http://www.phanderson.com/picaxe/picaxe.html) microcontroller from Revolution Education (http://www.rev-ed.co.uk/picaxe/) as a timer/pwm to control the lighting sequence and color generated by the case.



http://static.flickr.com/37/79662922_3ec5b8a583.jpg?v=0


The PICAXE is:


relatively inexpensive (when I blow one or more up during construction)


programs easily (a stripped down version of basic)


has built in serial communication (create a custom color sequence from the pc)


There are many things I haven't mentioned, many things I still have to figure out, and I'm sure many things I haven't even thought of yet, but isn't that the fun of the design process?

More to come, thanks for the comments!

abnoea
12-31-2005, 03:46 AM
have fun with all those circuits your going to need to wire up

Rankenphile
12-31-2005, 04:19 AM
Sounds like you've got a good idea of what you're doing. Again, this is going to be another one to watch. I'm excited.