der_george - awsm htpc

[der_george]

Hey Guys and Gals

Welcome to my new little casemod worklog. I’m not going to give away too much to begin with. Well to be more exact- just a single picture.

Have fun guessing:

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/1_800x531.jpg

If you’re good you will get an update in the next few days. :D

So long
:0)

[jdbnsn]

I'll be good :D

[TheGreatSatan]

HTPC? Snow? Sounds dangerous

[billygoat333]

A snowboard mod?

[xr4man]

that's a cool case. completely fanless.

this is one of my favorite sites for ideas on making completely fanless pcs.

http://www.silentmods.com/

[der_george]

I'll be good :D

:0)


HTPC? Snow? Sounds dangerous

HTPC -Check! Snow - well it was for the photo. So not really. ;) Dangerous? Hope not! :0)


A snowboard mod?

xD. ahaha. Cool idea. i'm going for a sleek HTPC.


that's a cool case. completely fanless.

this is one of my favorite sites for ideas on making completely fanless pcs.

http://www.silentmods.com/

Correct. I like it too! Thanks for the link. Will check it out!

Okay let’s go. I’m going to show you what I did in the meantime.
First of all I would like to thank Christian from Streacom (http://www.streacom.com/) for getting a Streacom FC5 (http://www.streacom.com/products/fc5-od-fanless-chassis/) out to Germany for me before becomes officially available over here. Sadly I won’t be the only one to hold it in my hands for very long as they are coming to the German market soon – if I understood it correctly that is. ;)

I unpacked it straight away of course. Sadly the feel of the Case doesn’t come across on the pictures.

This was in the big black box: The Streacom FC5 Case and a little accessories box.

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/2_800x531.jpg

Let’s have a look in the accessories box.

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/3_800x531.jpg

Heatpipes, heatsinks and installation material.

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/4_800x531.jpg

The heatpipes are very well made. No solder discolorations and very clean tips. Now let’s see how good the case is.

Here‘s the beauty:

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/5_800x531.jpg

I’ve got the silver one – there is also a black one. It has a great feal to it. The silky matte blasted finish looks really nice. Everything that you can touch is made of metal, even all of the buttons. Not what you see very often.

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/6_800x531.jpg

Let’s see if everything on the inside is as nice as on the outside. Five little screws later and you can take off the lid (made of 2.5 mm thick aluminium!)

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/7_800x531.jpg

First thing you notice is that apart from a few rubber-decouplings, a PCB and a Cable, it’s all made of metal on the inside too. It has enough room for a mATX Motherboard. The huge cooling fins really stand out too.

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/8_399x600.jpg

Yeah. Thats right 10 mm pure Aluminium. No plastics, no bent aluminium, 10 mm pure aluminium. :0)

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/9_800x531.jpg

The sides with the cooling fins are over 40 mm thick on the widest area of the slimmest side. Pure aluminium here again. That’s what I call quality. :D

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/10_800x531.jpg

So let’s take it all apart. The ODD-Tray first.

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/11_800x531.jpg

There we have all the parts. And I found something that’s not made of metal. The rubber on the feet. :D Well the rest of the foot is made of pure aluminium. ;)

Okay taken it all apart now. Let’s get on to the rest.
I orderd this stuf fas well… what could it be?... well the name says it all really.

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/12_800x531.jpg

Jep! A PicoPSU + and an external Power Supply. Passiv Power Supply – CHECK!

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/13_800x531.jpg

What could that be? Well, what could still be missing?

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/14_800x531.jpg

A remote-controller!

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/15_800x531.jpg

And this is where the first proper work began – reverse engineering…

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/16_800x531.jpg

And the result:

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/17_800x447.jpg

My - well for me at least – new idea is to rebuild the FC5 completely in CAD. Then I want to show you what I want to do in CAD first and then try to do it in real.

Status CAD today: ca. 80%

Still has a bit of time though as all of the rest of my hardware still has not arrived – still waiting for quite a few things. :0(
Could also be that I can’t solely see to this project in the near future as I have applied to take part in the den we-mod-it casemoding contest ('http://we-mod-it.com/board6-allgemein/board9-neuerungen-und-ank%C3%BCndigungen/1255-ms-tech-casemod-contest-2012-bewerbungsphase/'). So it could be that I have to do two projects at the same time – shouldn’t be too bad as I’ve done it before.
Thanks for reading if you got this far!
So long :0)

[billygoat333]

That is one beautiful case!

[der_george]

So true. ;)

The painfully long wait for my new hardware carries on, but I will still give you a little Update to kill time.

picoPSU-Modding Part 1:

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/18_800x531.jpg

White connectors are ugly and that’s why I want to have a nice little black one on it.
Using a Pin remover is not going to help because 24 Pins in one go is impossible. And I don’t want to ram it in there with such a force that the hooks bend in, because I want to keep on using the pins. Desoldering the Pins doesn’t work either (because of the little hooks) All that’s left is to get rid of the plastic.
First I practiced on an old connector:

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/19_800x531.jpg

After trying out all different methods, I worked out that the best way to do it was to use a Dremel with a grinding disk and very carefully cut away the plastic. It won’t be as easy as with the old connector, because on the picoPSU the pins aren’t separate but soldered together onto the PCB.
I knew I had to be very, very careful because if I slipped once it would instantly cut through the fragile little pins and I have no clue where to get pins like that which you can solder from quickly..

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/20_800x531.jpg

Slowly but surely starting on the first side

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/21_800x531.jpg

The first side completed

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/22_800x531.jpg

Carefully starting the second side

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/23_800x531.jpg

And just finished the second side. Now I just have to get rid of the plastic in-between. After quite a bit of trying and swearing I carefully got it out.

That’s what it looked like:

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/24_800x531.jpg

Getting the new connector on wasn’t too difficult. ;)

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/awsm%20htpc/25_800x531.jpg

And this is what it looks like now.

I’m really hoping the hardware I ordered will arrive soon, so I can start properly at last.
Hopefully see you very soon.

So long :0)

[SXRguyinMA]

nice job! the black looks much better :D

[xr4man]

to make a pin like that to be soldered to the board, you can always take a regular pin and crimp it to a bare wire and then cut the wire to the right length.

[der_george]

nice job! the black looks much better :D

Black is beautiful! Thanks a lot SXRguyinMA!


to make a pin like that to be soldered to the board, you can always take a regular pin and crimp it to a bare wire and then cut the wire to the right length.

Good Idea! Why didn't I think of that!? :D

Well, after a long long time i’ve got something new for you.
Well the whole story started when after weeks of waiting I got mail. Sadly not the parts I had been waiting for but a letter from the customs office – 2 letters to be exact.

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/26_800x531-1.jpg

Didn’t think much apart from that it took what seemed like years for anything to arrive.
So I took last Friday afternoon off and went to Tennenlohe to the customs office. The first (bigger) parcel wasn’t a problem – the second one though. Customs had opened the parcels and checked the contents and a Customs-Officer noticed that the Blu-Ray Drive that I had ordered didn’t have a „CE“-Label. That was the reason why They didn’t want to give it to me and why it toook soooo long.

The Problem was that I had bought an external Drive as it was cheaper than the internal Drive on its own. This casing didn’t have the “CE”. So I told the officer, that I could open the casing for him and show him the CE-Sign and if he wanted he could keep the plastic. It took quite a while to pursuade him and when I opend it the first thing we saw was the CE-Sign. I still wasn’t allowed to take it with me. The officer had top hone around and fill in a load of forms and after a loooooong wait I was able to leave the building (with the Case and all afterall :D) What a load of ***** and huge waist of time as I’m going to remove that horrible sticker anyway. :P

Now I could carry on measuring -up and planning weeks later than planed.
Oh, I forgot to post the pictures of the (whole, unmodded) CAD-Modell.

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/27_800x357.jpg

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/28_800x372.jpg

Well. I will start off by making following part. What could it be?

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/29_800x463.jpg

I’ve got the material for it all.

http://i828.photobucket.com/albums/zz207/der_george/30_800x531-1.jpg

Well I’ll get to work and show you what I did when I've finished.

So long :0)

[xr4man]

i'm guessing it is a heat block of some type that will use heat pipes to attach to the external heatsink sides of the case. so does that mean you are going to try and go totally fanless?