PC-Playstation 2 Hybrid

[justblair]

Hi all.

This is my first post on this forum... Please be gentle with me.

This worklog I'm afraid starts morethan half way through the build. But as it is a fairly unique (please correct me if its been seen before) mod, I thought it may be of interest to peeps.

Now to the story.

This is a lesson how "That seems a simple idea" turns into "How many of those things have I trashed now"

First of all lets start with a simple idea.

For my living room I wished a silent HTPC. It had to be silent as I intended it to run 24/7 and I like my piece and quiet. I also play some gentle jazz from time to time and the whine of a fan ruins the effect. So a plan was born.

Make a 100% passive HTPC.

On reflection this turned out to be the easier aspect of this machine.

Inside

2100XP palamino Undervolted 10 1.4v and underclocked to 1133mhz. Cooled by a modded typhoon.

Abit NF7 mobo. Modded with a 6cm CPU copper cooler, running the NB passive. The power regulators are heatsinked with a cut up PII heatsink. The SB has a PII heatsink shaped and added. The thing runs stable with no forced cooling

2x512mb DDR 400 ram heatsinked with nexus memory sinks. Running in dual channel mode.

Silverstone 30NF 300w power supply. 100% passive piece of alu gorgeousness!

ATI 9600 pro AIW (tuner now no longer required)

Asus 7131 DVBT card

V-Stream/K-World DVB-T100

So I thought take a standardish cheapo ATX Midi tower case. Stripped out the bays, cut out the front, panels at the rear and rear sides. Make a new front panel I have a cover made which is meshed at the rear as well. More of that to follow...

I then thought (and this is where I have to say a lesson could be learned about how dangerous thoughts are!) There is space in their for other stuff, what else could I fit in there. The answer was staring me in the face. My playstation 2.

This was the killer. Or to put it more exactly I became a playstation Killer....

I stripped the first PS2 down. I seem to recall it was a V7. Worked out a placement, built brackets. Removed its own power supply, Soldered a molex onto it and tried it out. Bingo, power and it worked. Now all I had to do was

1. Extend the controllers and Mem cards to the side of the new case.

2. Extend the graphics output to the back of the new case.

3. Work out how to get the power and eject buttons to the front of the case.

4. Add drive bays to the (at this time non existant) front facia panel

Easy?

I searched the web, but noone seemed to have done this mod before.

Now the piccies...

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0774.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0771.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0770.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0772.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0773.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0775.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0776.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0777.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0778.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0780.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/PS2closeup.jpg

I will be stripping the thing down for painting and further filling. When I do I can take some photos of the playstation conversion to give an idea on whats involved.

I would also welcome positive suggestions on how to take this case further.

Justblair

[cheztir]

nice, reminds me of a mod i did a while back of putting an Xbox and PC in the same case, eaiser mod since the Xbox is all USB peripherals and already had an ATX PSU plug. Can't wait to see the finished thing.

[justblair]

Yes...

The playstation is not easy thing to mod into a pc case. In fact I trashed 2 playstations trying.

The soldering is intricate, the first one I slipped with the iron and took away 2 resistors, by the time I had tried a repair, 7 resistors and a track had lifted off the board. I used the video out port from that one to extend the output to the back of the case. The laser was used to repair the machine that you see in there now. (flea bay is good for faulty ps2s)

The second one (a V3) was in a different arrrangement. It had two stacked boards. I made a perspex box for the boards with a 120mm fan. All worked well till I was fitting it. Made a mistake, the box fell out of my hands and when I tried to power it back up, nothing....

The power supply bit was the easiest. You cant see it in the photos, but all I did was identify the 12v line on the ps2 power supply, then solder a molex onto the ps2 main board accordingly.

[DaveW]

Very nice work, haven't something like this in a while. Looks like it would be murder if you ever changed your mind about something though...

-Dave

[justblair]

Well the fact its a passive pc is limiting certainly, couldn't say put an intel in there. But its still ATX at heart, so I can change in the future to an AMD.

The playstation bit of course is limited, not only is the 3 on its way (Though I wont by the first ones) but I have a horrible fear of breakdown. That happens I have to source another V10 or mod again. But might not happen.

I suspect though that I will have built another one long before I want to change anything on this project. I have a few idea spinning around just now for another HTPC.

Oh yes and I have just bought a playstation one 5'tft screen for playing with. Not sure where I will use it. Either in this case or part of a remote viewing screen with a tv extender. Ill try it for size and see how I feel. Got it on fleabay for 20GBP new and unused (its described as) Expect to see it crop up somewhere.

[Razors Edge]

Yeah, I like the idea. hey cheztir, You think you can give me a few photos of you're xbox computer? Becuase I want to try putting an xbox into a computer. I don't mind blowing a few hundred dollars for that.

[Slug Toy]

Well the fact its a passive pc is limiting certainly

you know, i was kind of torturing myself about this point... trying to think of a way to overcome the limitation. i cant believe i didnt think about this earlier.

ever heard of things like ion propulsion or the ionic breeze or lifters? those work on a principle of electrifying atoms in the air to ionize them, and it can create an air current.

the ionic breeze is probably the best demonstration. you plug it into the wall, turn it on, and it starts circulating air silently... and fairly quickly too.

the trick though is engineering something like this to operate in a case. devices like this use at least 1000 volts and two mesh layers that act as anodes and cathodes. its quite possible to pull off though (you just need to use 120 volts from the wall, and make a transformer to step it up 9 or 10 times... not too hard).

i think something like that would look cool because of the mesh, and just BE cool because of the principle. theres just one thing i should say though before you go and try this. if you take the voltage up too high, you start getting coronas. coronas are basically a visible discharge between the electrodes... usually a purple colour. this is bad for two reasons:

1. its makes a hissing crackling noise

2. its pretty much the same thing as jumping a spark. you could fry everything instantly.

1000 volts should be enough to get a small current happening, and it shouldnt jump sparks (general rule is something like every 1000 volt increase means a spark can jump an extra centimeter).

so, its a wild idea, but its completely possible, and you strike me as the sort of person thats crazy enough to try it.... id try it. all you need to do is find some fine metal mesh, or you could weave some 50 gauge copper wire.

by all means, dont take my advice. its a little risky. doesnt hurt to try though... maybe make a test apparatus to see what it does first. i just thought it would be like a golden bullet solution.

[cheztir]

More on Slug Toy's point, why not try one of those "Bath Room Ionic Breeze", or better yet "Car Ionic Breeze"'s since they run of 12v anyway. From what i can tell they'd seem to get the job done quietly, effectively, and becuase you could just keep it in it's casing no fear of a jumping spark.

Hehe. Ionizing is very dangerous, i've played around with it using a disassembled CRT. You can get seriously hurt, so use at your own risk.

Also, Razor's Edge sadly i gave away the Xbox/PC hybrid as a gift a few years back. But good news is a might be constructing a new one soon, expect that on here of course.

[Slug Toy]

Ionizing is very dangerous

well, dangerous is a relative term. it really depends on what kind of risks you are willing to take.

some people might consider this dangerous because they could fry their computer.

some people might consider it dangerous because they can get RF burns and electrocutions.

some people might consider it dangerous because its potentially deadly. i disagree with this one because if you power off a 120 volt outlet, you lose current through the transformer and through the wire (something like 50 gauge is very small and large currents either melt it or cause major coronas).


i've played around with it using a disassembled CRT

you didnt make an electron gun by any chance did you? i figured out how you can make them from a crt coil. its not that hard, and you can do some neat things... fry steel wool from 20 feet away... light up tvs.... make peopes hair stand up. ive even seen videos of people burning wood... but i dont understand how that happens.

[justblair]

so, its a wild idea, but its completely possible, and you strike me as the sort of person thats crazy enough to try it.... id try it. all you need to do is find some fine metal mesh, or you could weave some 50 gauge copper wire.

I'm not sure wether to take that as a compliment or not... :)

Initially I dismissed the idea...

Then I started thinking

Then I definately dismissed the idea....

For a bit at least...

Then I made this...

Only joking!

I think for the mean time I will leave it. The processor stays below 60c even in the scorching hot summers Scotland is famous for. The machine is stable and does enough for the moment. Even when I add the partially meshed top I am fabbing at the moment. One benefit I did think of was this... I smoke, Ionisers are very effective at cleaning the air of dust and tobacco fumes. Trouble is the dirt litterly falls out of the air around it, which of course would be the inside of my case.

My other problem with this idea comes down to power consumption. The Silverstone 30NF certainly is no slouch. It has oodles of current. But I have to consider that it is a passive PSU and more watts means more heat. I still am toying with the idea of squeezing a playstation screen onto the front.. Thats another couple of amps of power used up.

At the moment certainly there will be a few left. The PS2 is rated at 45w including its own psu (Which cant be that efficient judging by its design) probs about 30w now. The undervolt to the processor takes the processor down to 30w max (It only ever runns at 40% of its power, so I guess about 20w. the Graphics card is setup to handle as much of the output as possible.

I'd guess that I am drawing round 100-110 watts and the PSU is warm to the touch but not burny. I'm not sure how much extra burdon I want to give it though. Its not just that it will tax the PSU, the processor is very close, so that would be more heat generated in close proximity. Again I have probably got some headroom... Rather keep the headroom there tho.

That said I am sure my folks had one of those ionisers at one time, it may still be in a cupboard back at theirs. Mum didn't like the dirt that it attracted. You get a fair bit even in an obsessive compulsive clean freaks house (sorry Mum) I am tempted to give it a try one afternoon... If I do I will report.

[cheztir]

nail on the head Slug Toy. Good guess. Well yeah dangerous isn't a great term to use, but yes there are risks to using it.

[Slug Toy]

i had another idea.

you say you're putting mesh on the top, and i see some on the sides. what you should do is either put some mesh on the bottom too, and raise the whole case about half an inch off the ground, or take the side mesh, and duct it to the heat generating areas. this should hopefully get a convection current going.

as you can tell, im concerned mainly with airflow for this. ill keep trying to come up with other great/stupid ideas.

actually, another idea would involve fans. why not take a couple 120mm fans, slap a couple resistors on to lower the voltage, and use them. the lower voltage should make them spin slower. some 120mm fans are already fairly quiet, and if you drop them to somewhere below 500rpm, well im sure theyd be pretty much silent. on your strict power budget, id only say you need 2 fans in the bottom blowing upwards, and providing you place them right, they should do the job.

[Razors Edge]

Alright man, Just make sure you give me a step by step picture guide or something.

[cheztir]

No problem. I'll PM you a link once I get going on it.

How's the Hybrid machine coming, Just Blair?

[justblair]

Not so well...

I used pretty thick sheet steel for fabbing the wraparount top. But I am not sure I am going to use it. I bent the corners on metal edges, and though It fits the front and sides very well, where I tried to bend a lip round the back I didn't get as good a result.

I'll post some photos when I get home, you can maybe tell me how far off the mark I am. ie can it be rescued?

But then I had an idea that I hadn't thought of before. I had contemplated an entire mesh grill for the top and sides. But I discounted this at the time, it is a living room pc, so should be discrete in appearance. But thinking about it, I could start with modders mesh (the type with the holes punched from a sheet, rather than the extruded stuff that I am using on the back.) and just use filler to cover the stuff I dont want seen. Any thoughts?


as you can tell, im concerned mainly with airflow for this. ill keep trying to come up with other great/stupid ideas.

Dont worry to much about it, The machine has performed in this config through months of experimenting and touch wood has never had a thermal crash.


actually, another idea would involve fans. why not take a couple 120mm fans, slap a couple resistors on to lower the voltage, and use them. the lower voltage should make them spin slower. some 120mm fans are already fairly quiet, and if you drop them to somewhere below 500rpm, well im sure theyd be pretty much silent. on your strict power budget, id only say you need 2 fans in the bottom blowing upwards, and providing you place them right, they should do the job.

That cant be done for this one. i set myself the goal of a passive HTPC right from the outset. Of course any reasonable person would not have set this goal to begin with. 120 MM Fans as you suggest are very quiet once undervolted. Though I haven't played with any that will go as low as 500rpm and start reliably. Nexus 120mm (very quiet fans) in my experiance will start in the 700rpm region and will be silent paractically from about 1m. This would have been a more reasonable plan.

Now someone is going to dig me up on the playstation having a fan. Thats only because I havent come up with a practical method of running it passive. Particularly as I dont want to kill another one! However I rationalised this to myself because the thing sits on standby most of the time. The DVD that comes with it drowns out the very quiet fan. (Thats a V10 system, the older ones I have demolished were whiny wee buggers) So Apart form a couple of hours a week it is passive as intended.

[justblair]

Update...

Gave up on the case cover in a fit of huffiness.

Been out all weekend living it up... Tonight I was feeling a bit flat, but decided to take on another task.

The playstation 1 screen I have now recieved and disassembled. I was going to start soldering it to a VGA plug, but shakey hands and a lack of mental agility put paid to that idea.

Instead I had another look at Samurize. The software I intend to use to control the screen. I had previously searched the forums there for how to use it with MCE. Answer was... Noone had managed it yet....

Yet!!!!!

I however had a come across some software from an Australian company called Axcis. The software was MCIS

MCIS (http://www.axcis.com.au/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=10)

This is intended to be used with LCD Smartie (for character LCDs one of which I have ready to fit above the drive bays)

However reading the tech manuals on it I discovered it outputed state info to a local host service.

So tonight I have been playing with scripts and have discovered a method of displaying the info I want (track title, recording status etc) onto a 5'tft screen.

Bad news is that I may have to rip apart the front panel of this project to allow a TFT screen to be fitted. More soon!

[justblair]

Well I had my first try with my playstation screen. Had to wire the dcc to the 5v line to get it to power up...

Fired in a composite image and its looking great.

The plan though is to use this as an RGB device. Using powerstrip.

Cant wait till tomorrow to have a go with it.

Powerstrip I have tried in the past and its a pain in the buttocks. Hope I have more luck this time.

No piccies yet... batteries on the camera died.:(

[maximan1]

Hey will you be connecting both the computer and the PS2 to a tv? Because when I connected my old Vaio to a tv the resolution was really bad.

[justblair]

Yep. Its connected to a 32' widescreen TV.

One day when I'm rich and famous i'll get a lovely big widescreen lcd for it, but till then I'm stuck with what I've got.

The resolution on the TV sucks for ordinary computing, but then thats the beauty of using windows media center. Its designed for this purpose with its own interface that is optimised for TVs.

This machine is only used for music, TV, DVD and movie playback. Its an HTPC.

[justblair]

Time for an update, got some new batteriesfor the camera!

First of all we'll start with my playstation screen... No doubt you will have seen these before. Its UK Pal version and looks like this now...

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0797.jpg

As you can see I took it apart. Wired it up to a vga cable and got rid of most (will trim further before fitting) of the cabling/speakers etc that I didn't need. The other loose cables I couldn't identify so left on. Now I know I dont need them I will snip them. I also intend building a power regulator to run the screen off of the silverstone PSU. Doing the circuit building last on this project so that I can make one bulk order for chips, resistors, leds caps, mosfets ect.

Next up... This week I have been looking at making a case lid. I had already built one from sheet steel, but as mentioned before, I am not happy with the result. Instead I had this brainwave. I am using alu modders mesh, anodised alu strip and L channel to make the lid. The materials are in this picture...

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0800.jpg

In the top right corner you can see my first experiment with the anodised strip. I formed it into a band which will wrap around the case. There will be 3 of these bands. One at the front, which will also frame the pespex facia, one in the middle to join two sheets of mesh and the L channel at the back to finish the rear of the lid. I have some 3mm by 12mm zinc plated countersunk screws that will fix the bands to the mesh/case. I intend doing these in double rows around the bands. This gives me a chance to try out my drill press! This is kinda hard to explain, perhaps when you see the lid it will become clear.

The lid was formed from the modders mesh. I made myself a bending rig to allow me to make precise right angled bends. The "former" was a 1/2' metal pole that was part of a weight lifting set. Everyone has a set of weights at the back of a cupboard or garage! This is the first time I have found a use for it. I used a sheet of scrap mdf, attached a few bolts in it to hold the metal bar. Then clamped the alu mesh to it, fitted the bar and bent it. Worked very well (only made two mistakes which were easily recitfied)

Here you can see the modders mesh being formed into a lid.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0802.jpg

Did this with two sheets, one cut down to fit... The end result i am pleased with!

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0805.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0804.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0803.jpg

I think that once the chasis is plainted black, with a few more panels cut out for ventilation this is going to look pretty good. When I held one of the anodised strips in place, the contrast was subtle but distinctive.

It should also provide excellent ventilation for the system.

Bad new is that I am going to have to redo a lot of the playstation extensions. I am having to move it to the right of the case (looking from the front) and upwards to make space for that screen. Here by the way is the extended mem card and joypad ports...

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0798.jpg

I will probably start afresh with this one. I have a couple of spare ports from the playstations I killed.

I am now considering adding a few leds to the case interiour. Just for laughs really, they will be switched as practically speaking I wont want that distraction while watching TV. I think though a blue glow through the mesh will look good.

Happy to hear your thoughts?

[justblair]

A very quick update...

Was going to finish the case before I added these images, but I got a bit over excited and started the update.

I just completed 2 of 3 of the anodised "bands" that finish the case lid. The result is exacly what I hoped for!

Dont know how long the next one and the facia will take, but these images give a pretty clear impression on what the finished result will be...

First how I made them... I used the same bending rig as before, this time though I put the origional mesh in as well as the strap. 2 benefits to this..

1. Gives me a very accurate fit, mm perfect in fact with little effort.

2. No measuring or compansating for the mesh in my calculations Yey

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0807.jpg

Pretty easy this time, in fact a 20 minute job at most.

And now the results

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0811.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0808.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0810.jpg

The level of precision required scared me off starting this job for a few days. Turned out a lot easier than I thought. Any small gaps you spot here will disapear when its screwed together. Nothings fixed yet.

Unlike the sheet steel I used before, the alu is a lot easier to manipulate, and is forgiving of mistakes (just bend back)

I'm getting excited. Going to try and not get too drunk tonight (My mates away to Australia to live, tonights his leaving do). If I dont have the shakes too bad tomorrow, I might get the majority of the exteriour done!

[justblair]

I did get too drunk, tried to make the back band, which was to be from an L shaped bit of Alu... Big mistake! It requires cutting and shaping and either my calcs are out, my skills are blunted or it was a daft idea. I'm scrapping the L anyway, but got to go to the harware store and get more alu...

Going to use strip instead, then tidy the gaps some other way.

Damn the demon drink!:eek:

[GT40_GearHead]

i see you like mesh... hhhm
what are you gonna do under the mesh, lights.... ?!

ou and i see a problem with vibrations, or is it just me?

[justblair]

Not expecting any problems with vibrations.. The only moving parts are the HD unless the ps2 is on. The HD is going to be encased and suspended on elastic by the end of the build.

As for liking the mesh? Well this is a cases of function dictating style. The system must be meshed to allow it to run passive. However I do have an option to add some 2mm thick perspex to the case to cover some of it if all that mesh starts to annoy me... Currently I'm thinking its quite a cool look, and very distinctive... But time will tell, I'll reaappraise this when the novelty has worn off.

I am considering putting some blue leds into the case, though I cant imagine using it with them on... But it might make a nice final glamour shot for the project. I have an idea for a switch, but It will have to wait till I get the rest of the electriconics. I have a shopping list for chips, caps leds and resistors. Once I am sure that it is exhaustive, I will bung an order over to farnell.

I'm going to have a bit to eat, then take some final shots for the worklog tonight. Hangover is still with me!

[justblair]

Here are the last few shots of the project as it stands at the end of the weekend. I'm a bit disapointed with my progress, But I had to take frequent naps today. In my defense I am stuggling with the cold, though the drink did have a devastating effect on my effectiveness today.

What I did get done today on top of my earlier failed attempt was

1. Got another alu strip from the hardware store.

2. Made the third band for the case top.

3. Cut and shaped a thin alu sheet for the front facia. I have not though cut the relevant holes for drives, screen and switches yet. I wanted to wait till my head was a bit clearer before doing this design orientated stuff.

So here are the shots...

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0814.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0812.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0813.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0815.jpg

You can see in the last shot the rear of the machine. There are two 1.3 cm gaps at the sides. I had intended using the L angled alu to fill this and make up the last band... That was the cutting and shaping I could not get right this morning. Instead I will fill this gap another way.

Probably going to use perspex dyed black for this. It should finish off the rear of the case nicely.

So thats it so far folks... Hopefully I will get a few hours done this week in the evenings. I hopefully will recieve the pci matrox g200 card tomorrow. Thayt will be dedicated to the psone screen, should make controlling it a bit less complicated <fingers crossed>. I intend soldering the RGB and sync connections either direct to the card, or add a header to the card that allows me to keep the cabling internal.

I was just looking at the mobo etc which is scattered around the living room. I will need to make a post covering the mods I have made there. I took pictures at the time... I'll see how I feel after a cup of tea.. Might do some of it tonight.

[justblair]

Ok the tea didn't do me any good the other night. But I look through my albums to see what I had. Here are some photos of the mobo, cpu cooler mods.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/Mobotopviewwithmoddedtyphoon.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/Moboreartopviewwithmoddedtyphoon.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/MoboRearBotomwithmoddedTyphoon.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/MoboFrontbottomviewwithmoddedtyphoo.jpg

You can see in the pictures that there has been quite a few mods made to the mobo and also the TT big typhoon cooler. I didn't take pictures as I went along, so this is just a finished result. The mods are.

Mobo.

Cut up 2 pII anodised heatsinks. The bits were used to add cooling to.

Green one

The southbridge of the mobo
The power regulator for the graphics card

For the southbridge I had to trim a chunk out of it to allow the graphics card clearance. By happy coincidence the chunk that was trimmed was the right size and shape to sit on the power regulator without fouling the card.

Blue one.

The power regulation section of the mobo
The power regulation for the memory
Any other chips that were hot to the touch.

This got really cut up. I shaped it initially to fit on the mobos power regulation mosfets that control vcore etc. There were 5 (i think) mosfets to cool, but the snag was that they had caps sitting between them. I trimmed the cpu cooler to fit around the caps. It actually is 2 pieces of alu, but lined up to look like one.

The remaining pieces were used to cool any other mosfets or hot chips that I could find on the board.

All the alu sections were attached using double sided thermal tape. This I would say is an extreme mod to do, I know that overclockers have got some extra mhz by cooling the mosfets. In my case though i was out to ensure that passive operation wasn't going to cause instability in the system.

The northbridge needed a bit more...

For this I took an evercool pure copper 6cm heatsink and trimmed it down to clear the CPU cooler. I attached it by using self tapping screws (and plastic washers to spread the tension and insulate) throught the 2 origional mounting holes. It replaced a whiny little fan that was standard in on the Abit NF7 mobo.

I dont know how much of this modification stabalized the system. I do recall that the vcore fluctuations were more stable when viewed on speedfan, but as the system was stable before, I cant say for certain that this more stable vcore made much difference. However this whole setting up phase was done in free air, so perhaps I avoided some problems later.

The Typhoon is another story. I used a tt 8cm copper core from a volcano cooler. Shaped its base, removed the bracket system from the base of the typhoon and attached it to the base. The fins were bent to make it fit. I also bent out the heatpipes, and the alu fins to allow as much fresh air in as possible.

Overall I am not happy with the aesthetics of this, though the mod certainly is a practical one. In free air in my passive config It reduced the idle from 49c to 40c and reduced the load temp from 53.5c down to 48c.

When you are working passive systems any sort of drop in temperature is difficult to achieve. The system runs at most of the time below 40% cpu useage when running MCE. So this made a big difference to the temps. At the time I was running the processor at 1100mhz. This mod gave me another 100 mhz of clock speed whilst the sytem remained stable.

************************************************** ********

Just to show the process, here is a step by step of my second attempt.

I did this mod a second time, this time with lessons learned. This is the worklog for the second typhoon. You can see how much better I got this second time round :) This one sits in my desk pc, but I may redo the one for the passive pc if I can find a donor heatsink. I got a better result, the mounting system is much neater and I think the airflow is better.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0731.jpg

To begin with I started with a standard Athlon XPx2 Cooler. This cost me nothing as it came supplied with a processor being used elsewhere in the house.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0733.jpg

Here as you can see it is disassembled and ready for modding.

The fan and the bracket are heading for the parts bin.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0736.jpg

Next I marked up the base of the donor ready to be shaped. This will start to make sense when you see the Typhoon ad the donor combined. The section on the base marked pipe needs to be removed, This is to clear the heatpipes on the Typhoon when the donor is placed on top of the Typhoon's collecting plate.

You can see in this picture I have started to drill a line out to remove the pipe section.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0737.jpg

I used a jigsaw to cut away more of the base. This was far quicker than drilling. I used the fins on the other side as a guide. You can see on the other side the desired result.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0744.jpg

You can see through the glare on this picture the heatpipe section cut and drilled. Ready now to pop it out. More drilling is required to do this.... .

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0740.jpg

Here you can see I drilled down from the side, near the fins (Sorry the camera doesn't like closeups). Then I used a set of precision files to join the drill holes. Eventually a nugget of Alu fell out and I had clearance for the typhoon pipes.

Next I had to produce a way of mounting the two heatsinks to each other and to the motherboard. The Typhoon normally uses a H plate to mount to the Mobo. In my previous mod I had retained this mechanism as you can see in this picture..

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/Moboreartopviewwithmoddedtyphoon.jpg

This time I didn't want to cut a slot, I decided that the best way forward was to shape the donor heatsink so that it became part of the mounting mechism. I removed the fins at each end of the heatsink to create a flat surface that replaced the uprights of the H shaped mount. (Kinda hard to explain, the phots make it clearer)

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0747.jpg

I drilled holes for the bolts through these flat sections and filed clean the cuts. A bit of sandpaper was used to clean away as much tool marks as possible.

Next I had to prepare the typhoon. On the heat plate, there is a copper cover that holds in the heatpipes and also provides a guide for the H bracket. This had to be removed.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0750.jpg

First there are 4 Jewelers screws that come out easily with a precision screwdriver. Next the Bracket has to be prised off as it is bonded also. To do this takes guts. I first prised open a gap between the bracket and the plate below. Then out comes a chisel. Holding it flat against the plate I gave it a gentle tap. The glue released and hey presto I have a cooler minus bracket. Sorry i have no photo, Both hands were occupied with the heatsink and chisel. If I had a third hand it would have been wiping the sweat off my brow!!

Fortunately the glue holds the heatpipes in place.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0756.jpg

Next I applied as much TIM as I could find in my spares bin. The picture above was taken about half way through. I used about 5g of the stuff. I glued in a couple of strips to the open ends of the pipe grooves so I could hold more TIM.

Now it was time to join the donor and the Typhoon.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0753.jpg

The fit was good. All that had to be done now was to bolt the modded typhoon onto the mobo. The bolts hold the whole assembly together.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0758.jpg

Attached the fan to the mobo fan header then fitted. You can see also the inline resister that I added to slow the fan down. The results were as follows..

Initially I tested the cooler outside of the case. This yeilded the following...

The processor is an Athlon 3000XP it throws out 90w plus of heat at full load

Before...Idle 34c Load 39c

After...Idle 31c Load 36c

The results were a little marginal, around a 3c drop (6f) both under load and idle. I was a bit disapointed. However when the mobo was fitted back into the case the work became a lot more worthwhile...

Before

47c idle 59c+ load

After

37c idle 47c load

Massive success when the cooler was tested in its intended destination. The PSU fan is in close proximity and it would appear that

a: The PSU is drawing air through the donor,

b: This design is more useful in higher temps.

************************************************** *********

Now to clarify a point before it is questioned.

My camera does some weird stuff in closeup shots. The first modded pictures appear to show a huge bend on the mobo. In real life their is a very small amount of distortion (caused by the Northbridge heatsink), the camera makes it look like a massive bend.

[Noobkiller]

Rock on dude!

[justblair]

Well this weekend I did not have much time to get much works done, been out protesting... Next weekend is looking pretty limited for time as well. By the time I got back I was pretty knackered... lots of time on my feet.

I did put in a few hours on the software side, and I got good news and bad news.

Good news was that using Samurize I managed to put together a pretty decent looking status screen for the psone screen. It will no doubt evolve in time, but for a first attempt I am pleased.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/SamurizeMCErectv.jpg

This is a screenshot if it displaying when a recoded tv show is running. Notice the temperature meters on the left hand side.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/SamurizeMCEplaying.jpg

And here it is playing some block rockin beats. The temperature meters get replaced with album art.

I have to say thankyou to Uziq accross at the Samurize forums. He adapted a plugin for me so that I could speed the meters up beyond their origional design. This now works very well, so when I press a button on my remote control I get almost instantaneous feedback from the status screen. I left my camera at work, so I cant show you it on the screen, but it looks dam good.

To make the config I had to do some searching to get images that give that Windows MCE theme.

Now for the bad news.....

The processor is an undervolted 2100XP Through all of my months of testing, I have had it running sweet at around 60% processor useage at its busiest (recording tv and playing back at the same time.)

However now with all of the meters running on Samurize, my proc useage has leapt. Playing music back i am getting 100% useage all the time. I have to make some decisions.

a) Do I scrap the status screen and continue the project to my origional spec? Reluctant to do this, the screen looks so sweet, I would be loathed to loose it.

b) Do I bung a fan on the processor and speed it back up to its stock mhz? I was set on the system being fanless... This is a last resort!

c) Do I continue my search for status software that is lighter on the resources (I have a trial for dashboard, an aussie product that is designed specifically for MCE), then strip out what I can from the operating system? The operating sytem will be stripped down anyway just to be more power efficient and to keep the temps down. I experimented with this before, I know I can lop off at least 20% of the processor useage this way.

d) Do I upgrade the processor? I have a 3000XP in my bedroom machine that never gets used to its full potential.

The answer I suspect will be a mixture of c and d. I have to unlock the 3000XP processor if I am to undervolt/underclock it. I cant remember how to do this, memory sort of suggests that it can be done with a wire mod (though I prefer to use conductive ink for this kind of circuit bypassing.

But the eye candy that the screen offers I think will make the project. The design for the case I am going for is discrete hopefully, the screen should give it that air of quality.

Any other suggestions to how to beat this one will be welcomed!

[justblair]

The last two nights I have been researching IC chips for the next part of the project. I have been thinking about producing an off board thermometer attached to the IC bus. I was buying a few bits and pieces anyway for this project, so I thought I would stretch my skills a little and make a pcb. This would let me monitor the PS2 for temps... I'm planning to go passive on it as well.

Need a power regulator for the psone screen, A Lm350 voltage regulator plus caps etc will give me the 7.5v that it needs. Means I wont have a seperate power plug for the screen.

A 24lc21 eeprom to trick out the graphics card into thinking the psone screen is a monitor. Then I can remove powerstrip as part of my OS strip down. Added bonus is I wont get the flickering screen when the machine powers up.

An Alu hamond box to try make a HD enclosure. (I got some cool gel packs a while ago). I'm actually thinking about 2 of these because my 160gb NAS is full. And if the HTPC is going to be powered (S3) then it may as well become a server. I think the silentdrive enclosure isn't the best idea for my HD temps. May add some fins to them to help passive cooling.

A bundle of LEDS for the money shot at the end! Its vain but I think it will look good.

I am planning on adding a riser to one of the graphics cards so that all the cabling for the PSone screen is held internally.

I am also planning on having a pair of usb ports that will auto switch between the PS2 and the PC section. So that the two ports destined for the side of the machine will become dual purpose. Havn't found the switch that will do it, but I know its out there. If anyone can point me in the right direction, I want it to switch on one of the ps2 power rails. i.e. if the PS2 leaves standby the usb is switched to it.

On top of that lot, I intend adding a manual switch for the front of the case that will switch between (leds/screen)-(all off)-(screen only) cased on an on-on-on selector switch.

Planning on having that lot on a single pcb. which will be the sort of control centre that will link the whole project together.. Never attempted anything but the simplest of circuits before, so this is part is akin to uzbekistan joining the space race! By using headers to all the components it should be a sort of linking module for the whole project.

Going to attempt to use the toner transfer method for manufacturing the PCB.

I dont want this project to end I guess, so I keep stretching the design brief.

I have circuits penciled out for all but the USB switching, anyone can help with that I would be grateful.

[GT40_GearHead]

you got me going
great work on the Typhoon

i realy wana see how that thermometer will come along

[isunktheship]

very gnarly heatsinks! :D

[justblair]

Well after a bit of a break from the modding the modding, things are starting to move again.

Just got delivery of 2 maxim1668 thermal sensors. Boy these things are small! Hard to believe that in such a small package you get 4 remote sensing channels and 1 local sensor.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/untitled.jpg

Too small for my aging digital camera. This was about the best photo I could get.On a tripod, the camera still cant focus on this little critter.

I am now thinking I may have bit off more than I can chew on this... It looks near impossible to solder 16pins in a 5mm space.

For the pcb etching I am thinking about using a photo resist method to lay the tracks. From what i have read it is the most accurate.

I am still building a shopping list for the central control pcb,

Currently it will have several functions.

Temp monitoring. Especially for the playstation, which may allow me to run it passive. It will mean I can run a switched fan to it.

Monitor control. It will house the monitor eidid, the monitor power supply and will give me something to plug the graphics card to.

Usb splitter. I intend to have the USB ports mounted on the side. I will use the central pcb though to be the routing point for the USB lines. The idea is to have the usb double up as a connection for the pc and the playstation. I was going to use it with some sort of electric switching. Now I am thinking about using a mechanical switch.

LED control. Yup I am thinking along the lines of adding this to the pcb as well.

Can anyone reccomend me a good (preferably free!) pcb design package?

[h0w1ingM@dMurd0ck]

Greetings fellow Scot! Great work the case looks fantastic. I like the way you bent the mesh for the case cos that aluminium stuff doesnt bend well. You have to get it right first time.

Whats the odds of two haggis bashers making mesh boxes at the same time lol? :rolleyes:

If you've got an eyetoy for the PS2 it works great as a webcam for the PC.
640x480 at 30fps very good quality.
Instructions here: http://www.jamespo.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/eyetoy/

[justblair]

Greetings fellow Scot! Great work the case looks fantastic. I like the way you bent the mesh for the case cos that aluminium stuff doesnt bend well. You have to get it right first time.

Whats the odds of two haggis bashers making mesh boxes at the same time lol? :rolleyes:

If you've got an eyetoy for the PS2 it works great as a webcam for the PC.
640x480 at 30fps very good quality.
Instructions here: http://www.jamespo.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/eyetoy/

Its funny you should suggest the eye toy. Not that I was going to use one, but that I had considered a web cam for the project. Not that I ever use one to communicate with, but just that when you start integrating other devices into your pc, it seems to become a bit of a habit.

Other things I have considerd.

Modem... Windows MCE includes caller ID. Thought it would be cool to use a Bluetooth headset so that I could make phone calls and even control the system by voice. (I am into home automation)

IR sensor. To wake the machine when I am in the living room. Though there are likely to be problems with this idea. My kitchen lights are movement controlled. Its fine except sometimes if you sand still too long you are plunged into darkness!

Phone charger/cradle.. Might yet do this.

Mouse charger/cradle... Really thinking about this one.

[justblair]

Finally got a parts list made up for the electronics. Phew it aint easy sifting through online catalogues... Checking datasheets and trying to match up crimp housings to the right pins... But I did it. Got the order in to www.farnell.co.uk (http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/home/homepage.jsp). They take a minimum order of £20 before VAT but do give free delivery. For the sake of anyone who wishes to copy me (assuming I get it all to work!), here is what I ordered

Part Num. Qty. Availability Line Price Description
Manuf Part No
========= ==== ============ ==========
======================================== ===============
4437421 1 In Stock 15.14 BOX, D/CST F-LID 187X119X56;
Length / He 1590DFLBK
3004752 1 In Stock 1.77 IC, REGULATOR ADJ +1.2/33V;
Voltage regu LM350T
9452729 5 In Stock 0.39 CAPACITOR, 0.1UF 63V; RoHS
Compliant:YES MCMHR63V104M4X7
9693734 5 In Stock 0.24 CAPACITOR, 1UF 50V; RoHS
Compliant:YES; ECA1HM010
770541 50 In Stock 0.60 RESISTOR, 0.25W 5% 240R;
Resistor elemen MCF 0.25W 240R
108238 3 In Stock 0.93 TRIMMER, 5K; RoHS
Compliant:YES; Resisto 3306P-001-502
9846743 10 In Stock 1.20 TRANSISTOR, NPN TO-92; RoHS
Compliant:YE 2N3904
653184 10 In Stock 0.75 CAPACITOR, 0.0022UF 50V;
Capacitance:0.0 ECQB1H222JF.
9731601 10 In Stock 3.60 HEADER, SQ PIN 0.1" 2WAY;
RoHS Compliant 22-05-7028
9731636 5 In Stock 2.90 HEADER, SQ PIN 0.1" 5WAY;
RoHS Compliant 22-05-7058
143126 10 In Stock 1.38 CRIMP HOUSING, 0.1" 2WAY;
RoHS Compliant 22-01-2025
146256 10 In Stock 1.84 CRIMP HOUSING, 0.1" 5WAY;
RoHS Compliant 22-01-2055
9773789 1 In Stock 4.02 CRIMP PIN, 22-30AWG PK100;
RoHS Complian 08-50-0032
9413359 2 In Stock 0.84 IC, SM EEPROM SERIAL, 1K;
RoHS Compliant 24LC21A-I/SNG
477886 50 In Stock 0.60 RESISTOR, 0.125W 5% 47K;
Resistor elemen MCF 0.125W 47K
8577358 10 In Stock 3.40 LED, 5MM 40X100DEG BLUE;
Colour, LED:Blu HLMP-HB55-FJ000
891198 1 In Stock 3.08 PEN ULTRASOLVE 12ML;
Volume:12ml ULS12P
425310 1 In Stock 0.93 SWITCH, 3 POLE 4 POS; RoHS
Compliant:NO; CK1026.
422411 1 In Stock 0.93 SWITCH, 4 POLE 3 POS; RoHS
Compliant:NO; CK1027.
662458 2 In Stock 3.00 KNOB ALUMINIUM SPUN 18MM;
Depth, externa 18S-2D
489864 50 In Stock 1.10 RESISTOR, 0.5W 5% 200R;
Resistor element MCF 0.5W 200R

Shipping : £0.00
Tax : £8.51
Total : £57.15

As you can see I broke the £20 minimum order by a good long shot. I am off to maplins tomorrow to get a pcb manufacture starter kit.

Got a mixture of dread and excitement going on. The electronics involved in this stage is going to be quite a challenge for me. Especially surface mounting that Maxim 1668 temperature controller and building a PCB. I have attempted nothing like this before.

Still looking for tips on PCB design software and PCB manufacture if any veterens are out there? I am thinking about building two seperate PCB. One for the temperature sensor and one for the psone screen power regulator and signal adaptor.

Any helpfull comments most graciously recieved!

[justblair]

Update.

Recieved my order from Farnell. Well I got it Tuesday, but the hammond box they sent me closely resembled a 5 way surge protector. A phone call sorted it out, and my hammond box arrived today. I will forgive them that one easily, sorting out the problem was a joy, The lady that answered the phone could not be more helpful.

In the meanwhile I got some overhead transparency paper for printing the PCB. Tried out Eagle PCB, got baffled more than anything, but I'll learn it.

Tonight however I made my HD silencer. Thanks to Alleycat at SPCR for sharing this gem... You guys have got to make yourself one of these things... its awesome.

So here goes... The recipe for HD silence.

1 Hard drive.
1 Cable
1 Power molex extension (mine was cut off a PII cpu cooler)
3 Gel packs (a la LIDL) 2 quid a box of 2
1 188x119x55mm Alu alloy Hammond enclosure.
some elastic.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0834.jpg

Take the hammond box. The one I got was flanged. Go for the flanged version if only because there is something inexplicably very amusing about the word flange. The flanges also give a conveniant way to attach the elastic...More of that in a bit.

Then take 2 of the medical cooling packs and line the base of the Hammond of enclosure, folding them up the sides and back.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0835.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0836.jpg


Next take your HD and place it in the bed of cool gel that you have made. Push it around a bit to get it settled.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0837.jpg

Then mark around the top edge of the box where your cables will come out. File away the edge so that the cables fit and very snugly. Putting a gel pack in the box while you file greatly reduces the He Haw He Haw noise by the way. When you have a good fit, wash and dry everything.

Next place the gel packs and HD and cables back into the Hammond Box

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0838.jpg

Then add gel pack no 3 to the top...

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0839.jpg

And carefully attach the.... Flanged... ;) Lid on the box and fit the screws. Be carefull that you dont burst the bag of Gel as you do this....

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0840.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0841.jpg

Next feed several lengths of elastic to the.... Flanges. :D

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0842.jpg

And use the elastic to tie the.... Flanged :D Hammond enclosure to the mounting brackets/points/whatever inside your case. I have knotted these in this picture, when I get to final build, I will sow the elastic into neat loops.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0843.jpg

Then power your machine on, hoping that those bags have not burst. And start punishing your HD in a vain attempt to get it to make some noise. Mine is now silent unitil i get my ear to within 20cm of the drive. Thats in a system with no other moving parts. I am so happy I could burst!

It replaces a silentdrive enclosure, Which unsuspended was getting to 44c when recording and watching TV. I have still to test this new enclosure. Initial figures look good, but I figure that the gel will make the temperature change more gradual than before. I'll update with temps in a bit.

[h0w1ingM@dMurd0ck]

I recon it will cook. The gel will insulate the heat and keep it local to the hard drive unless gel is 'charged' in the freezer first. Might work, definately quieter but probably see an increase in temps. Damage will be gradual but maybe hard drives tolerate heat dont know tbh.

[tybrenis]

Wow! Good technique! I will definately be trying that if I ever do a stealth mod (I plan to). Great job so far!

However, you will probably need to work out a way to cool that hard drive....

[justblair]

This technique I am afraid I can't claim as my own...

Alleycats Homebrew HD enclosure at SPCR (http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=20305&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=homebrew&start=0)

A unlikely as it may seem, the gel packs transfer enough heat (at least in the machines where it has been tried) to the Alu case to cool the drive.

I have just performed a full defrag (first on months) on the drive. It reached 44c. *Within its recommended maximum temperature of 55C*. Took over an hour to reach that temperature.

Of course i will have to monitor it closely over the next week, it has to my knowledge never been tried on a passive machine. I may add fins to the hammond box in the future to compensate for the lack of airflow... But only if I need to.

*Checked my temps this morning the system was left to idle overnight. Got 38c at the HD.*

**Edit

[GT40_GearHead]

this by far the best hdd enclosure
brilliant, jus brilliant !!

[chedabob]

like the idea. you should fit a watercooling block over the drive, or around the gel packs to keep it all cool.

[justblair]

Update:

Been spending the day learning how to build pcbs. Have been using ExpressPCB. At first the whole pcb design thing seemed difficult, but now I seem to have got the knack of it.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/Centralcontrol-1.jpg

Here is the pcb I have come up with so far. It has three functions...

Thermometer
Monitor ID
signal pass through
Power regulator.

One it holds the maxim 1668 controller. Thats on the top right, of the board in the piccie... It will be top left when I have printed it on acetate and turned it over... To the right of it the thermometers will plug in. They will be made from transistors.

Next underneath is just a pass through for the psone screens signalling. Thats the lines running left to right (or is it right to left?) accross the board.

Under that and to the left is a 24LC21 eprom chip. This is going to be programmed with the correct settings to force the matrox GPU to speak to the psone screen. Will mean I wont have powerstrip running anymore.

To the right and below of the 24LC21 is a power regulating circuit that will give the 7.5v that the psone screen requires. It's using a the LM350T regulator and is designed to hand out up to 3a so it should be OK

My mental fragility was exposed as I desperately tried to work out what pins to connect, the pcb will be reversed on one plane when it finally prints. Ended up printing someone elses maxim based circuit onto acetate. This gave me a chance to try out the toner transfer method. I used a laser copying onto injet acetate. I tried a sheet full of circuits one at a time to try out various techniques. I got the best results heating it up real hot, then running it under cold water. The accuracy was good, but I want to try photoresist as well.

Got a 650 watt halogen OHP sitting. Might try that to see if its any good for exposing the PCB. I will hopefully try that tomorrow.

Oh and goof of the Day, went out to buy an injet cartridge. Needed a HP56, cam home with a 26 (24 squid). I knew which one I was after (I used to manage a pc shop, so I know many printers cartridges off by heart). I just plain read it wrong on the box. I only noticed it when I ripped the box open! :( No refund...

If anyone out there wants to critique my PCB design I will not be in the slightest bit offended. Its my first go at one. In particular, should I be filling in the ground plane? I gave it a try, but it didn't look as pretty... Not sure that a very scientific reason not to!.

Got a couple of more traces to tidy up, then I'm off to bed.

***Edit****

Forgot, I also modded my Matrox graphics card. Removed the VGA socket from the back of it. By using a saw to cut it in half while still on the card, I now have 15 header pins on the inside of the case. Will solder wires to them, which will plug in to the VGA signal inputs on this pcb. (Fingers crossed)

[justblair]

Update...

Had a very good day today.

Tried out the photoresist technique for making PCBs. I can recomend this technique for noobs to PCB manufacture.. Its so much easier to get a good print on the board than the toner method.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0845.jpg

Here is the setup I used. I have an OHP which uses a 650w halogen lamp. This was going to be my method of exposure. First of all I inkjeted two copies of the circuit. I also added a test bar to the top of it. This had two functions. One to let me try a test strip, to determine my exposure time. Secondly it was to ensure that the two sheets of acetate were lined up correctly.

***Edit*** I should have mentioned that I removed the Fresnell lens before begining. The Fresnell would leave dark rings on the image. I have looked round the intermwebby, but noone else seems to use OHP's for this... I may have hit onto something here, it seemed obvious to me.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0846.jpg

This photo is me getting ready to make a test exposure. The card under was supposed to be for cutting out the light. I intended to move it every 30 seconds to expose more of the board. When I turned the OHP on however light shone throught the card. I used some very thin alu sheet instead.

The rest is pretty boring, I just followed the instructions on the beginners kit I got from Maplins.

At the end I had a nice PCB

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0847.jpg

The camers still is rubbish for the closeups. There is a little pitting on 4 of the 0.5' tracks. This was cause i smudged the negative.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0848.jpg

in this photo you can see the less shiny area where the pitting is worst. There is a hole in fact, but by good fortune it occured on the ground plane where I had widened the track.

Tested everything first by holding it against the lamp, then by multimeter. All is well.

Now for an admission... This was my second attempt. My first had scratches on it which cut several of the tracks. The mistake I made was when I was agitiating the developer with the plastic tweezers from the kit. I thought I would hurry it along. What I learned was that the photoresist layer is very fragile. Just brushing it with the tweezers is enough to damage it...

I didn't expect to get it right the first time so hey ho.

I'm in a quandry. Do I reprint my negs, and make a third attempt, or be happy I have a working PCB and move on. I'm thinking the latter, the imperfections are really not that noticable. I think I will drill it and use it. At least then if I mess up the drilling, I still have a spare photo board to make another.

Comments as always are welcome...

[GT40_GearHead]

this is so cool
i never known you could make boards like that, the only method i know is painting the tracks(with paint) on a copper plated board, after the paint has dried you dip the board in some kind of acid, and you are left with only the copper under the paint, you then remove the paint and dril the holes........ but this so... so.......

[justblair]

this is so cool
i never known you could make boards like that, the only method i know is painting the tracks(with paint) on a copper plated board, after the paint has dried you dip the board in some kind of acid, and you are left with only the copper under the paint, you then remove the paint and dril the holes........ but this so... so.......

This process is very similar to what you know already. The last stage I did was to bath the board in the acid. The only difference in the photo resist method is that you use boards that have a photo sensitive film.

The bath you see in the right of the pictures is the developer. The photo resist board has a film on it, when light activates it it changes the chemical composition. The developer strips off the changed part of the film to reveal the tracks. Then you bath it s before.

It really is a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. The closest thing I have done to it in the past is black and white film developing (when I did a photography course at school.)

Normally you would use UV light to activate the film, but a halogen bulb gives off some UV. The sheer brightness of the halogen makes up for the fact that only a small part of its spectrum is UV.

Something I forgot to mention in my previous post. Prior to exposing the board I removed the Fresnell lens from the OHP. If you dont do this, I imagine you will get rings on your board.

[GT40_GearHead]

can you post a link or tell where i can find the kit ???
it would be great for my project

[justblair]

I got mine in my local elcetronics store. Maplins. Kemo is the brand name on the kit.

However you dont need to buy it as a kit. You can but the stuff seperately (I dare say it would be cheaper.)

The kit I used had...

A plastic tray
A pair of plastic tweezers (it has to be plastic, the etching solution is highly corrosive to metal)
A sachet of developer
A sachet of Etching Solution.
A selection of 3 PCB boards (one photoresist, one double sided, one single sided)

I bought an extra photoresist board, which I split in three. Two for PCB,s one as a test strip.

There are loads of tutorials on the web.. Google diy photoresist pcb. you will get instructions on how to do it. Some mention making your own photoresist layer. i dont see much point in that if your doing a one off. Pre-prepared photoresist boards dont cost much more than standard boards. Then you get a probably better board with less hassle.

Just one of many tutorials (http://www.g3ycc.karoo.net/pcb.htm)

[GT40_GearHead]

great just great
made a quick bookmark, i will read it first thing in the morning
thx for the info, i might need to make my own photoresist layer, i live in romania, it in eastern europe, ex comunist country it was until 1989, so you can imagine that it has a lots a catching up to do

[justblair]

I dare say that you can get the stuff posted from one of the European mail order companies. I have been to a few ex soviet states (including Romania albiet only passed through on a train) and most things are available if you look in the right places.

[GT40_GearHead]

no blood way, you actualy pased trough here!!!
what did you visited ?

[justblair]

I think the train stopped once . Cant remember where we stopped. Was round about 1991. I ended up in Bulgaria before running out of money. It was a railcard trip. I was young and mostly drunk throughout the trip!

[GT40_GearHead]

ha haaa in '91 I had about 3 years :)))
Bulgaria is nice, i think they are starting to revive theyr economy
hope that after 2007 the EU would force some changes, the thing that gets me going about this is an easyer way for me to get to UK or france or maybe even get a job there.... but its a long way till then

[justblair]

Update...

I finished the pcb. Mostly without trouble, but I had an issue with the power regulator. First of all the good stuff.

The temperature sensor worked straight away. Even though soldering the 5mm 16 pin soic looked terrifying, it was as easy, if not easier than the through board solders.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0856.jpg

Here is the Maxim 1668 in all its glory! This is my favourite part, it looks so difficult to do, but it really isn't. From now on I'm doing surface mount stuff in all of my projects.

Tested it first, and the local sensor worked first time. I checked it with a medical thermometer, and the accuracy is better than the +/- 1c that maxim quote.

Here is the reverse side of the PCB. The 24LC21 chip is there as well. It worked first time as well. Though I haven't got it programmed yet to the right settings, it is accepting programming and is reading correctly by the matrox card.

You can see also that I tinned the copper traces with solder. Cleaned them fluxed them and then drew on a thin layer of solder. In real life you can't see the imperfections.

Now the gory bit. I tried the power regulator, but all was not well. It could be adjusted to the right voltage using an adj resistor. Then when I plugged the psone screen in, it just didn't light up... Bugger.

After posting for help on SPCR someone pointed out what was wrong. I had followed the manufacturers diagrams for the regulator. However the diagrams had the wrong pin assignation on them! How stupid is that? Then I had an issue. Do I start again? Do I keep the mostly working pcb and build a power regulator seperately?

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0857.jpg

Nope. I had another plan. I tore up a couple of tracks, inserted a couple of jump wires and lo and behold I had a working regulator. On the printed side (above) of the pcb it is a little messy, but on the side that will be visible, you can hardly tell the difference.

Then I attached a heatsink to the regulator. It was a heatsink from the first ps2 that I killed (technically sony slaughter... I didn't mean it your honour)

I also had in my cupboard some adhesive vinyl that I purchased in Hungary on an impulse (that will be usefull for something) purchase in March. This I used to coat the non tracked side of the pcb. It silvery, but non conductive. I think it adds a touch of class to the component side of the board, which will most likely be visible when I find a place for it. The result I am most pleased with... Check it out...

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0851.jpg

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0852.jpg

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0853.jpg

The other thing I am happy with is that I finally worked out how to use the camera... No more blurry closeups!

Now I have to come up with a creative way to mount it. That heatsink is live... Its only 7.5v so its not dangerous, but it will have to remain isolated from the chasis of the puter, I get sparks otherwise!

***Edit***

I completely forgot to say... I finished my mod on the matrox graphics card as well. As mentioned before I attacked the vga header with a hacksaw. What I was left with were 15 pins. I soldered some single core copper wire to these pins and at the other end added molex connectors to attach to my PCB. Here is the result...

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0883.jpg

This means all of the psone screens wiring is now held inside the case. I attached enough wire that I can hide it when it comes to final build time.

[chedabob]

ZOMFG thats a big heatsink. i love the covering on the pcb. great job man.

[justblair]

Its not really that big a heatsink, the cards pcb is 8x9cm the heatsink is 9x2x3cm.. Its bigger perhaps than I need. (it gets hot though) but I err'd on the side of caution cause its going to be in a passive system.

The vinyl I am pleased with. Haveing looked in the photos it looked like it had a couple of tears in it. Have checked and to much relief, that turned out to be a couple of pcb shavings.

l

[GT40_GearHead]

woooow great job dude, it looks so damn pro!
the vinyl ads a lot to the whole thing

[justblair]

Well this update has been a while coming....

So what have I been up to?

Well. I built a mount for the psone screen. This I made out of alu L brackets. Finally got to use my drill press in anger... What a usefull tool it is.

Basicly I made a rectangular box. Then using four bolts through the screens mounting points I had an adjustable (for depth) mount.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0889.jpg

Here you can see the psone mounted (ooh err).

And one from behind (double ooh err!)

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0895.jpg

When I fired it up, nothing happened... I had damaged the cables at the molex end going into my homemade pcb. The problem (I found after spending an hour with a multimeter) is that the psone screens cables are very fine. This was a relief, as to get the right clearances I filed off about a centemetre of the screens pcb. On the right of the pcb is a lot of ground plane, this is what I removed. I have a plan to make a more durable connection which is yet to be executed. I did though get it working.

When it was lit up I noticed something that had eluded me before. The backlight of the screen shines through the pcb highlighting the gaps between the tracks. This i thought had to be exploited. So I made a cover for the back. i used 2mm thick perpex then covered it in a smoke tint film (the kind you get for car windows).

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0886.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0887.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0896.jpg

When I get the power to this, I think it will look pretty damn good.

Next on the things to do list was a front panel. This is made of a very thin sheet of alu, then a sheet of perspex in front of it.

There was a lot of cutting and shaping to do to both layers. On the perspex there is a hole cut for the drive bay covers (lian li) plus two stainless steel buttons which will be the power buttons for the pc and the playstation.

I also drilled and counter sunk some screw holes top and bottom to hold the facia onto the case. I had considered glueing, but the countersunk screws I think look cool. It would perhaps have been a bit bland otherwise.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0890.jpg

On the alu I did the same plus cut a hole for the psone screen and the remote sensor. Here is the result....

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0891.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0892.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0894.jpg

The scratches are on the alu sheet behind. There are still some bubbles on the tint, but I am hoping that they will disapear as it dries out.

I am pretty pleased with the result. There is a whole lot more to do, but I think that the front panel is getting to the point where you can imagine how the finished case is going to look.

The alu will be spray painted black. This should make the psone screen and the IR sensor disapear behind the smoked perspex.

On the to do list now.

1. A side panel needs to be manufactured with the PS2 inputs, Usb ports and two rotary switches (with alu dials of course) which will switch the usb (between the PC and PS2) and switch the lights and psone screen on and off.

2. A base needs to be made. i have a set of sorbothane feet already. Some of the base will be meshed.

3. I have a sheet of perspex mostly cut to sit on the mobo tray where it is exposed. i will cover this in some more of the silver sticky backed plastic. The pcb will mount to this.

4. I will have to redo the ps2 controller extensions to take into account the new location of the psone.

5. I have to build a new mount for the ps2

6. I still have some tidying to do for the case lid, including screwing it all together. I plan to use countersunk screws in the alu bands. I also have to put a final strip in on the front at the bottom.

Ideas are still welcome even at this late stage?

[cheztir]

Amazing. I'm just blown away. I've been following since day one, keep up the good work.

[progbuddy]

lol Mean Lean Grilling Machine. Nice.

[DaveW]

This mod kicks some serious ass. Great work with the circuitry, i'm rubbish at Soldering. I'm hoping to improve over time with practice.

Well done with those tiny little pins though, how you managed that, i'll never know.

-Dave

[justblair]

Soldering those little suface mount chips is not that hard to do... This was my very first attempt at them. Its one of those jobs that looks way harder than it is.

Best advice I can give to anyone considering it is to check online for video tutorials for surface mount components... There are loads of them out there.

The key points to this kind of soldering.

1...clean the contacts first with a pcb solvent. I think you might get away without doing this, but a pen is a few quid, and it is very usefull for cleaning up after.

2...Use a flux pen to apply liquid flux to the solder contacts. This bit is essential

3...Then place your chip. (the guides suggest a magnifying glass on the tools list. I didn't need this) I found the flux was slightly tacky making this easier

4...Then holding the chip in place with tweezers or fine pliars, dry solder the chip in place. Basicly press down on one of the outside pins and it sticks to the board. Then dry solder the diagonally opposite pin. This bit makes it a whole lot easier.. Again essential IMO

5...Then place the wire of solder accross the base of all the pins on one side.

6...Starting at the top of the leg of the chip mover your iron downwards into the solder. As if by magic (and this is where the flux makes a difference) the solder melts and sticks only to the board and the chip contacts. Accuracy is not that important, you can do several pins at the same time.

7...If you get any bridged contacts, drawing the iron down again, then along the pcb trace wicks the excess solder away and the gap is formed. A little more flux may be required if your origional application is no longer liquid.

8... Finally use your solvent pen to clean the now brown and goey flux from the pcb.

9... Stand back and marvel at your work. Better still stick the pcb directly under the nose of a family member and demand that they hail you as a deity.

Thanks to all that have given such kind and supportive posts!:)

[chedabob]

and...never run your soldering iron under the tap to cool it down, because the rapid temperature change will form limescale (or something hard and unsavoury) thats a pain to get off, and will ruin your iron (cos the solder will flow along it, and touch the board).

[justblair]

Good advice Chedabob.

Also pick it up by the handle when its hot! I learned that one through experiance I am afraid!:eek:

[gaz_the_chav]

holy **** that is well nice man!

[justblair]

How long overdue is this update then???

I have not been lazy though I have made some progress..

First of all the bad news.

The window tint did not take on the perspex. I dont know why, but I got too many bubbles in between the tint and the glex. This was frustrating to say the least.

So I was left with 3 options...


Try again with the tint
buy some proper smoked perspex
come up with another idea


I tried to source some smoked sheet perspex, but was not having much luck, so I thought I would give the third option a go. I managed to source 3mm thick sheet alu locally so I thought that I would give it a go...

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0927.jpg

What do you think.

Of note in the design is that I made a small panel for the power switches. It is made from a sheet of thin perspex sandwiched between the main 3mm sheet and a much thinner sheet (1mm at most) of alu. The power buttons hold the panel together. I have been experimenting with shining blue leds through perspex rods to backlight the panel. I get a nice sort of glow from behind it. I should really be honest, this was not my origional plan, but I messed up with the drilling of the holes in the 3mm sheet. My 16mm drill bit chewed up the sheet leaving a rough edge that I just couldn't fix. The panel masks this. I have plans to try making a couple of panel designs to see which I prefer.. I'll be taking votes.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h219/justblair/IMG_0923.jpg

You can also see in the photo how I tackled the IR sensor. I used my drill press to cut a set of 5 4mm holes in the pannel. I then forced through some perspex rod, trimmed it and then sanded it down to flush. The final stage will see the whole front facia polished to either an even brushed alu or more likely a mirror finish. The pespex in the sensors by the way is not that light looking in real fife. Its very dark in fact but the flash lit it up.

What you cant see in the pictures (cause I forgot to take a snap) is that I have removed even more of the steel in the chassis. I added a couple of alu w shaped rod in first then jigsawed out the remaining side panels. This is of course to add more ventilation.

I had origionally intended to keep these in to mute the sound of the HD. But the enclosure has been so successful, I have no need for this.

I have a plan sorted out for the back of the unit now as well... More Alu. I have enough 3mm sheet left to make a cosmetic plate to tidy the back up and also to put a polished alu sheet in to the exposed floor of the case.

I also made a first attempt at the side panel for the case, but you will have to wait on that one, I think I will be revisiing it again

In the meanwhile, does the alu sheet get a vote of confidence or should I try and find some of that elusive black perspex?

[ajmilton]

personally, i'm a huge fan of the industrial look, so i love the way that case looks right now.
if you stick with the aluminum, i'd vote to go for the brushed look over the mirror. but then, it ain't my mod either :P

[GT40_GearHead]

one more vote for the brushed aluminium,
i just cant resist it!

and i must ad that you did a wonderful job so far

[b4i7]

www.tapplastics.com


they have some samll sections you can order...thought they may be too small for what you need.....but their pricees are low

i plan on ordering from them when i need some more

[justblair]

I think that they are US based, thanks for the link, but I am a few thousand miles off the beaten track. I see they do international orders, but they mention mail for price on these and the buyer pays on transit for damaged goods both ways.

It would be more a UK or European supplier that I would be looking for.. Thanks though for looking that out for me.. Do I take that as a vote for the perspex then?

As for the other comments, thankyou. The brushed is probably the more subtle effect. I am swayed a bit by the shiny, though I am not sure for definate. Would welcome any opinions

[rosecityracr]

my votes for brushed aluminum...looks better with that specific case design :up:

[b4i7]

oops...yeah sorry....forgot youre across the pond:dead:

[a.Bird]

Very PowerMac-like. I dig it.

[justblair]

Very PowerMac-like. I dig it.

I see what you mean, The mac was not my inspiration though, this ones more along the lines of "Neccessity is the mother of invention" in the design process.

Legal Disclaimer...Any resemblance to other PC's real or imaginary is purely coincidental.

[a.Bird]

Lmao, "real or imaginary". There are no legalities when it comes to imagination, damnit!

[The boy 4rm oz]

I've been watching this project for some time now and it looks like you know a lot about PS2's so mabye you could help me. I got a PS2 from my auntie (she had been having trouble with it), she had it repared once and it broke again, it was the fuse. I replaced the fuse, turned it on and it blew again. My uncle said he had tried this but every fuse he put in blew. The fuse is a standard 250V fuse and I was wondering if this wasnt enough? I also thought it might be the AC power adapter. any ideas. If I can't fix it EB games take broken consoles anyway.

[Maz]

is it a fuse inside your ps2? either way you may just need a new psu for it.

just do some research on your model of ps2 you have and which psus go with it. otherwise you could pull it out and look for a model number on the power supply itself.

[The boy 4rm oz]

Well it was one of the first ones when it was bout $700 AUS. My auntie just bough a new one lol.

[onelegout]

Looking great!
I preferred the smoked plexy idea myself. - it's a little too plain when its all aluminium..
If you could use smoked plexy and stealth the drives it would make it look 400 times better in my opinion but it looks great as it is and what realy matters is what YOU like :)
H

[justblair]

@The boy 4rm oz

Hi. Sorry I took a couple of days to spot your posts

Regarding the playstation 1. I certainly wouldn’t consider myself an authority on them yet, but I have learned a bit.

The fact that it is blowing a fuse when you plug it in would lead me to suspect that it is indeed your power supply that is buggered. I would imagine that if you open the thing you will find a blown capacitor on the power supply board. If you are opening it, a small word of caution. The capacitors on the power supply are capable of holding a charge, so be carefull what you touch. The caps on these supplies are not too large, so I doubt it would injure you too badly if you got a jolt, but it wouldn’t be pleasant! You can test to see if the power supply is causing the fuse to blow by removing it from the playstation and then powering it. If the fuse blows then its buggered.

In your playstation there will be three PCBs. One will be the power supply itself, easy to spot as it will have a few large components on it and the chord from the rear switch will enter it. It’s the easiest to get to. When you remove the bottom part of the case, it will be the first thing you see. Its held on with four screws. And you will be looking at the underside of it. Remove it carefully if you have had power to the unit recently. Inspect the components on the top side. My guess is you will spot a burst cap. If you do, then you know that it is the power supply that is burst, if not power it up and see if its broken or not. Do this with extreme caution. Mains electricity is dangerous and can kill. Then you have some choices….


1. Buy a power supply from an online parts store. But if yours is one of the origionals this might be both difficult to track down and more expensive than the machine merits. The playstations have been through a few revisions (10 on the old style case), and the size and placement of components vary between revisions.

2. If its a blown cap you could desolder it and replace it with a cap of the same value.

2. Modify an external power supply to attach it to the old board. This is the route I would take, its probably cheaper. I seem to remember the ps2 is rated at about 3A, so you would have to make sure the supply you used was rated high enough. On your playstation there are 4 pins that carry power to the electronics. They are in the same dimensions as a molex plug uses, but don’t be fooled into thinking they are wireed the same. 2 carry 12v and 2 carry the common ground. You have to identify which is which. This I did by measuring a working power supply with a multimeter, but you can also search t’internet to get the right ones. Then you can either snip the external power supplies 12v plug and hard wire it to the pins or you could buy a socket and wire that up to give yourself a plug in external power supply. This is similar to what I have done for this project though I have used the 12v line from my PC power supply.

If that doesn’t work then you have to look to the surface mount fuses that are on the playstation itself. A t’internet search will help you find diagrams to identify them. A multimeter is essential for this job as you will have to check them to see if any are blown. If they are you can either replace them (if your good with a soldering iron or bridge them. I use conductive ink to do this, simply painting over the top of them. It’s a quick and durty way of working, but on an old playstation who cares?

@onlegout. I know what you mean about the alu being plain in comparison. However I have a plan to combat it. The screen for a start will hopefully add interest to the front when I get it wired in, I have also created a lighting effect for the pannel around the power switches. Hopefully this will add sufficient interest to the front pannel to get over the sameness with the sides and top. Time will tell :0)

[The boy 4rm oz]

I pulled the whole PS2 appart and studied everything closely, I have seen blown capacitors on PC motherboards so I know what I am looking for, it was the first this I looked for after finding the fuse. I disn't notice anything out of the ordinary so I just put it back together and fired it up, it worked for a few seconds before i heard a loud pop and it shut down. I can't really be bothered fixing it if I gotta get a new PSU or stuff around with an ATX PSU. I would just get a better trade in if it was working lol.

Thanks for all your help, I migh try some of your ideas and get back to you.

[justblair]

Still could be a cap. Perhaps one that has dried up and is arcing internally one it reaches a certain charge, hence the few seconds delay. I dont know how to test this myself.

If anyone else does I would be interested in knowing how. I have Musical Fidelity amplifyer that gives off a pop everyso often, and I am thinking that one of its power supply caps is causing it to do this. When I have some cash together I intend replacing them all anyway, The amp is 12 years old, so my guess is that the caps are due an overhal anyways. The sound I am sure is not as detailed as it used to be in the bass range. But I would be loathed to replace such a well loved piece of kit.