Sheet Music Computer for my Piano

This one’s darned close to being done now! Here’s some promised pics – computer is now working perfectly, and there’s some room for upgrading. For instance, while the image quality is acceptable (1920x1080 on an onboard VGA connection) I’d like to put a half-height PCI vid card with DVI in there at some point. That’ll require a better mATX PSU, which in turn will allow me to put the P4 3.2GHz processor back in there. All that being said, the Celeron boots up in about 40 seconds or so, pretty fast for a “slow” IDE system. Of course, there’s not a whole lot on there. :)

My rather…discombobulated setup. That blue screen was as far as it got loading Windows initially. Eventually I got it to boot but it couldn’t detect the USB ports, so no keyboard/mouse. After many failed attempts I did what I’d hoped to avoid – reinstalling Windows instead of using the copy that was already on the drive.

Ugh! This gray goop was responsible for nearly 90 degree C temps on the CPU!! And that was the Celeron!

Oh look, a copper core heatsink. This was entirely invisible before I scraped off the gray thermal crud.

Application of Arctic Silver. Funny how it appears much rougher in one photo than the other. I honestly don’t recall which processor this is, but the Celeron now runs at 40-ish C and the P4, before I gave up on it due to the PSU being too low wattage, ran around 49 C.

Lastly, this is what it looks like now. I’ve gotten everything installed and set up on it, so now all I need to complete it are the PC3200 RAM chips I picked up on ebay last night. The chips currently in this computer will need to go back into my fiancee’s machine now that I’ve got this one all set up.

Very cool mod you've put together here. Just goes to show you that you never know what those old components may be good for. Wishing you the best as you finish it up!

Thanks! I'm expecting the RAM in the next couple days, and once they're in I can re-mount the hard drive, which will block the RAM slots. The VGA cable will be entirely contained in the case, and I might be able to do the same with the monitor power cable. Depends on if shunting it through the case shortens it too much, so I'll just have to try it and see. But ya, definitely a good use of old parts.
Incidentally, that silver thing in the last photo above is my 500GB external drive; I'd hooked it up to get some programs installed, but it's not part of the system.

Someday, I want to change it to a mini ITX system with one of those pico PSU's and a 2.5" SSD. I would probably either keep it in the same case and it'd be a lot lighter weight, or I'd build a new super tiny case and mount it to the back of the screen, and go back to using the original monitor stand.

It's officially done :)

Got the 1GB PC3200 RAM chips yesterday, installed them, stuck the HD back in the case, sorted out the mess of wires inside, and got nearly everything plugged in. I say nearly everything because it occurred to me I need to have an accessible USB port, so I'm going to pick up a USB extension cable and add it to the one remaining USB port inside. That way I can have the cable coming around the side of the case to plug my flash drive into so I can get files on and off the computer.

This angle shows the two USB foot pedals on the floor. One for page down, and one for page up. They work perfectly!

I also opened up Soundforge and did a test recording; that too works perfectly. :D

So there you have it. This version of the build is done, and someday when I either A) have the cash, or B) prices have come way down, I want to upgrade the machine to a mini ITX or pico ITX m/b with a DVI connector, a 2.5" HD or SSD, and a pico PSU where the whole PSU plugs straight into the 20-pin or 24-pin connector on the m/b. I'd probably dispose of most of the case, instead bolting those components to the panel that the screen is attached to, maybe building a small box around them, and putting the original monitor stand back on.

This one can go to completed worklogs whenever someone has the chance to move it, thanks!

Great job David! It's functional, compact, the viewing angle perfect for reading sheet music... I'm sure it will make your life a whole lot easier when picking out a specific piece of music from that gargantuan collection of yours.

Just remember to disable the screen saver when playing! :P

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Originally Posted by Boddaker

Great job David! It's functional, compact, the viewing angle perfect for reading sheet music... I'm sure it will make your life a whole lot easier when picking out a specific piece of music from that gargantuan collection of yours.

Just remember to disable the screen saver when playing! :P

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Thanks!! And thanks for the tip about the screen saver LOL, hadn't thought of that yet. What's really nice too is the case is shallow enough that I can scoot it back a little, and still use the monitor as a music stand. :D

Looks good, I'm glad it worked out like you were hoping. :D

Very nice! :up:

Wow man that came out great! Nice work! :up:

In that last photo it took me a sec to see the computer, I thought you had put a book in front of the screen! It looks completely at home there and seems to be quite functional. Great work!

Thanks guys!! The more I use it, the more I like it. I've had to dim the screen a bit since it gets very disconcerting to look at a bright screen, then the relative dimness of the keyboard, back at the bright screen, etc. But one thing I'm very relieved about - the air coming out of the case is not warm at all. Whew! I'm still trying to get used to the foot pedal page changer, but all in all it's worked out great.

BTW...did I mention I added up the pages of music I have in my solo piano collection and it's over 90,000? :whistler:

Only just took a good look through this log artoo & I think it's gorgeous & awesome mate +rep :):up:.

Well guys, I now have a job again, which means I have income again...which means modding! I'm going to be rebuilding this machine. Smaller, (much) faster, and quieter. Oh yeah, and PORTABLE!!!

The screen will remain the same, but I'm changing out the motherboard for a mini-ITX, a pico-PSU instead of the full-size one, and as I'm upgrading my regular desktop and my wife's, I'm bringing over a 2.5" SATA 160GB hard drive to replace the 3.5" 80GB drive. Not that it needs a higher capacity drive, it'd actually be fine with a 40GB drive. But my goal has always been something of a "poor man's imac" and I'd rather have the physically smaller hard drive in there.

I will rebuild the case around the new system. The old one is a micro-ATX, which is substantially larger than the ITX. And with the pico PSU in there, I'll be able to build a much smaller box and bolt it to the back of the screen. Add in a new stand, I'm thinking a couple legs that hinge out from near the top kinda like a picture frame, and I should have something I can easily pick up and take with me to my in-laws house, where they have a grand piano :D

The specs and pics (I just placed the orders today so these are the marketing photos):

ASRock E350M1 AMD 1.6GHz mini-ITX system with built-in Radeon 6310 graphics. supports up to 2560x1920 on a DVI connection (I'll be running 1920x1080). This is the slightly newer board that has a couple USB 3 ports.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157247

4GB DDR3-1066 RAM, single chip to cut down a little on voltage. I may well remove that heat spreader - depends on how tall it would force me to make the case.
160GB Western Digital 2.5" hard drive (from my wife's desktop)
USB Wireless Ethernet dongle so I can directly put music score pdfs onto it, either downloading or from my desktop

80W Pico-PSU with 60W AC-DC converter from Minibox.com. I'm real excited about this - after researching power consumption, I found I wouldn't need a high-watt PSU. In fact, under load in setups comprising more hardware than I'll be using, and taxing the CPU far more than I will be, the thing hardly went over 50W total power. It averaged 32W, but idled at under 15W. I'll have one less RAM chip, a 2.5" instead of 3.5" HD, and the most taxing thing it'll do is record wave files of my piano playing. The best part is the PSU is TINY, so it won't take up extra room.

I'll top the build off with a single slim 120mm fan blowing right on the MB, and I'll have vent holes cut in the side of the case. There's a good chance I'll remove the installed CPU fan shown in the photos - I think with the 120mm an inch or two above it should be fine, and I want to cut down on noise as much as I can.

Everything else - monitor, keyboard/mouse, usb foot pedals for page turning - will remain the same. I'll be running Windows XP on it for now, but when Windows 8 comes out and I upgrade our desktops to it, I'll likely install my Win7 copy on this machine. Which is why I went with 4GB RAM and the USB 3 version of the MB. Slightly more future-proof, although I don't expect to really push this system anywhere near its limits.

But who knows? maybe someday I'll want to use it as an HTPC too...

I'll post sketchup designs soon.

Here's the promised sketchups. I'm toying with the idea of clipping (rather than bolting) the computer box on the back of the screen. The line of reasoning is that ideally, I want to be able to pull the box off the back for those occasions when I'm playing a piano where only the screen would fit on the music stand (think upright). But for my own digital piano, which has a deep flat top, and grand pianos, I want it to be one unit rather than 2. We'll see if that ends up being practical.

That last render shows the box's approximate mounting location on the back of the screen. My model is pretty basic; it's only real purpose is so I can build the case. Currently the cases dimensions are 10" long, 7" deep and 2" tall. I may have to push that to 2.5" tall - depends on how tall my RAM stick is w/heatsink. If I have to make the case taller I'll put the 120mm slim fan inside the case rather than outside.

Aside from size reduction, one of the other major changes I'm making is to have all the plugs accessible on the left side of the case. Currently they're fully contained in the case. While aesthetically it looks good, it's really inconvenient for moving it. The power plug will likely be mounted on the right side of the case due to cord length and where the PSU plugs in. Happily, there will be very little cabling mess in the case. The only cable of any real length will be the SATA (not shown in the model). The PSU cables will be the only others, and they're short.

That's it for now, I'll post pics of the components when they arrive later this week...

Now I have an idea as what to do with a spare LCD I have....

That tiny mobo is cute :D

Also, instead of clipping or bolting, what about having little "ledges" on the pc part of it, that slide in to groves or L brackets to hold it to the lcd? And then maybe a pin or something to secure it? Easy to remove, should still be secure, and not too hard to do. Probably a bit more secure than clips too lol

Looks a nice monitor mount rig. :):up:

Most of the stuff for my new comp has showed up! I'm actually upgrading my sandcrawler computer ( http://thebestcasescenario.com/forum...ad.php?t=25683 ), my wife's soon-to-be Rivendell computer (remember that one? I'm going to get going on it...soon... http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/f...ad.php?t=21563 ), and this piano computer, and moving parts around. So unfortunately I can't finish it til everything's here, since I'm moving a good chunk of my system to my wife's, and I'm moving her hard drive to the piano computer.

Anyways. The new pico PSU is TINY! Rated at 80W, although the adapter is only 60W. But it should be fine, as all my research indicates the system won't go above 50W under load, and that's with more hardware than I'll have in it.

Pics. I used a ballpoint pen for size reference:

That's a 120mm fan on there:

And in this picture I removed the original fan that was screwed onto the heatsink. With the 120mm fan I won't need the original.

Finally, I updated the sketchup model to reflect the MB's actual dimensions. Mostly stuff was slightly shorter than I thought it would be. I made the side opening a little smaller, and I added the slanted vent holes. I don't know if it'll look quite that clean when I build it, but hopefully it will :D

This weekend I want to at least get the case built and parts in it, even though without a hard drive I won't be able to power it up yet...

These tiny PSU's are quite amazing eh :D would have loved to use one on my latest but was told they wouldn't handle a bunch of HDD's so had to stay with big & bulky.

Those slim fans are very handy too. :)

See you say your married now, congrats. :D:banana:

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Originally Posted by Waynio

These tiny PSU's are quite amazing eh :D would have loved to use one on my latest but was told they wouldn't handle a bunch of HDD's so had to stay with big & bulky.

Those slim fans are very handy too. :)

See you say your married now, congrats. :D:banana:

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Thanks! Yeah, we got married this past June - big wedding, almost 200 people there!

And ya, those little PSU's can handle low-power stuff, and they *could* handle a hard drive array but you wouldn't be able to have much else of a system. I think the highest-rated one MiniBox makes is 160W or so. I'd love it if they could all be so tiny. One can hope. Oh yeah, and that slim fan is leftover from my sandcrawler's first water cooling loop. During an upgrade of WC parts the rad sprang a leak, so I now have a new rad with more widely spaced fins, and I did away with the cylinder res's on top, which allowed room for regular fans instead of slim.

More pics tomorrow or Saturday after I start construction...

Yep.
http://www.mini-box.com/picoPSU-160-XT
160W continuous, 200W max.

The RAM chip finally got here, so I got my final measurements (at 1 5/8" tall w/heatsink, plus 1/4" for the standoff screws under the MB, it'll *just* fit inside the case without modification), got the plywood, drew out the parts, and will be cutting/assembling tomorrow. I want to paint it black but forgot to get the paint, so I'll have to go back out to do that.

I keep looking at the plywood panels I drew out for the top and bottom and thinking...really? The MB will *really* fit on that?

The plywood parts:

man this is when you need a E-ink display because that would be sweet as HELL

Sweet. It's nice to see more of this.

Yeah, this is the computer I wanted to build the first time around but didn't have the money to. Don't get me wrong - the first machine has been great, but this one should be faster, quieter, smaller, lighter weight (and thus portable), and the screen image will look better b/c I'll be switching to DVI. Oh yeah, and it'll use a LOT less power. One of those E-ink screens looks cool though...don't know how practical it'd be, but it sure would look awesome :D

E-ink would be great for reading its nicer on the eyes however if you where to be using the monitor for other things like recording your music it wouldn't be so practical.

Great builds by the way a very good idea to cut down on paper and make things easier for yourself.

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Originally Posted by Stonerboy779

E-ink would be great for reading its nicer on the eyes however if you where to be using the monitor for other things like recording your music it wouldn't be so practical.

Great builds by the way a very good idea to cut down on paper and make things easier for yourself.

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Thanks! I do have an entire bookshelf of printed music, but this computer is so much more practical. And my shelf is around 40,000 pages worth, but the computer has closer to 100,000 pages, with TONS of room for more. I think I'm only using about 30GB total on the drive...

Last batch of sketchups! I've tentatively figured out the legs to support it. I think I'll glue some thin rubber foam on the underside of the screen to prevent it scratching up the piano top, and do the same on the bottoms of the legs at the rear. Note I've changed the box representing the screen to a modified TV model that far more closely approximates the real screen. I also found I was able to put the fan inside the case instead of outside. It'll be a tight fit, but it fits.

Today's hardware store shopping list includes a 1" square dowel, a 1/2" square dowel (the legs & crossbar), black foam rubber sheet, and black spray paint.

Looks great! Can't wait to see the real thing on your piano! :D

Are the legs going to be permanently fixed or are you considering a swinging mech with some form of block to prevent them going back too far or even maybe a locking pin ect.

I'm going to make it all fixed on - it would be cool to have it collapsible, but it's more work than I want to put into it. And I got to thinking that at 2.5" deep, the screen is too thick for upright-piano music stands...so I won't gain anything by making the box removable.

I've spent the afternoon getting parts cut out and assembled. The MB is in the box now for test fitting; I'll be pulling it out again now that I've put in screwholes for it and the hard drive. When I put the fan on, unfortunately due to a slight MB position adjustment (necessitating a slight adjustment of the fan placement) the fan won't quite line up with the circular hole cut in the top. Oh well. It'll still work perfectly fine.

And with me holding one of the legs about where it'll go:

More tomorrow :D

Looking good!

Thanks! More pics in a day or two - my pump in my desktop just went kaput and I'm waiting for a replacement. Anyway, I got the piano computer built, painted, assembled, and fired up yesterday....and wonder of wonders it's working flawlessly :D Gonna get the new OS set up today (I was FLABBERGASTED when I put my wife's old hard drive in there and it booted up into Vista with NO issues other than loading new drivers...it's the first time I've EVER transplanted a hard drive and have it boot up with no errors right off the bat. Of course, I can't leave this copy of Vista on there since my wife's still using it on her new hard drive. But still...it was shocking LOL)

Hehe nice when that happens. :D

Got my desktop pump replaced...turns out coolant got onto the pumps PCB. Grr...musta been an O-ring failure. Anyway, that pump sadly is scrap now, although I might hang onto it and get a replacement PCB. They're cheap enough that even if I can't fix it I wouldn't be out more than ten bucks or so.


So, pics of the all-new piano computer! I'm loving it so far...except for one issue. My CS4 Adobe suite with a full copy of Acrobat won't install. It runs perfectly fine on my other Win7 machine, on a Vista machine, and even on an XP machine. But it refuses to install on the piano computer, so I put Acrobat Reader on there. It doesn't seem to support two-page view while fullscreen, but it does do 2-page view within the Acrobat window, so it's not the end of the world.

The build quality on this case isn't fantastic, but then I was really just doing a quick-and-dirty wooden box to house the computer, and you can't really see it.

Power plug:

The gold screws in the last photo are the two that hold the fan panel onto the rest of the case. I left them unpainted so I don't have to hunt for them if I ever need to remove that panel.

looks great! good job and good mod! :D

You obv know what your doing but may I suggest changing your fan around so that you have less dust in the system.

Love the build. This would also be great for small desks. I know lots of people want a nice system but don't have the space.

Would gather dust if it's as intake or exhaust but I'd dare say less so as an intake as it is with the vents being on the top, a quick flick of a feature duster or compressed air spray should clear it quickly every so often.

Looks very nicely done, awesome idea for a compact pc. :)

Mainly the reason I have the fan as an intake is because there used to be a little fan on the processor heatsink. I elected to remove that fan, fearing it'd be noisy, and just have the one fan blow lots of air over the whole system. I have a small air compressor for my airbrush that I can use to periodically blow dust out (with 3 chinchillas and 2 cats, it gets pretty dusty here :D )

Thanks for the compliments! I'm really happy with it; I wish I knew why my CS4 suite won't install on it, but aside from that it was a very painless build, and it's shaping up to be a great little machine. Lovin' that mini-ITX form factor...

Just discovered one leg on the back is shorter than the other, so all the weight is currently sitting on the longer leg. (insert grumbling here) Must fix...

Fixed the leg length, and added a base that's screwed into the bottoms of both legs, and has foam rubber glued on its underside to prevent scratches to the piano. I also took the wood piece that was originally going to be the base til I discovered I hadn't cut it quite big enough, and I made that into a base for the 2 page-turn USB pedals. It works really well - I put foam rubber on its underside too, so it won't scoot across the floor, and now I don't have to worry about the pedals moving when I'm in the middle of playing. I'm happy :D

Now all I need is a shorter DVI cable; I only had a 6 footer laying around but, as you'll see in the pics, I really only need a 1 foot or 1.5 foot on there...

And that's it, I'm calling to done! I'm sure it'll go through future revisions the next time I upgrade it, but at this point the only real reason I'll want to upgrade is if/when even smaller components are available (and by that I mean maybe pico ITX with DVI; currently all I can find are VGA ones). About the only thing I might want to change in the nearer future is the HD to an SSD when they get cheaper. And at some point I may want to put a slightly bigger screen on it, especially when I can afford an LED-backlight 23" or 24" screen. Bigger, lighter weight, less energy = :up: Til then, it ain't changin' :D