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Project: Rockin Case
Alright, this mod took off one day after browsing some cool rigs over at modshop.net. I've done my own modding on my Armor case so far, added LCS and other goodies, but thats for another thread. Me and the Fiance (soon to be wife - Aug 30th) were sittin at the comp. one night and were thinkin what we could put a computer in. She was playin her guitar at the time, and we both looked at each other and it clicked! A GUITAR!
So we started brainstorming and I dug out an old mobo with a PIII 500MHz ready to go. Just need the basics, a cheap PSU, CD drive, floppy, etc. This computer is going to be far from a top notch gaming rig. She's a writer, so this comp will be hers for writing, etc. so it doesnt need to be high-powered.
So heres the details so far. All that is done as of right now is a crappy MS paint drawing lol.
As you can see, the base I'm going to hand lay from carbon fiber. I've got a roll of cloth and resin and have some basic fiberglassing skills so I'm going to give it a shot. This is where the mobo and everything will mount to. I'm also going to make the decorative pick guard out of carbon, and maybe a few other details/drive mounts etc. as well.
The body of the guitar is going to be translucent green acrylic with some LED lighting, not sure on the details on that yet. The PSU will mount under the sound hole, so the PSU exhaust will blow up through the hole.
The mobo will sit at the bottom of the guitar, with all the I/O connections coming out of the bottom, so when its finished and sitting on a guitar stand we'll be able to run the cables under and behind it.
The bridge, neck and head will all be made out of red translucent acrylic. We're going to put the frets in as well, just not sure what we'll use for material on them, either actualy guitar string or possibly something else.
We plan on using small diameter acrylic rod for the strings themselves, which will have LEDs in the bottoms for power, HDD, CD avtivity, etc. So when the LEDS light up the entire "string" will light up.
I've never worked with acrylic before, but I have read through the "working with acrylic" thread on this site and I learned a lot, so I'm jsut going to order some up, and plenty of extra, and have at it! The carbon will be simple, I've got fiberglass and carbon experience already, so its just a matter of finding a perfectly smooth flat surface to lay the cloth and resin down on.
This build will take some time, as we just moved into a new apartment and funds are really tight, but I wanted to at least start the thread with the idea layed out, and update it as funds allow.
Thanks to everyone here for their creations and gettin gme motivated to try this!
Will
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Re: Project: Rockin Case
Looks like an excellent concept for a case design.
I look forward to seeing the progress of your project.
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Re: Project: Rockin Case
Thanks, this will be a learning experience for both me and Rach. Just gotta save some loot and get some parts ordered up!
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Re: Project: Rockin Case
Wow! Looks like it'll be friggin' awesome, man. Can't wait to watch this come together... especially with some still-useful older hardware.
Also good to have another New Englander around. We're a bit of a rare breed around here (as far as I know).
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Re: Project: Rockin Case
thanks! We're tossing the idea around of possibly having the cd drive/hard drive in a separate enclosure that would look like a small amp/speaker setup. Know anyone that lengthens IDE cables? The power cables I can do myself, but the IDEs are a little trickier. If not then I'll have to make up some carbon fiber drive mounts 8)
Where in the area are you?
Will
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Re: Project: Rockin Case
IDe cables max length is 45cm without a booster, but this is not recommended as the longer you get the greater the chance of signal degradation, i have used cables rated for 80cm before, yes they worked but i did see a loss in peformance, your best bet would be scsi or sata as i do belive that scsi technally dosent have a max length and sata is stupidly long i think.
Edit for googlefu:
Correction, google has thrown up some strange results, some say 40" some say 36", so about that range for sata,
and scsi is as i thought, techneally unlimited, but in the real world about 80" is your limit with Scsi Ultra's
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Re: Project: Rockin Case
awesome, that scraps that idea then lol. thanks for the info! +rep
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Re: Project: Rockin Case
SATA might actually be doable, if you get a PCI card for it, or eventually upgrade to a board which has external SATA ports. A three-foot range wouldn't be bad, but you could royally screw things up if you unplugged the "amp" with the computer running.
I'm in southern New Hampshire (Cheshire County), about 15-20 minutes from the Mass. border.
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Re: Project: Rockin Case
thats not a bad idea either. I'm thinking maybe just make a carbon HDD mount and mount it inside the guitar, and maybe get a speaker system with a sub and dismantle it and build the sub into an "amp" box
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Re: Project: Rockin Case
::UPDATE::
I got a steal on a new mobo/cpu/vga bundle, so I've upgraded from my SOYO/P3 500MHz/noname vga/SODIMM memory:
to this ECS mobo w/athlon 2600+, PNY GeForce vga and 1512MB DDR mem
I got the combo for $45 shipped, so I'd say I got a good deal. I know it works, It used to be the MOBO in the server that hosts www.tlzone.net. They upgraded to something faster, and I scored this
In other news, I should hopefully be able to start getting some carbon fiber layed this weekend. If its nice out I'll be out on the jet ski, so we'll see
Stay Tuned
Will