PC-Playstation 2 Hybrid

[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

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...

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...

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.

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

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...

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?