My future Wood Finish HTPC (Sketchup file)

[fragged]

Hey,

Here is my first official draft of my wood finish home theatre PC, there are a few notes that I must make about the design, and I'm really wanting tips, ideas and constructive critisism... Sorry if this post seems like its all over the place, currently its 3:17 am and i've had severe lack of sleep all week (mostly wasting time figuring out how in hell to use sketchup)

HW Specs will be as follows
Asus P5V-VM DH Via P4M890 Motherboard
Intel Pentium D Dual Core 805 Processor, 2 x 1MB L2 Cache, EM64 - XD, 2.66 GHz
XpertVision GF 6500 256MB, Low Profile, 64-Bit DDR2, DVI, VGA, TV out, PCI Express X16 interface
Generic 512MB 667MB DDR2
16 speed dual layer +- DVD burner
WD 250gb 16mb SATAII
Some old crappy software decoder TV tuner (till my parents fork out enough for those perty hauppage cards)

The case will be about 45x45cm, have 2x12cm fans, and the CPU fan, (no psu fan), afaik the northbridge and graphics card are low profile and have only heatsyncs and i'm crossing my fingers that 2x12cm fans will be enough airflow to do the job

The things I have to do before cutting wood is figure out whether the Asus remote will be enough to controll my HTPC, Figure out how I'm going to do the hard drive / CD rom drive framing propperly as well as make a non-ugly CD rom drive at the front, figure out if/where a power button will be placed (the asus remote is capable of turning the PC on)

Other things to note are that the PSU case and fan will be removed and possibly have some kind of cover, and be mounted directly next to a 12cm fan sucking air out of the case, the fans will not be led-lighted like the textures, as I ripped them off images I found on the web and couldnt find any regular ones.

I'm planning to have both the PSU and Motherboard mounted on pieces of thin metal as they would if they were in a propper case, this is to allow for grounding (which shouldnt be needed but hey)

The wood frame will be made of two groups, as shown in the sketchup file. The final design will have triangular blocks glued in to made pieces more sturdy, and will also have some triangular pieces to allow the two pieces to screw in together, these will mount wherever you wont see the screws (so most screws will end up at the back or bottom)

I'd really like to see others opinions on this case, feel free to post any thoughts, but things I'd really like to hear about are

• Is the airflow sufficient, should i have another fan or two?
• Where can I get information on how to make / mount a CDROM Face plate
• Fan grills.... lets just say they look horrible, and i'm not sure what WOULD look good with wood...
• Are the woodworking plans I've drawn up/described sufficient, I passed year 8 woodwork, know how to use a router, drill and sanding paper, but i'm no expert, so any improvements would need to be wood-noob friendly What would be the best woods to use
• Whats your general opinion of the case*? I mean i have always liked the idea of a wood finish, never seen it done, and its just something to brag about, the decore of our loundgeroom couldnt possibly get any worse, but wood is probbably alot better than a blue cold cathode acrylic case :p

*Actual wood coloring only used as an example, I dont know what kind of wood I will be using, nor the finish

Well thats it, i'm out, going to bed, waking at in no less than 12 hours time


Oh wait, the link to the sketchup http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehou...4eba10ebaec0b3
I've made the model easy to navigate by grouping things into 3 groups, top piece, bottom piece and components, hope its easy to use

I got some of the models from http://scc.jazzle.co.uk/ if anyone wants them

-Fragged

PS Thanks for any help <3

[DaveW]

Sounds good, but you might want to post some pictures. I know you have the Sketchup model but it's asking people to go out of their way to give you feedback. You'll be much more successful with pictures.

If you go back through the project worklogs, look for Jon's Wooden Media center. That project was coming along really well, but he didn't finish it. He did some good work with wood. Also, i'd recommend having a look at the Tardis computer, m4gnum claims he doesn't know much about wood but his work says otherwise.

-Dave

[CanaBalistic]

I cant see any problems with your design except exhaust ports for air. 2 fans should be plenty enough for cooling.

May i sugjest cherry for a killer finish? Asuming you have enough cash for that.

[Airbozo]

Stealth the dvd player for sure. You could also add a control pad up front. As far as fan grills, use a drill press to make holes or even better, be creative with the router. I've found that puttung intake or exaust fans on the side can limit where you put the final product (but then again I rackmount most of my stuff).

[fragged]

@Davew - Thanks for the refrences

Also, added a image to imageshack.us (sorry its large)

How do you mean a stealth DVD drive, I'm new to the modding scene, but from a guess its a DVD drive that looks hidden (as I said the one in the model is just an example) do you have any guides on stealthing a DVD Drive?

As for the drill I'll probbably be using a regular power drill if I can find a piece large enough to make a 12cm hole, but then I'm trying to figure out how to make it look better than the standard hole, as alot of fan grills etc wont look great on a case like this...

As for the cherry wood, it looks great, although I can guess that cameras wont capture the same look as the human eye would, I'll probbably make a decision on the wood when I'm in the store depending on how usable the wood is for drilling etc, but I'll make sure to keep a look out for Cherry

Thanks all for the help so far

EDIT: Got these links Jon's Wooden Media Center Tardis
How good do Slot Loading DVDRW's work, I know they cost about $30 more, but I've only ever had 2 slot loading DVD Rom drives and both are well beyond dead...

-Fragged

[DaveW]

Slot loading drives don't really have much of a performance difference from your standard tray drive. It's just a more complex mechanism.

Stealthing a drive refers to covering the drive up in a way that makes it blend in well with it's surroundings. It's one of the most popular mods after a side window, and there's lots of tutorials should you need them.

The design for your case looks simple-if a little plain. I'd suggest doing something to spice up the front panel? Maybe some sort of display would be nice?

I'm not sure on your budget, but if it allows, i'd mod a PSone screen or something in there. If not, why not get a Matrix Orbital or something?

PSone screens go fairly cheap on fleabay, and there's a few guides to modding them around too.

Glad those links helped, hope you gleam useful information from them.

-Dave

[fragged]

Definately agree on stealthing the DVDRW or using a slot loading one. When I get time I will research more on slot loading DVD's as I think they'd look alot better than a stealthed one...

I also agree that the front of the case is plain, the intention of this media center is to be _just_ a media center, so theres no need for a dual screen display (Unless ofcourse PIP :p)

I'm wanting something to put on the front now that you've mentioned it, but I'm unsure what, and what would suit it, some might think power buttons but i'm hoping that a WinLIRC compatable remote with suspend will work well... I'll think about this over the next 24 hours and see what comes to mind...

Oh and DaveW, I've read a few of your posts... u r god

-Fragged

[DaveW]

I'm wanting something to put on the front now that you've mentioned it, but I'm unsure what, and what would suit it, some might think power buttons but i'm hoping that a WinLIRC compatable remote with suspend will work well... I'll think about this over the next 24 hours and see what comes to mind...

If you don't want to put in power buttons and stuff, then why not go for some of the features you'd see on older radios? That might work pretty well with what you have allready. Or you could go one step further and do something i've always thought would look cool: put a turntable in there so it can play LP's! That would be pretty sweet.

Thanks for the compliments...i do my best

-Dave

[fragged]

I thought i'd update my pre-log , I'm building a full scale prototype tomorrow and its big... I'm thinking I'll order the parts then figure out what I can cut down size on, which is probbably the hard drive bays and make it smaller, If it wasnt for IDE cables being so big, I'd make mountable HDD/CDRom bays on the roofing of the case, but I'll keep thinking...

Just thought i'd post something so people dont think i've given up...

-Fragged

[fragged]

Ok, I thought I might update this..

It kinda died, because I'm currently studying at boarding school, and convincing my parents seemed to work, then they decided it was too much and refused to pay for the parts.

This project has since turned into a woodwork project at school for next year (Year 12) and I need to know as much about woods as possible as far as electronic resistance, heat dissapation, humidity levels, I dont really know what the charicteristics of wood are thats why i'm sorta asking for help (although I know that its not common knowlege to electronic hackers/modders)

Does anybody know of a website that has tested and lists the properties of woods in relation to what I need? or anybody know what I should enter into google to find this information?