neilhart's LOL - a mini G5 PM? No, just for fun.

[MAD AUDI SCIENTIST]

Neilhart,
Outstanding work. I always show my guys at my shop your work and they think your builds are very cool. You have inspired me to document my fun builds I have done at the shop on the G5 body's. I hope to get some time to put together a post on this great site.

Either way cudos to you on the originality and the use of JB weld so tactfully.

 

[MacTester57]

Neilhart,

This is absolutely perfect work! It's the world's smallest G5 for sure.

MacTester

 

[neilhart]

Interesting that your cable assembly is different to mine! The third core of the USB 3 "pairs" on your unit appears to be a single copper core whereas mine is loose stranded wire.

minihack and all with experience in this area of cable shortening:

I was able shorten the BenFenix USB3 cables by cutting to length and solder splicing the parts back together.

Both USB3 ports work (both USB3 and USB2 modes) after I had to rework my first go around on the first cable. Note these cables have single solid conductors and soldered okay.

Then I hit a road block on the audio cable. This cable has some strange stranded conductors that won't take my 60/40 "no clean" solder. These are very fine strands and are silver colored but not tin. I'm sure that I am not the first person to have this problem which leads me to ask if there is a solution?

Fortunately I purchased two Bendix front panel assemblies and can attempt to proceed without cutting the USB2 and audio cables by creative cable routing.

Good modding,
neil

 

[minihack]

minihack and all with experience in this area of cable shortening:

I was able shorten the BenFenix USB3 cables by cutting to length and solder splicing the parts back together.

Both USB3 ports work (both USB3 and USB2 modes) after I had to rework my first go around on the first cable. Note these cables have single solid conductors and soldered okay.

Then I hit a road block on the audio cable. This cable has some strange stranded conductors that won't take my 60/40 "no clean" solder. These are very fine strands and are silver colored but not tin. I'm sure that I am not the first person to have this problem which leads me to ask if there is a solution?

Fortunately I purchased two Bendix front panel assemblies and can attempt to proceed without cutting the USB2 and audio cables by creative cable routing.

Good modding,
neil

I haven't yet tried to do the audio cable modding, but will now proceed with caution! Maybe I will find that the wires for that are different too in my cable (my USB3 cables were multi-strand throughout….).

I of course am in a somewhat different situation for my cable mod as I for the USB mod and the audio I am not just shortening, but am connecting to my NUC front panel - which would otherwise be inaccessible in the Mac Mini case. So the USB mod was not a simple splice job but a tedious soldering to a 9 pin USB type "A" plug. I think that this mod went okay, but when I bind the cable into position I will be checking each connection very carefully for shorts. In contrast, the audio cable should be easier as I plan to splice into a 4 pole audio jack which will be permanently plugged into the front audio connection so I can discard most of the conductors and, indeed (on reflection and especially after your comments) I might decide instead to simply re-purpose an ordinary thinner gauge USB 2 cable to do the same job which will probably make cable routing and fixing much better inside the NUC.

 

[neilhart]

My LOL is now is a holding pattern. I am waiting for the machined front panel to arrive.

This weekend I made up a temporary front panel so that I could get the correct lengths for the cables that needed to be shortened. As indicated in a post above, I had issues soldering the the stranded wires on the audio cable. My work around was to route the audio and USB2 cables on the base plate below the motherboard. The trick here was a route that cleared the CPU cooler mountings and have no pinch points.

Again I used the blue 3M painters tape seen to hold thing in place for now. If I don't arrive at a solder solution for the stranded conductors, I will use RTV to hold the cables in place on the base plate (and remove the blue tape).

This is a photo of the system running on my desk now. All of the ports work. Well I assume that the MIC port works but it has not been verified.

Good modding
neil

 

[JuanLobo]

By chance are the audio cables a mix of copper strands and something else like very fine strands of some type of plastic? I remember having to deal with that on some headphone cords. I believe the intent is to add strength without reducing flexibility... I just held the iron to it until it melted back the plastic strands and it would eventually tin.

Maybe rather than cut and splice, get pins and crimp them to the cut wires... they don't need solder.

 

[neilhart]

By chance are the audio cables a mix of copper strands and something else like very fine strands of some type of plastic? I remember having to deal with that on some headphone cords. I believe the intent is to add strength without reducing flexibility... I just held the iron to it until it melted back the plastic strands and it would eventually tin.

Maybe rather than cut and splice, get pins and crimp them to the cut wires... they don't need solder.

I am familiar with the head phone cable strands and this it not that. I thought that when they would not "wet" with solder that maybe they were aluminum strands.

And your suggestion is probably the best way to proceed if I can find a source for the pins on the 10 pin "HD Audio" connector block as they must be standard.

Good modding,
neil

 

[JuanLobo]

Search Digikey for:

C-grid sl

Under the headings of Rectangular Connectors - Contacts and Rectangular Connectors - Housing. That should turn up the housings and the crimp sockets.

Beware that it appears each mfg has their own pin spec, so unless you know for sure the housing is molex, you would probably want to replace the housing so you know the pins will work.

That is as far as I got when I was thinking of making my own cable. In the end, I just cannibalized another cable and removed/reinserted the pins in a 10 pin housing as needed, and soldered the far end.

 

[dddirtman]

another outstanding build 10+.....
btw this one is golden...

 

[neilhart]

Just an update:

I have completed the revised front panel adding the USB2, USB3 and Audio ports along with a reset switch.

The front panel now is removable to facilitate connecting the USB2 and Audio cables to the panel assembly. The USB3 cables are fixed to the front panel and plug into the motherboard USB3 socket.

This is my hand made front panel as I had second thoughts about the cost of a machined version.

At this point I see this project as being complete.

Good modding,
neil