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Mac mini in G4 Cube?

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Hello everyone, as many of you, I really like the G4 cube, still looks great after 20 years. I don't need a beautiful paperweight, but was thinking fitting a mac mini inside. All threads I've seen cover either the old mac mini with acrylic, or just list dimensions - I think the G4 cube is 170mm x 170mm inside. Does anyone know whether the insides of a mac mini (intel or m1) will fit inside the cube? I think the biggest part is the power supply - did anyone try to fit it inside a cube or can share its dimensions, please?

thank you, Pablos
 
1. The old mac mini with acrylic/alum easily fits inside, and the power brick should fit with it as well.
2. The newer alum only mini has the power supply inside, and the case is equal or slightly larger than a cube acryllic, so you would have to gut the mini to fit it inside the cube. I think I have seen mods where a mini-ITX fit inside a newer alum mini, so the mini guts should fit inside a cube.
3. A mini-ITX and Flex PSU and GPU will fit inside a cube, but it gets tight and you might have some heating issues.

Now putting an M1 mini inside the cube would be an awesome powerhouse!

Picture of a 2011 Mini on top of a cube.
IMG_9281_compare.jpg
 
Thank you, that picture helps! I estimated the size of all components from here:


where it looks like the power supply is the biggest and might just barely fit.

No idea what I would do with the power button, would be nice to use the existing one on the top of the G4 cube case, but I doubt it will be possible.
 
I'm actually about to start taking on this project myself!
Found myself an old cube that is non-functional, only downside is that there's a crack in the acrylic. :(
The M1 insides fit in the cube chassis with no problems after removing the i/o plate.
I'm still stuck on the power button as well.
The 2018 and M1 minis use a ribbon cable for the power button.
I'm no engineer myself so figuring out how to replicate that ribbon cable or solder additional wires will be a challenge for me.
I'd like to repurpose the cube's touch button but even just relocating the mini power button to a different spot would be ideal.
Hopefully someone out there might know the answer!
 
well the big thing with the Cube power switch is that it always needs power of some sort. I'm not sure how you'd be able to do that with the m1 mini- you might be able to siphon it off the USB, but it's hard to say.
 
I created an Apple G4 Cube M1 by putting a Mac Mini M1 inside the Cube. Just finished it and only need to design a new I/O panel. I disassembled my Mac Mini and put it inside the Cube piece by piece. Only had to cut out the original I/O panel and drilled 5 small holes in the original frame to place the new motherboard, PSU and an additional 5V PSU to get the switch working.

In the Switch thread I explained how I connected the switch to get it working.
 
This sounds very nice. Im planning the exact same project now. Could you share more details and pic or a build guide for yours? This would be immense help for me.
Im sourcing the parts now.

Thx alot.
 
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