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neilhart's Scratch Build # 5 - a doodle for concepts.

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neilhart

Moderator
Joined
May 25, 2010
Messages
2,686
Motherboard
ASRock Fatal1ty Z270 Gaming - ITX/ac
CPU
i7-7700T
Graphics
GTX960
Mac
  1. MacBook
  2. MacBook Pro
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
This is scratch build # 5 that I have titled “doodle”.

Maybe not the best name. It is however a platform for me to try out some concepts that I have been thinking about.

The motherboard is the GigaByte GA-B85N that I had used for a short time in the Mini-ITX tower project (scratch build # 3).

My intention is to spend very little on this build and I plan to borrow parts from my other systems as needed. Also there is no completion time table.

I made up 4 motherboard standoffs and cut them to 0.6 inch in height. With this height I have room under the motherboard for cables and drives.

For a start I cut out a strip of 3 mm aluminum using my table saw, 7 inches wide by about 17 inches long. This again is material from salvaged G5 Power Macs so it has one good side where the other is pock marked from G5 PM pressed inserts (which have been removed leaving the pock marks).

I used the table saw to cut “scores” for the two bends that I had planned. The “scores” are about three saw cuts wide, about 0.2 inches and about 70% of the material thickness deep to insure easy folding to form the 90 degree bends.

After bending, I trimmed the panel to 9.25 inches from the bend.

panel-1.jpg


I then cut a clear acrylic panel to fit (3 x 7 inches).

IO-1.jpg


I cut the IO panel window, and drilled 9 blind holes from the back to fit small LEDs.

IO-in-Panel.jpg


I populated 6 locations with small yellow LED where each has a current limiting resistor on the anode.

IO-in-Panel-rear.jpg


Mounted the motherboard.

install-mb-1.jpg


install-mb-2.jpg


rear.jpg


And then a check for the IO panel lighting. Hummm….

lite-rear.jpg



A note: I am now on a fixed income and I plan to stop working on these projects sometime soon. I plan to switch my focus to software development. This should give me plenty of problems to solve while not being as costly as my hardware projects.

I welcome comments and questions.

Good modding,
neil
 
I welcome comments and questions.
Good modding,
neil
Neilhart, You are one of the most prolific builders on this forum. I can guess where you get the time, money can always be borrowed, but what you do all these machines once you have finished is actually beyond my comprehension?

As to he LED's there is very little you can get wrong. Polarity and they just won't work at all. Same with under voltage only 2-4V depending on colour, Over current is (literally) the real killer. ;)

Kiwi.
 
Kiwi thank you for the comments.

And your are 100% correct about the number is systems that I have. I was able to give one complete system to my grandson as he now has elementary school home work on the web.

However that leaves a dozen complete hacks sitting where only one is used daily. This is impossible to justify other then it is what keeps me going (problems to solve).

Also if you have not visited Atilla's web site please do so as he is my inspiration when it comes to art with raw aluminum. See: http://www.stillthinking.com.au/home.html

Good modding,
neil
 
It has been some time sense I posted on this thread.

Not much focus on the doodle - I did cut away much of the panel so that I have unrestricted access to the bottom of the motherboard to try out different CPU coolers.

I found that I did not have another working Pico PSU so I elected to use the M2-ATX PSU from my decommissioned car computer. This is a very smart little PSU sold by MiniBox originally back in 2003. I had used it for several years in the 2000 Corvette convertible PC car computer for music and navigation.

I made up a 20 pin to 24 pin adapter harness and mounted the M2-ATX as shown here. I have a 19VDC power brick hard wired to it at the moment.

I pulled the i7-4770T from the LOL project and installed it here (for now). I took a CPU heat sink that was from a salvaged Dell 1U router/server and mounted a 92mm Cooler Master 4 wire fan to the top of the fins with a glob of RTV. This CPU cooler works very well and is only a whisper if you put you ear down close to it.

This doddle has no purpose other then I am using it to cut my teeth on UEFI booting Clover. Currently running Yosemite.

I saw a good buy on a 240 GB 840EVO mSATA and have it installed as the system drive. So I used this system to run the Samsung Performance Update for the 840EVO yesterday and it is quick drive.

I am still toying with ideas for a case but nothing has jelled yet.


Good modding,
neil

photos:

PSU.jpg


left-side.jpg


left-rear.jpg


right-side.jpg


IO-side.jpg


bottom.jpg
 
Another update.

I made up a side plate and mounted it with 2 momentary switches (power and reset) and 2 LEDs (Green and Blue).

Then noticed that the idle temps went up 5 or 6 degrees. So I ran the Prime95 torture test for a while and the temps got up to 66 and 67 degrees. Not too bad, but before the side plate the loaded temps were in the high 50’s.

So I took the system apart again and cut the rectangular hole and added the mesh seen here.

case3.jpg


And cut another plate for the other side shown held in place with tape while I search around for some feet. The box needs to free flow air with little or no restriction so this panel will also have a mesh covered window.

case1.jpg


case2.jpg


More to follow.

Good modding,
neil
 
Another update:

Added mounting for a HDD.

1-4S.jpg


And cut a window for this side plate.

2-4S.jpg


Filled the window with mesh and added small plastic feet.

3-4S.jpg


Added spacer to protect the reset button. Activity and power LEDs shine through the small holes.

5-4S.jpg


4-4S.jpg


And this is where it is today…

6-4S.jpg


7-4S.jpg


Again this is my current Clover test machine.

Good modding,
neil
 
Again this is my current Clover test machine.


Good to hear this news, Neil.

Personally, I resisted the switchover at first, but now am converted.


Cheers!
 
Final Update:

I have added a front panel, shown on the right side of this first photo. Also seen here in the upper left corner on the case is the DC Power entry and just below is the AW-CE123H miniPCIe WiFi/BT card.

f9.jpg


The system is powered by this HP 75W power brick. The DC plug/jack devices are from Fry’s (found in the Adruino parts section). Of interest the system idles with 23 to 24 input watts and peaks at 89 watts running the Prime95 Torture Test (idle temps are mid 20s and full load does get to low 60s).

f1.jpg


f2.jpg


f4.jpg


f5.jpg


Then I built the top/left side cover seen here in process. The material is from a G5 Power Mac core top panel. The hex mesh is held in place with a fair amount of JB-Weld epoxy.

f3.jpg


f6.jpg


f7.jpg


And the system all buttoned up. Very industrial with raw edges and exposed screw heads.

f10.jpg


f11.jpg


This system runs well with the one fan and small power requirements.

The components are from prior projects and my collection of bits and pieces. The aluminum is for the most part from salvaged G5 Power Macs. Most of the screws are stainless steel 6-32 flat head with hex drive in 1/4 and 3/8 lengths (source McMaster Carr).

Gigabyte GA-B85N
Intel i7-4770T
4 GB DDR3 1600MHz
Samsung EVO 240 GB mSATA - purchased new for this project.
Hitachi Travelstar 500 GB 7200RPM
Mini-Box M2-ATX 165W PSU (reused from my car computer project)
HP 75w 19VDC power brick
CPU heat sink salvaged from a junk server - mfg unknown
Cooler Master 92mm 4 wire/pin fan

I started this system with no real purpose in mind and then used it to cut my teeth on UEFI Clover boot loader. I currently have vanilla Yosemite running with hackintosh kexts loaded and patched via Clover from the EFI partition.

I am frustrated with Bluetooth as I have not been able to get it up on the AW-CE123H card.

And here is what I see at the moment:

f16.jpg


Comments welcome.

Good modding,
neil
 
Another Update...

In the past few weeks I have been investigating the many ways to install OS X with Clover, Chimera and Chameleon.

To save my time, I found having the ability to quickly change out the target HDD or SSD is a major convenience for this type of investigation. So I modded the ASUS Maximus VII Impact system and added an top mounted drive access port (can be seen in the thread: http://www.tonymacx86.com/retail-ca...-w-m-2-xp941-booting-os-x-via-clover-xw1.html checkout post # 9.

And that works so great that I thought I would do something similar for the Doodle system, add an drive access port. This little box is so compact and full of gear, the port had to be kluged to the exterior of the system.

I elected to add the drive access port to the blank front panel of the system.

I found this SATA data and power cable at Central Computers for $6 and used it for this project.

mod9.jpg


mod10.jpg


I made up this bracket from 1 inch aluminum angle that has 0 .125 inch wall thickness. The standoffs are G5 PowerMac motherboard standoffs drilled through and the back end tapped to a 6-32 thread.

The bracket width matches the front cover width and the distance between the standoffs is just enough to allow a slide fit to 2.5 inch HDD/SSDs.

mod2.jpg


The black phillips head screws need to swapped for clear SS when I can find them.

mod3.jpg


The is a trial fit of a SSD with the cable and bracket.

mod4.jpg


Locating the bracket onto the front panel and setting it up for a temp glue up. I did this so that I could drill through the standoffs to get the bracket mounting hole in the ideal position.

mod5.jpg


mod6.jpg


And marked the location of a needed cut-out for a mounting hole clearance.

mod7.jpg


The two holes drilled and counter sunk for the flat head screws.

mod8.jpg


I cut a slot in the panel for the cable and shortened the cable.

mod13.jpg


And here the cables attached and the front panel going into place.

mod12.jpg


The final bracket installed.

mod11.jpg


mod1.jpg


This is it for the moment. I am thinking of a modesty cover for the new front panel area but for now I have a working system with the drive access port and it functions as intended.

Good modding,
neil
 
Another update:

I wanted the i7-4770T from this system to use in the ASRock M8 system and so swapped in an i3-4170. This CPU has the Intel HD4400 Graphics and I need to run the kexts found in RehabMan-FakePCIID-2015-0329.zip file. This also entailed edits to Clover config.plist.

I found that I could make the edits best using the plist editor found in Xcode.

If anyone is interested, I am attaching the edited config.plist file.

Good modding,
neil
 

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