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neilhart's Slow Roll G5 Power Mac - System on Slides

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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
I would like to share my current slow roll project with the community. I found these drawer slides at our local Lowe’s Home Improvement store.

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The slides are 16 inch full extension with built-n release levers. I used these in this system.

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Again this is a system done my way for my own use and amusement. Early this year I refreshed the White Prodigy by swapping in the Gigabyte Z87M-D3H i7-4770K which freed up the ASUS P8Z77M-Pro with the i7-3770K for this project.

The system is over clocked to 4.2 GHz and runs well with the Thermaltake Water 2.0 Performer CPU cooler. Note that there are only the two 120 mm fans on the cooler, a fan in the PSU and a fan on the GPU. Running the Prime95 “Torture Test" the buttoned up system see temps in the mid 60 C range.

As with many projects it is hard to tell when it’s done. I still have an idea for a “kickstand” for the open drawer condition and implementing a slot loading optical drive along with USB3 ports in the optical drive area (I have not worked out how to build the quick disconnect for the all the data lines needed).

And the case shows its age with lots of scuffs and scratches but no deep damage.

More postings to follow with photos of a few tweaks that I incorporated.

Good modding,
neil
 
Speechless indeed! Looking forward the additional photos.

(By the way.. Neilhart, would you please check Mooner's Hack Pro thread. I posted a question about your systems there. Thanks! I would have sent you a private message but apparently I haven't posted here enough to be able to do so.)
 
Very nicely done Neil - takes motherboard trays to the next level.

Edit: Having looked at this comment again, and at your system, I feel that what I said above is inadequate. The level of detail and execution is exceptional.
 
After diss-assembly of the case and giving it a good washing I wrapped most of it in blue painters tape. I have found that this helps to prevent adding more damage as I handle it.

With the slides in hand, I was able to determine the rear cut-out size and location.

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It is a dirty job using the Dremel and cutting inside the lines. A full face shield from Harbor Freight helps to keep the bits from hitting the face.

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Then I worked to build a closed row of holes around the cut-out. This is using JB Weld as the filler and masking from both sides.

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And this is after the sanding and some touch up paint.

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While I was working in this area, I pulled the top shelf and cut away a goodly part. And again later I went back and cut away more. I did leave the center in-stepped area for the latch piece for the acrylic cover.

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Then I prepared the slides. I cut 3/8 inch ABS to form spacing blocks as seen here. Also I used Loctite Weld for it quick set.

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I then started the two sided drawer using aluminum angle, 10-32x1/8 SS flat head phillips screws.

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And found a gap and had to re-do the angle piece (see lower right corner of the drawer in the photo above.).

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I then had to get serious about the layout and location of the PSU and motherboard. If I were to do this over again, I would swap locations as this layout caused me to cut-away more of the top shelf.

The PSU is the SilverStone ST45SF-G which is full modular and chosen for its size and good rep.

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Next was fabricating a mounting bracket for the CPU cooler fans and rad. The plates are separated by about 1/16 inch layer of RTV in an effort to deaden fan vibration.

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Of interest I found that the fan direction had little impact on the cooling performance. I am running with the fans in the other orientation then shown here (blowing towards the rear of the system).


More in the next post.

Good modding,
neil
 
Speechless indeed! Looking forward the additional photos.

(By the way.. Neilhart, would you please check Mooner's Hack Pro thread. I posted a question about your systems there. Thanks! I would have sent you a private message but apparently I haven't posted here enough to be able to do so.)

Finndamage - I left a reply to your question in mooner's thread.

Good modding,
neil
 
The drive bank.

I had decided sometime ago to use 2.5 inch drives and to stop purchasing 3.5 inch drives. My strategy is to have everything backed up to a server machine (now the TOP but was a LINUX file server). I will added additional large capacity hard drives to the server as needed.

That being the case, I fabricated a 5 drive 2.5” bracket assembly.

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Fabricated a 5 drive power harness with a 4 pin Molex to connect the PSU feeder cable. Also found that a 10” SATA cable with straight connectors on both ends was the thing needed (found these on NewEgg, pn SC-SATA3-10-LL-BK for $ 0.54 USD).

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Today the first two drives are 120 GB SSDs in a RAID 0 as the system boot drive. The intention here is to add 1 TB hard drives as needed. Today the three hard drives are ones already owned.

More in the next post.

Good modding,
neil
 
Drawer details.

I made up a frame for the rear facing side of the drawer seen here. This is from 1/2 inch angle and forms anchorage on thee sides.

Note that I selected an I/O and PCI slot frame assembly from my salvage bin. The frame is sized for Micro-ATX and is well made. Source is unknown. The drawer shown is the final form.

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Connectivity of the drawer to the front panel (power switch, audio, USB2, reset switch and hard drive activity LED) is accomplished by repurposing the G5 fan connectors. Each connector has 8 pins and is fully populated in this solution.

Shown are the fan side connectors in grey plastic. The plastic is in the acrylic family and glues up nicely using acrylic solvent (forms a good weld). I made up the bracket shown with a slotted base plate to facilitate adjustment in the final assembly.

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And placed the case side connectors on a 1/8th inch aluminum plate mounted to a 3/8th inch ABS block shown. This block is attached to the case with JB Weld

Note to the right of the connectors is an adjustable drawer stop to keep the connectors from being the stop.

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Wiring up the front panel on this hack, I decided to fix the audio. The existing audio connector on the Apple circuit card is dated and I wanted the audio circuit to detect the head phones and switch the audio from the rear green port to the front.

I spent time mapping the connectors and again in my salvage bin I found a “good” 5 pin connector that was nearly the right size. I removed the Apple audio jack from the circuit card (cut the body off and de-soldered the pins leaving all of the other components in place). Using my desk sample front panel, I found that the Apple plastic at the audio port hole had to go and that the hole had to be opened up a little for the new audio connector to fit. A long story short, with this mod in place, when a headphone is jacked into the front panel, contacts in the audio receptacle close which activates the sense by connecting the motherboard front panel audio connector pins 7 to 10. Works like a dream with OS X 10.9.2 and the audio kexts from Multibeast.

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More in the next post.

Good modding,
neil
 
Excellent build. Very inspiring and will certainly be useful in my NAS build as I turn two G5's into one lengthened case.

I have been wondering how you are going to accomplish that re-engineering. Have you seen my thread on the "Short Stack" where I went the other direction and made the case smaller? I will be watching your progress.

Good modding,
neil

- - - Updated - - -

Rear panel details.

Had I shared that I started with 4 complete G5 Power Mac setting in my garage. These machines came to me from a Craigslist offering that was too good to pass up; 5 G5s for $200. The machines were fairly complete but all non-op and each has blemishes.

For this project I have used two machines to make this one. I mined the Apple mesh from the front of one for this rear panel. And the base of the drawer is from a right side panel.

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I started off by trimming the mesh panel to size with the top side (as shown) with a clean row of closed holes (in this case they were never there).

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Then went through the lengthy process of filling in the the one row of boundary holes. The part is not perfect but I just got tired of working on it.

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The current final result is this:

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And the final form of the front panel is this. The drive activity LED is blue and located just above the power LED. The reset switch is the black button located below the front panel assembly.

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More in the next post.

Good modding,
neil
 
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