- Joined
- Apr 10, 2011
- Messages
- 76
- Mac
- Classic Mac
- Mobile Phone
Found a Cube in the towns recycling trailer . Needed a good cleaning but looked to be in pretty good shape so I took it home . Got rid of a TV and got a Cube. No power supply but I figured could make something out of it . Beside , I never saw one in the flesh before.
Did some research and found Neilhart and GordyHand's Cube mods and realized that it's possible to make a usable machine out of what I had. Also discovered Tony's Custom Mac Mini .... H67N-USB3-B3 , i3 2105 , 3000 graphics . Decided that this would be my Cube build . So I ordered the parts , plus a lowprofile Gelid fan and started planning and measuring.
Looking down from the top of the Cube's internal cage , I decided that the fins on the huge heatsink had to go , cut 'em out and put 2 hard disks in their place. The touch switch had to stay , and work , and light as much as possible to the original
Looking at the bottom , I decided that the latch mechanism should remain operational as original and that any openings in the base for the motherboard backplate should allow the plate to appear unaltered and allow the plate to be removed without difficulty in event of a mobo swap.
Decided to use the wiring slot that Apple engineers thoughtfully provided to get SATA and power wires around the latch mechanism.
Once the parts came in and the cage got stripped of electronics , i got several reality checks ...
When the power supply , a PicoPSU 160w, plugs into the power connector , the wiring sticks out to the left and will interfere with cage insertion to the case. This means using a psu extension and routing the psu to the other side of the latch/heatsink . Not really a bad thing as it'll allow me to pick up from the extender the +5 voltage the power switch needs.
Thought to put the mobo on the same side that the original was ( the right ). 2 big problems popped up . The distance from the inner surface of the base to the lowest point on the power board ( the led leads ) was 164-165mm. The distance between the lower edge of the ports and the upper edge of the top memory stick is 167mm. I want the switch to work with the led so the top memory bank has to remain empty . Also , once the backplane is in place in the base , there'll be almost no air circulation inside that part of the case , the motherboard being installed against the heatsink.
After a LOT of thought , measurements and some AutoCAD sketches I came up with plan B , which should work just fine ( maybe) . The scheme is as follows...
Take the case bottom and rotate it 180 degrees . This puts the port openings below the frame for the optical drive ,and moves the latch frame/former heatsink over to the left a bit . This makes about 15mm more space available for motherboard cooling and will allow for around 4 rows of air holes to remain after the backplane cut is made . Not a lot but better than the no holes we had in the first design . There's also the possibility of forced ventilation. Even though the power circuit board is farther from the motherboard's location against the heatsink , the top memory stick will still hit so the top bank is still unusable . On the plus side , everything in the cage should line up in the end save for the 2 top screws for the latch cage . But now the latch won't work as the bottom plates rotation has changed the location of the latch cage . There's a fix for this , but it'll take some care in doing.
Looking inside the case can , theres a plate with 2 ears sticking up . The latch mechanism grabs through the holes in these ears to lock the cage and its electronics into the case.
In order to get these ears into alignment with the latch , the plate has to be rotated 180 degrees like the base was . There are 4 holes for locating pins and a cutout that have to be transposed in a mirror image to the appropriate opposing points so they'll line up right and the pins will locate the plate where it should be.
So this is where I am right now , first order of business once the holidays are done is to get the latch working .... everything else will be easy . Hope you were taking notes , there may be a quiz later.
Did some research and found Neilhart and GordyHand's Cube mods and realized that it's possible to make a usable machine out of what I had. Also discovered Tony's Custom Mac Mini .... H67N-USB3-B3 , i3 2105 , 3000 graphics . Decided that this would be my Cube build . So I ordered the parts , plus a lowprofile Gelid fan and started planning and measuring.
Looking down from the top of the Cube's internal cage , I decided that the fins on the huge heatsink had to go , cut 'em out and put 2 hard disks in their place. The touch switch had to stay , and work , and light as much as possible to the original
Looking at the bottom , I decided that the latch mechanism should remain operational as original and that any openings in the base for the motherboard backplate should allow the plate to appear unaltered and allow the plate to be removed without difficulty in event of a mobo swap.
Decided to use the wiring slot that Apple engineers thoughtfully provided to get SATA and power wires around the latch mechanism.
Once the parts came in and the cage got stripped of electronics , i got several reality checks ...
When the power supply , a PicoPSU 160w, plugs into the power connector , the wiring sticks out to the left and will interfere with cage insertion to the case. This means using a psu extension and routing the psu to the other side of the latch/heatsink . Not really a bad thing as it'll allow me to pick up from the extender the +5 voltage the power switch needs.
Thought to put the mobo on the same side that the original was ( the right ). 2 big problems popped up . The distance from the inner surface of the base to the lowest point on the power board ( the led leads ) was 164-165mm. The distance between the lower edge of the ports and the upper edge of the top memory stick is 167mm. I want the switch to work with the led so the top memory bank has to remain empty . Also , once the backplane is in place in the base , there'll be almost no air circulation inside that part of the case , the motherboard being installed against the heatsink.
After a LOT of thought , measurements and some AutoCAD sketches I came up with plan B , which should work just fine ( maybe) . The scheme is as follows...
Take the case bottom and rotate it 180 degrees . This puts the port openings below the frame for the optical drive ,and moves the latch frame/former heatsink over to the left a bit . This makes about 15mm more space available for motherboard cooling and will allow for around 4 rows of air holes to remain after the backplane cut is made . Not a lot but better than the no holes we had in the first design . There's also the possibility of forced ventilation. Even though the power circuit board is farther from the motherboard's location against the heatsink , the top memory stick will still hit so the top bank is still unusable . On the plus side , everything in the cage should line up in the end save for the 2 top screws for the latch cage . But now the latch won't work as the bottom plates rotation has changed the location of the latch cage . There's a fix for this , but it'll take some care in doing.
Looking inside the case can , theres a plate with 2 ears sticking up . The latch mechanism grabs through the holes in these ears to lock the cage and its electronics into the case.
In order to get these ears into alignment with the latch , the plate has to be rotated 180 degrees like the base was . There are 4 holes for locating pins and a cutout that have to be transposed in a mirror image to the appropriate opposing points so they'll line up right and the pins will locate the plate where it should be.
So this is where I am right now , first order of business once the holidays are done is to get the latch working .... everything else will be easy . Hope you were taking notes , there may be a quiz later.