Template for early G4 (poss G3) motherboards

[Gus]

Brilliant minihack. It is good and definitely going to come in handy. Makes me want to go and print it and start trying everything for size!!!! But I know I must wait and no rush... I am far to good at that haha.

 

[eelhead]

We need a G4, G5 and mac pro resource thread for all of this stuff.

Good work though.

It's in the works.

 

[eelhead]

Stickied now.

 

[Gus]

It's bigger than an A4 isn't it? I have the pdf file and I'm on a mac. So I've got Preview and Colorsync. But any suggestions how to get it to print "real size" not scaled to an A4 page. I know that things can be printed across many pages but just how do I actually do it?
Many thanks in advance.

 

[minihack]

It's bigger than an A4 isn't it? I have the pdf file and I'm on a mac. So I've got Preview and Colorsync. But any suggestions how to get it to print "real size" not scaled to an A4 page. I know that things can be printed across many pages but just how do I actually do it?
Many thanks in advance.

Hi Gus,
You could always pop the pdf on a memory stick and go to your local "print bureau" or similar and ask them to print out on A3 card.

 

[Gus]

Hi Gus,
You could always pop the pdf on a memory stick and go to your local "print bureau" or similar and ask them to print out on A3 card.

Both my uncle and grandpa have A3 printers so I don't even need to pay! But thanks. I assume it will just print to A3 and be full size right? I dunno they both play with photos all day I'll get one of them to look at it. Cheers.

 

[minihack]

Hi Gus,
You could always pop the pdf on a memory stick and go to your local "print bureau" or similar and ask them to print out on A3 card.

Both my uncle and grandpa have A3 printers so I don't even need to pay! But thanks. I assume it will just print to A3 and be full size right? I dunno they both play with photos all day I'll get one of them to look at it. Cheers.

No worries Gus,

Any prob.s let me know or drop me a PM.

I am completely confident now (having played with this again today) that the holes indicated will give the right placement for the ATX posts and I've also been doing some tweaking to the backplates.

For my own little business I am researching the plastics side and playing with reproducing the backplates for ATX.....spending huge amounts of time on this, but really looking at what are the simple and elegant solutions for both my own plans but also for diy projects.

I think these little Macs have been neglected for too long and while I love the G5s, the G4s now I think with their smaller dimensions perhaps might come back into their own. The annoying thing right now is that to be able to test all of the mod.s properly I keep having to transplant my own systems into the new cases to see how they work. Problem for me is that my work machine (i.e. the one I run the laser off) is the only micro-ATX machine I have so before I can do the transplant I must be sure I am 100% ready to move it over - I thought I'd reached that point today, but found I need to extend the 24-pin connection and the CPU power lead so I have ordered and now need to wait for extensions to arrive before I can take apart my G5 to put the guts into the sawtooth.......and then I can start on the quicksilver!

Here's a quick preview though. Ignore the colours and materials.....

P3080450.JPG

P3080451.JPG

 

[Gus]

It does look splendid man. The other thing to think about is cost. Plus painting.

Obviously the G3/G4 are so much cheaper than G5/Mac Pro. And I have seen some sick paint jobs on them!

So I'll get it printed off and start having a look at the cases.

 

[eelhead]

It does look splendid man. The other thing to think about is cost. Plus painting.

Obviously the G3/G4 are so much cheaper than G5/Mac Pro. And I have seen some sick paint jobs on them!

So I'll get it printed off and start having a look at the cases.

Yeah you snag one that is in good shape for cheap and then paint some awesome **** on the metal subframe so it shows through the plastic and you can have a sic look G3 or even G4

 

[minihack]

Ok, here's the latest backplate version.

The one I posted last night was basically a flat perspex piece as the inner as a test fit to see how that would work.

The one below retains the original Mac I/O inner and just disguises the cuts and puts the I/O holes in the right place by using an ABS insert epoxied over the rough cut metal.

P3090455.JPG

P3090452.JPG

In both cases, the outer is a custom made perspex finishing plate which has holes in it that correspond with where the rivets on the Mac held the original Mac inner in place. It took a lot of measuring and printing out of paper templates before coming up with the right outline.

As you can see from the test fit with this junk board, the cut out is on the right place to keep everything at standard height and the good news is also that even at this (low) standard height it is possible to use my mobo tray design in combo with short standoffs and a CPU cut out (to allow any reinforcing brackets for coolers etc. to be fitted).

Next update will hopefully be at the weekend if my cable extensions arrive and I get a chance to actually fit a working system into it. Also got some blue perspex in the mail that I will try out for the inner bracket. I like the grey on the outside as it matches the sides of the G4 and helps break up the back a little bit - I will though get around to countersinking my fasteners and tidy everything up for the production photo version.

PS, the PSU I am using is (in time honoured tradition!) a rebodying of an ATX PSU into the Mac case so the right hand panel can stay 100% stock.