[Scratch Build] 50's All-in-one PC [Finished]

[Polku]

I started to do this before I knew I would enter this competiton. Actually I got the first revision up and running before I knew I would enter this contest so there is lot to summarice. So I desided to divide it by themes I'm not sure will I be able to do rev. 2. before the year and the time for this contest ends (budjet limitations) So I'll run with rev. 1. and post any improvements I make along line after I've brought this thread up to date.

So first of all, where did it all began?

I was walking around our local fleemarket one day and stumbled upon a old 50's television with around 17" screen. I looked at it for while and tought arise: "That would make one cool LAN/all-in-one case". Unfortunatly that one was prized out of my league at over 200€ and the veneer was also bit too past it for my skills with wood. Well I put ad that I would buy this kind of television in Finnish site and after month of overprized ones and ones over 200km away, I got an offer that I had to take. It was less than ten kilometers away, the seller was willing to sell at 50€ what I had reserved for the televison and the seller told that it has good veneer, but the varnish and the actual electronics were well past it. So it was ideal for me as I had allready planned to re-lacker the case and to rip out the old electronics

So here's what I ended up with:

I jumped on the project stripping the case from all the old stuff the same evening:

Also of course not being very fond of modelling softawares did some mockups with broken hardware I had laying around to start figure out how everything would allign inside:

What is the hardware inside:

So as I've noticed, for many the specs of the hardware is very important, so I'll post that what Rev. 1. runs on:

Motherboard: ASUS M4A78-VM (was cheap and offered great cpu support across AM2, AM2+ and AM3)

CPU: Athon II X2 250 (Came with motherboard)

CPU cooling: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO (Just happened to fit the build with having a backplate)

Ram: G-Skill 2x2Gb 1066Mhz DDR2 (Best prize to performance ratio to have with DDR2)

GPU: Sapphire HD6870 1Gb (The screen is only 1240*1024px so it doesn't require a "Titan" and this was very budget friendly option)

PSU: Corsair VX550 (Again cheap and maybe best psu CWT has produced so far)

Storage: Random 160Gb sata HDD I had laying around.

More coming soon

...for the more impatient of you:

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/51 ... build-log/

[Polku]

Reserved for the final pictures for this contest...

[Fotes Lykos]

I love your idea. My build this year revolves around a wooden tube radio case so it would be interesting to see what you come up with. Good luck and keep up the good work.

[Polku]

For this post I'll go over the main source of metal parts I've cut for the project and the motherboard tray.

So what's my secret? An old Fujitsu m-atx case (again small- to zero budget I have to work with) that I had allready stripped down from anything resembling usefull before:

First up was to remove all the old rivets:

After all rivets had been removed I ended up with metal piece looking like this:

So still not big with modelling software, I just went on and tested how much of metal had to be cut off. And it turned out a lot:

After a evening with metalcutters ended up with this (and couple of new battle scars in my hands). The tape is just for holding the edge covering material in place for the glue to dry:

So this concludes this part. The next post will be supporting frame.

... And again for the more impatient ones:

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/51 ... build-log/

[Polku]

So next up was supporting frame for psu and hard-drive cage. I allowed little roughness with it, because as you will see later on this is only structural part and won't be visible once the case is finished.

I had "good" plan, witch nearly stayed the same till I got to hardware store:

And a "optimal" workspace for this kind of stuff:

With jus handsaw I was able to first cut and glue the psu-support side:

Bit more manual labour and the hdd-side was also sawed and glued the whole support together:

After the glue set it was time to instal it into the case:

Then again test how my mockup parts fit in:

Next up the surface treatment.

...and again for the more impatient ones:

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/51 ... build-log/

[Polku]

Next up was the removal of the old tired lacker. When I began to strip the old one off I realized that I haven't taken any pictures that would have actually showed how bad the lacker was so I quikly took one before moving forward:

The old lacker chipped away with varying paste, but after evening I was side and a half trought:

Then after the following morning ripping the old lacker off it was time to start applying new one:

And then couple of shots after finishing the lacker:

And next up is display saga part 1.

...and again for the more impatient of you:

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/51 ... build-log/

[Polku]

After the outer surface looked ready I moved on to the new display. First I tried to fit 19" screen in, but while it would have theoretically fit, it wouldn't have looked good. So I ended up buying another display, this time 17" Viewsonic VX724:

I jumped straight on to stripdown of the display:

Drew some the cutting lines into old fitting collar:

And started cutting:

Endig up finally with this:

Then it was time to bond the fitting collar into the frame of the display and start to fill in the gaps:

At this point the collar looked such a mess of colors I decided to paint it to better see what still had to be done:

And what do you know... The frame and collar had shifted while the glue was curing and the frame was missaligned by 4mm, and so I decided to rip it apart and work it into correct position:

Then after more argious sanding, filling and painting it was ready for final coat:

And after that tested in place:

There were lots of strengthening involved troughtout this whole stage as everytime I test fitted something a crack would appear somewhere, but three tubes of chemical metal, some fiberglass and a screw later, it was ready:

Next up:

The interior works.

[Polku]

So the finishing of the insides began with painting the inside of the case black:

Then it was time for some noise insulating material inside. I Chose Bequiet! one, because it looked and felt like very high quality stuff:

Some time later, I ended up interior looking like this (monitor just mocked up inside):

I also found place for HDD-cage under motherboardtray and started to mockup the noise insulation of the cage:

After insulation (and couple of strenghtenings into display fitting collar) it was time to create supports for the monitor. The monitor I had bought had solid V.E.S.A.-mounts, so and was able to support the monitor with them:

Also at this point I tested that the monitor still works:

Then it was time to fit the back plastic to display to clean up the inside looks and fit the monitor in place (The back plastic is most likely a thing I will change later on because it doesn't make the inside look clean enough for me...) :

Next up Front panel I/O...

Ps. Sorry about fluctuating picture quality, It's very difficult to take good pictures from nearly solid black surfaces and I ended up testing various settings with and without flash in my camere troughtout this build

[Polku]

Ok, then on to front I/O. From the begingin I knew I was going to utilize as much of the original hardware in the front as possible in front I/O and tought I was able to actually use little less than I wanted (the original potentiometres were busted beoynd repair) I'm pretty happy how it turned out.

Everything started with wires and sleeving. This was first time I've sleeved anything so it was very touch and go... :

As this was first time sleeving and first time soldering in ten years I forgot to take pictures from every stage, but after one evening this was situation:

The left- and rightmost wires are for front panel audio.

The second day of working with front I/O started with wiring the display to switch on from the front:

Then it was time to take a shot from the front:

After that I replaced the original potentiometres with couple of Zalman Fanmates. This was quite a work because the original nobs were quite fond of not detaching from the potentiometres rod and I also had to shorten the cables for fanmates quite a bit:

Then it was time to instal the whole front panel I/O in place:

So that conludes this update.

Next time it's time for new backpanel version 1.0

[TERW_DAN]

Wow, that is a nice mod