Betacord HTPC

C

cometcyclonemk

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 11, 2006
Messages
149
Well this is my first worklog here, and my first real endeavor in case modding - So any and all input / critisism is welcome!

So I'm moving out of the dorms, and next year I'll be living in a house with 5 buddies. We just so happened to have gotten a free 50 some-odd inch bigscreen from the late 80's and I was starting to build a simple HTPC to access movies and media via wireless network to play on the TV and surround sound we'll be having in the family room. After looking at computer cases next to the 80's style oak cabinet the TV is in something just didn't seem right. That's where my parents Sayno "Betacord" beta player comes in. Plenty large and aged to perfection, this beast will perfectly accompany our outdated TV! The plan is to fit a complete Micro ATX system into the case and keep outward appearances as unassuming as possible.

The Beta player



Plenty of room



Mmmm, lots of stuff to rip out!



A few 4 letter words and stripped screws later and it's empty.



I'm going to try and power the front panels so they light up, and the clock works... I'm going to school to be an electrical engineer, but I'm only in my sophomore year... So the key word there was TRY.



And the DVD drive will exit out the beta slot of course.



That's all I have for now. Suggestions would be great. Also if anyone has a micro atx combo they want to part with for super cheap that would be neat - the mobo in the pictures has a celeron 700 something, and only PCI slots! Anything in the 1+ Ghz range with an AGP should suffice.
 
Got a picture of this T.V.? My parents bought a "Big Screen" T.V. when my brother was born in 1988. The screen is a 27". The ad on the back was the funniest thing ever.
 
Looks pretty sweet! I wish I could come across something like that. I'd take it in a minute, or buy for a low price.
 
This looks like a lot of fun, and a perfect accessory to that big TV. Getting as many of the controls on the Betacord to work with the PC is key to it's success. If you can get the tape door to flip down when the DVD ejects that would be cherry on the cake. Much applause would follow. Replacing the display with a more useful LCD display may be a better option though.
 
Not a whole lot has happened since my first post, but here's an update on what has.

Like many other modders out there I quickly realized a dremel like device would be handy. Thank you harbor freight for your 19 dollar deal!



The only problem is I went through the 3 included re-enforced cut off disks pretty quickly. Is there some sort of more durable attachment for cutting? Anyway that stopped the cutting for now, so I moved on to making some drive bays from the scrap innards of the beta beast.

After slapping a few pieces together this is what I have.


Here it is in the case



And again



Thats pretty much all I've done for now, but here are a few pics of some ideas I'm tossing around.

Top panel usb ports utilizing the existing door for some sort of tracking like adjustments.



Possible placement for a front multi-panel card reader deal - not yet sure if I want something like that visible or if I want a complete stealth look.



That's all I have for now. Going to visit the grandparents for a week, so I won't get to work on it for a bit :( - I do get to work on something a little more my style though - a 1959 ford AWD F600 :).
 
that is so awesome.. you should mass produce something like this..

/subscribed!
 
Heh, for a minute that brought memories of moving to Kzoo in this awful rented house.... Front window bays and all. Place was so sloped you could roll a golf ball from one end to the other simply by going to the second floor and putting one on the floor of the south end. It would go all the way north!

Cool project. It's neat to try and fit all the stuff in. At least your example is plenty tall enough to accomodate cards without 90 degree risers. :cool:
 
brasherman said:
...your example is plenty tall enough to accomodate cards without 90 degree risers. :cool:
Click to expand...

Too bad it's not a top-loader VCR, I would love to see someone tackle one of those. Just to see what you could put in the tape carrier. I hope to see some more progress on this soon. (hint hint)
 
There won't be any progress until I get back from my grandparents at the end of this week. However, my grandma just so happens to have had a top-loading beta player in her last garage sale (along with about 50 beta tapes) and I don't believe it sold... If someone's interested :)
 
top loading beta = retro to the max.

any idea how much she'd want? (not super interested, more curious)
 
As far as grandmas Beta player goes, my mom will ask her the next time she visits :)

A small update.

My tester mATX motherboard has been mounted!



I had to notch out the optical drive bay for it to fit, but that shouldn't pose a problem.



As you can see, a full sized ATX power supply is not going to work :( . But you can make me really happy and hook me up with a free / cheap one :)

Another project that has been taking up my time. This is my "TekBot" for some of my EE classes. Of course the whole thing is BBM (built by me) - I got rid of the weak foam tires / aluminum box they give you to start with. The suspension has enough flex to put a tire on a gallon can of paint with all 4 on the ground. Oh yeah and each tire has it's own motor :)



More updates to come!
 
I need some ideas for cooling! With where I plan to place "the guts", it seems as though cooling side to side, or front to back will be somewhat difficult. Looking at the pictures, do you think that top to bottom could be done? There is about a half an inch gap under the player, so that should be plenty for airflow. The question then would be how to disquise the top fan so that it is not obvious that something is fishy with the player. Any other ideas? I can post more pics of the case if wanted.

BTW - It's not going to be anything fancy inside - Celeron D, or an athlon XP or something, so it shouldnt make all that much heat.


Thanks in advance for the help - Mark
 
Well I started getting ancy about school starting in a few weeks and not having my media PC ready to go. Searching for used parts on the forums is fun and all, but just wasn't going quickly enough.

So I ordered these from tigerdirect:

Celeron D 2.93Ghz Processor - 39.99
EVGA MX4000 Low profile PCI Video Card - 24.99
Enermax 270Watt mATX Psu - 34.99
and about 10 bucks shipping.

I just so happen to have a mATX Celeron D compatible Intel board with only PCI slots - hince the PCI video card. I might have payed too much... I dunno, but sometimes it's worth a bit more to have the stuff now :)

I also found at the local Office depot a 160GB Western Digital retail IDE drive for 39.99 after rebates. A pretty good bargain IMO.

Anyways I should have my goods in a few days and this Friday is my last day of work for a few weeks respence (spelling??) before school so some progress should be coming very soon.
 
This should definitely be awesome when finished... did you ever get the clock and other lights to work? Oh and are there pics up above that are no longer being hosted?
Best of luck
Geo
 
hey i was over at my dads house the other day, and i saw his oldschool beta in the basement, snapped a couple pics.

talk about classic movies.. a taped version of 'corrina, corrina'.. :)




dig that duct taping job on the side? all function.
 
n1ce_hat - sweet beta!

Geo Fry - The pics still work on my end. Right now I have the lights wired up so they just all light up. I have a tiny 26 board that I'm thinking of running the lights off though to make them do some sort of pattern or light up when different things happen - not sure yet it's just a passing thought. As far as the clock I need to look at the controller board for the LCD to see how to power it, just haven't gotten around to it. That or if I can find a more usefull LCD on the cheap I'd like to go that route.


-Mark
 
cool mod. it would be great as an HTPC - i can picture you inviting some friends over to watch a new release DVD... and then turning on your betacord to play it as your friends stand there confused... lol.
 
I love this mod! Old school FTW! But what was the deal with your family and Betamax, VHS all the way lol. :p
 
Why does the word Betamax in the above post link to buying Blu-ray disks? Is this forum allowing adwords now? I hope not :mad:
 
themark said:
Why does the word Betamax in the above post link to buying Blu-ray disks? Is this forum allowing adwords now? I hope not :mad:
Click to expand...
You totally missed the boat on that one, yes Kyle has some Ad word garbage on now.
 
Alrighty so my parts haven't arrived yet and I'm bitin' at the bullet to get this thing done. To keep myself out of trouble I thought I'd start on a few of the finishing touches... Before finishing. Here's one of them.

Hmmm, what could this door be for?



A multi-function card reader / usb port!



Strangely the above picture was the best one I could take of it... And it was with my camera phone... Apparently it's time for a new digital camera if I want to take close-ups :(

Anyways that's about all for now, more to come soon.
 
I love the media reader on top like that, although I wonder if the USB ports would be better. At least mount some USB ports in the front somewhere?

edit- and yea the pics are pretty bad :(... i have an old digi that I have to beg to take blur free pics
 
Yeah I'm trying to decide where to mount some more front usb ports but I do think a few more would be handy. As far as the pics... The actually takes some pretty decent pics from afar, but anything closer than 4-5 feet and they're blurry. I'd gather it's probably from a trip my sister took to the beach and her getting sand in the lense stopping it from being able to focus properly? Eh, it happens. I'm working on it some more today so I might post some updates later.
 
Small update here. Pretty much all the internals have been mounted (the pics dont show the video card but I finished that up just after taking them). YIKES, I have to have this done before I leave for school.... MONDAY! Pretty much all I have to do now is figure out some cooling. Any idea what a system like this would need to stay acceptably cool? Celery 2.93ghz, nvidia mx4000 vid card, dvd-drive, 160gig WD HD.... I'm hoping I don't have to cut any holes in the top, but the processors HSF is about an inch away from the top.... Eh, here are some pics.





As you can see (though bluryly...SP?) in some places the tolerances are quite close :)



Thats all for now. I'll probably finish up getting all the components in tomorrow, and leave the rest for the week before school starts - there may be an update before the weekend but I probably wont finish all the cool stuff (lights, buttons, dohickeys) until about the 20th (moving to school monday, bus ride to grass pants oregon tuesday, visit grandparents until 18thish, bus ride back to finish the project before school starts the 26th. Busy times).
 
Well I decided to paint things with some stray rattle cans from the garage. Keep in mind that "prep-work" for this paint job was wiping down the surfaces with a laquer thinner soaked rag. Also on the items painted silver (you may not even be able to tell from the pics) the can of silver paint I had was out of aresol... But that's no problem! Paint it anyway! It actually didn't turn out bad and kinda looks like a crinkle type finish. In anycase it will keep grinded and cut parts from rusting and the black and silver make a nice contrast IMO. The plastic was also painted a gloss black. Or rather it was dyed a gloss black. While it looks pretty sharp in person I think that it might have been a poor choice - it seems to show all dust / scratches under the flash of a camera. Oh well - I dont plan on looking at the back. Enough of that, you want pics!

It looks so innocent doesn't it? Why the heck would someone want a beta player?!?


Oh wait, there's a computer inside this beta player...


Pretty much everything internall is installed. The DVD drive is being salvaged from my bros compy, so I can't install it yet, and the celery apparently wont be here until monday :(.




Now all I need to do is find an LCD for the front panel, and I'm thinking some sort of red light inside letting a red glow eminate from the case would be cool. I'm also pondering etching a piece of lexy to say "BETACORD" and putting it in that slot below the dvd drive opening - with red light from behind of course. Let me know what you think and thanks for looking - Mark
 
Hmmm I'm not so sure about the lighting... I was kinda hoping it would stay as true to original as possible. That way, like you pointed out earlier, no one would suspect anything different about it... but maybe it would look cool :)

Oh and about the cooling... Celerons stay very cool. With the project mod I'm doing right now, my celeron's HSF will be 1 inch below the DVD drive, and I've let it run intense apps with it like that and it stays at very acceptable temps. And as long as you have vents to let air in, air should be pulled in from the PSU... I dunno you might want some type of intake fan, but its probably not needed ;). Anyways, hurry up and fire this system up. It will be cool to see a running PC out of that box :D good luck
 
Yeah I thought about it too, and I don't think the etched plexy will happen. I'm still thinking that having a reg glow from the vents on each side would look pretty sweet and be subtle enough that it wouldn't be a problem. Maybe have them just turn on when say the dvd drive is opened to add to peoples suprise that it's no ordinary beta player? I dunno, toss me some ideas - I just kinda want something to show for the amount of time I have in it.


That's good to know about cooling - I kinda figured I'd try it for now and see how it runs since a lot of "store bought" computers (ickmachines, Comcrap etc) don't come with any sort of case fan. Worse case scenario it won't be too hard to add an intake fan.


As far as firing it up, that can't happen until tigerdirect gets me my 39.99 Celeron 2.93ghz :(
And I'll be borrowing one of my 512mb sticks of XMS from my sig rig (I know... but I'm holding out for a deal - so far my cost on this project is a whopping 140bucks, 160total would rock :) ).
 
Alright so the BetaCord has been fired up and MCE has been installed. Everything works just dandy until you put the lid on. Apparently the processor heatsink fan (retail one) doens't like being an inch below the lid - it runs full blast and makes a heck of a lot of noise. Here are my ideas to remedy it.

1. Buy some sort of heatsink/fan made for a server that is lower profile and made to work in such circumstances.

2. Cut a blowhole in the top and put some sort of grill on it to hide it best as possible.

Either solution will cost a bit of money - the heatsink somewhere around 20-30bucks? And I can get a RadGrillz to cover a hole that looks like it would fit in quite nicely. So what do you guys think would be best?

Another question - what kind of idle / load temps should a celeron d 2.93ghz be running? When the fan kicks in super loud its in the low 50s Celcius.

Thanks, and I'll have completed pictures / and a bit of progress unfortunately in another week or so - right now I don't have a desk so the room is a bit disorganized, and I don't have much space to work on things, eh. .
 
Mine runs 33-34 idle, 52-53 load. This is with a cheap $10 generic heatsink and oc to 3.25. My bro has one that gets up to 58+ on the stock cooler.
 
50c is hot but not HOT, my shuttle lets the P4 get to 70c before kicking the fan to full speed. I found that I got best results putting a rice-bead of thermal pase and then installing the HSF (not spreading it with a credit card or something like that).

The cheapest solution would be to find a grill that matches the theme (or may be an aluminum/steel filter), cut out a hole on the case and hot-glue the grill on the inside of the case. No screws to mess with the VCR look and it can be removed later. Also, the chip will appreciate the cool air.

If the stock fan barely fits, a typical HSF with pipes and a "side" fan will not fit at all.
 
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