Project : Aopen XC Cube

[razbus]

System: Aopen XC Cube model EX761 barebone

for spec's and stuff : here or here

I did some painting and detailing to the inside. I still need to mod the cover.

The HDD are what I am working on now, because of the size of this case I decided to make the HDD external. once I am done modding them I will post pics.

Let me know what you think - Yes I know the pics are dark, new camera and have not had time to play with it yet

 

[razbus]

Unfortunatly the paint on the chassis does not come out as good in the pictures. The color is a candy/metal flake red.

The setup is a Hitachi and Seagate HDD inside 2 seperate Cool Drive 6 which I slide into an Aluminum External Drive Case with Light Bar

Here are the pictures:

The USB cable is from the cooldrive 6, this way I still can monitor the drives

 

[Qtip42]

Nice work.

 

[upriverpaddler]

1. So there are no HDD inside the case? You boot from USB?

2. Is there a separate external cage for each Cooldrive?

I'd really like to see how you'll set this up on your desk.

 

[razbus]

Sorry I did not answer quicker, been in bed with the flu yesterday.

Yes, there is no HDD in the case. Because if you look at the side shots of the case, the HDD would go below the FDD.

So I figured that I would make the drives external to help lower the temps inside the case.

The HDD sits inside the Cooldrive 6. The cooldrive sits inside the 5.25" external drive.

The external drive connects to the system via USB.

This setup will work pretty good until I get my tax return and can switch to e.SATA.

Check it out

So 1 HDD in each cooldrive, they will sit on the same shelf as the PC in my entertainment center. After I pull my DVD/VCR unit out, Since this PC is going to be my HTPC

Next I am going to start cutting the case cover and cover the Aopen logo with some Carbon Fiber to match the front better

I am going to try to come up with a design for the case cover. I did buy some mesh for this part. I was thinking a handle on top and a window on each of the sides that wrap tp to the handle on top and some fans on the windows to get some air flowing in the case

something like this maybe

 

[razbus]

OK, new update

I got bored with what little bit of mods that I did do - chassis painting & film on HSF, bezel & PSU

So I have come up with the following ideas:

- changing the power supply so that it sits outside the case, possibly upgrading it to something with more juice

- installing a differnet HSF

- rewiring and sleeving the internal cables so that they are hidden

- installing molex plugs in the rear of the case (sort of like a pass-through cable)

I did start working on the case cover today, I still need to add the mesh to the case cover and then paint the cover's interior side

When cutting the hole for the molex plug, I cut the hole a little to big and need put some U-channel molding to hold the plug tight. Also thinking about putting some mesh and fan where the PSU was.

I jut came across this article. Wish I would have seen it befor I hacke the chassis

rough idea ......

 

[razbus]

OK the DVD burner and fan power external connections are complete - I went with a Coaxial DC power/plug connector setup instead of having the ugly molex plugs.

All of this PSU area is new to me - what I need to do next is come up with a way to power the motherboard 24 pin atx connector and the 4 pin connector. The PSU that came with the system is 275w

If anyone knows about PSU's, I could use some input.

Could I use this to power the motherboard?

http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/sc.8/category.13/it.A/id.300/.f

The specs of the motherboard are:

cpu : Athlon64 socket 754 New Castle 3400+
Chipset : SiS 761GX + 795
RAM : 1GB DDR400
Video : SAPPHIRE Radeon X1600XT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 CrossFire Supported Video Card
** onboard video will be disabled **
** HDD are external connect sia the USB (SATA and IDE will be disabled) **
** internal drives (DVD writer and fan controller) are powered via the external coaxial plug ***
Gigabit LAN
S/PDIF In and out ports
(3) 1394 ports
(8.) USB 2.0 ports
(1) coaxial port
AC97 Sound
(1) COM port
(2) PS/2 ports

 

[uzor]

Looks interesting so far. any ideas on housing the power supply externally, or you leaning towards that brick right now?

Just a word of caution - most external drive enclosures do not support drive spin down. Your disk unfortunately won't get a rest the whole time it has power. Just something to be aware of as you use this. Unless of course you got one of the few that do spin down properly...In which case the better for you (Mine doesn't, but only found out after the fact and reading about them on Dan's Data).

 

[razbus]

No idea really, I am pretty much flying by the seat of my pants right now. I am trying to figure out how I am gonna get power to the motherboard. I am tryting to understand power requirements but I am getting totally confused. I can only think of 2 ideas right now:

1. ATX extension cable harness
2. Micro-ATX DC to DC power supply

The power supply that came with the system (275w) is a 24 pin ATX connector

 

[razbus]

I e-mailed mini-box.com before I posted my question in this forum and they meailed me and said that it would not be enough power for the motherboard.

Back to the drawing board.