Project: HTPC minus the PC

Morphes said:
it looks like a phantom :p
Click to expand...

Can't be phantom... all the ports on the back actually connect to something on the inside :D

Anyways, I decided not to cut the upper shelf to clear the coax cable, instead I just made a shorter coax cable that lays flat along the back of the case. I will try and post a picture of that tonight.

After getting that to fit pretty good, I decided to put everything together (which was a pain in the ass), and do some testing to make sure all of my system components still work. I was able to load up linux onto the system, and everything installed ok! Tonight I am going to begin testing all of the external A/V ports, and doing some system temp monitoring to make sure its not running too hot when its all closed up.

Once that is complete, I wll have to take the whole thing back apart again to add a couple more pop-rivets to the back, and also I still need to figure out what to do with the front panel lcd holes... I might just try and cut the holes myself...

Anyways, here is a pic of the system (mostly assembled) up and running linux last night:
htpc_18a.jpg
 
You're doing a great job and you did a great job in the color matching, it isn't easy matching silver metallic paint (I'm a color matcher for a automotive paint manufactorer). I can't wait to see the finish project .
 
I had some time tonight to test the output A/V ports, and everything was successful! It sure was nice to have everything work after having to solder soooo many connection, especially the ones off of the vga header :)

Here is a picture of my mess... err desk while testing the TV Out (click for ginormis pic)

In the bottom right of that pic, you can see the new (white) shorty coax cable I put together too.

This picture you can see me testing the audio out connections off of the motherboard.
htpc_19b.jpg


Here is the back panel with the A/V ports in use.
htpc_19c.jpg

You can see how the custom panel bows out a little bit from the case, I am going to have to add a couple pop-rivets in order to prevent this from happening in the future.

And here you can see the WinTV PVR-250 card.
htpc_19d.jpg

I ended up cutting out a small heat sink to attach to the mpeg II encoder chip on the TV card, that little chip actually gets very hot when in use, and seeing as how the case is already pretty crampt, I figured it would be best to try and keep this chip a little cooler.

Anyways, I am still pretty busy loading up & configuring all the software on the system. I will probably post some more pictures when I get the front panel lcd up and working, along with some pictures of the HTPC software running on my TV.
 
Man, this is sweet. ive been wanting to do something like this for a long time, but funds prohibit... probably be using my a7n8x for mine, DD live for MPEG playback :)
 
Thanks everyone for the kind words :D

Now for a minor update, I have the LCD working... sort of... I can write to it with the test program (so linux sees it & communicate with it) but the main application I need it to work with (lcdproc) so far does not work 100%... I am going to keep working at it though, and keep you all posted... here is a pic of the lcd working with the test app

htpc_20a.jpg
 
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