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Rack Project

I fixed the LCD in the Javelin terminal (again). Hopefully this time the CCFL will stay gassy and work for more than three days.... My old soldering iron is 40 watts which is alot more than needed, and actually ruined my last CCFL. So I got a dual watt soldering iron, set it to 15 watts and prepaired my second backlight.

CCFL1.jpg


I discovered that even with the new iron, I still really suck at soldering. As im sure you can tell the joints came out very sloppy, but the CCFL worked, as long as it stays working im happy. I also used some heat shrink tubing around the joints so that A: the massive amount of voltage used to run this little monster wont come in contact with anything, and B: to cover up my sloppy work :( .

CCFL2.jpg


Here is what the LCD looked like after I installed the backlight and put it all togeather.

LCD1.jpg


LCD2.jpg


I am happy with the LCD. It is now very bright and looks brand new compared to the dim crappy washed out colors displayed before I replaced the CCFL. This should look very nice displaying fan control software (and some other things Im thinking up). I will post as I finish the mount for it.
 
Now I have some questions for whomever feels like answering them. First off I had another interesting idea. Since I just put a new CCFL in the javelin terminal I don't want the screen to be on 24/7 so I can set the terminal to turn the screen off after so many minutes of inactivity, easy enough right? No, because I still want to easily see the temperatures and other vitals of the rack simply by walking by and without opening the door and summoning the javelin terminal from it's slumber. My idea is to get one of those cheap home security motion sensors and wiring it to SOMETHING that would wake the terminal up...but what though? I was thinking about getting a crappy mouse and wiring the motion sensor to one of the buttons so the terminal thinks the mouse is clicked every time it senses motion but the problem with that is, after its awake the motion sensor will still "click" the mouse as it detects motion and make the terminal interesting to use. This is probably over complicated for what im trying to do, but still im going for a "oh wow" effect with this rack so any crazyness is welcomed. Anyone have any thoughts on how I can get a motion sensor to wake the terminal up?
 
Use the motion detector output to pulse through the recieve line of an unused serial port and set the system to 'wake' on comm-port activity.

I'm assuming that there is a serial port... looked like there is from previous images at least.

Just a thought...
 
How about:

a. Mount the LCD on the door, no need to open the door to change fan speeds (hmm, you would need strong plexi to do this).
b. Add an ON/OFF switch to the CCFL circuit and wire the swtich to the outside (hmm, more soldering? you would have to stop in front of the rack to flip the switch to see the screen).
c. Does the LCD support a mouse? Hang/Hold an optical mouse against the plexi such that you can use your hand to trick the mouse to think you moved it and then wake the LCD (no clicking).
 
Ozone77 said:
c. Does the LCD support a mouse? Hang/Hold an optical mouse against the plexi such that you can use your hand to trick the mouse to think you moved it and then wake the LCD (no clicking).
Click to expand...

For him to do that Hell need to get an adapter to convert RJ45 to 9pin serial. Those units only have 2 serial ports that are RJ45s.
 
ZorPrime said:
For him to do that Hell need to get an adapter to convert RJ45 to 9pin serial. Those units only have 2 serial ports that are RJ45s.
Click to expand...
yeah, and then have a serial to PS-2 for the optical mouse, which is why I thought about the switch on the CCFL power circuit.

I still think the coolest solution would be to mount the LCD on the door..
 
Ozone77 said:
yeah, and then have a serial to PS-2 for the optical mouse, which is why I thought about the switch on the CCFL power circuit.

I still think the coolest solution would be to mount the LCD on the door..
Click to expand...

I have tried that in the past and for some reason it will not work using the converter.
 
Yeah...I have been trying to get a mouse to work with this turd for a while, the PS/2 port only takes a keyboard and im trying to wire a RJ45 to serial as we speak. However I dont think the screen wakes up with a mouse because its in the bios. The only way I have been able to get the screen to come back on is by touching the touch panel. I may end up wiring the sensor into that, but it's more work than I was hopeing for.
 
I know you're taking your time with this mod (which is good), so while you're working out what to do next, how about some pics of what you're actually planning to put in it?
 
The Grabulator said:
Yeah...I have been trying to get a mouse to work with this turd for a while, the PS/2 port only takes a keyboard and im trying to wire a RJ45 to serial as we speak. However I dont think the screen wakes up with a mouse because its in the bios. The only way I have been able to get the screen to come back on is by touching the touch panel. I may end up wiring the sensor into that, but it's more work than I was hopeing for.
Click to expand...

If you are not having amy luck with the RJ45 to Serial cable, let me know. I can come up with one if you really need it, or tell you the pinout.
 
ZorPrime, have you worked in the hotel/service industry or somewhere else that exclusively used those damn Javelin terminals? You seem to know a fair bit about them. Grabulator has a couple and I have two as well... one I completely disassembled in boredom at work one day. lol

The terminal looks a lot less crappy now... makes me want to salvage mine and make use of it... I still want to see if I can take the smaller LCD from the Javelin and get it to function with the Ving terminal... damn dip switches.

The problem with wiring up an optical mouse to sense movement (even if you get it to work with the PC at all is that it may cause unwanted movement. While not likely as it'd be spaced away from your active surface it'd still be possible and annoying.

~Kris
 
Yes, I have been in the POS business for the last 4-5 years... I know about the Javelin product, more than I wish to know, lol. LC's, LP's, LCP's... I made a LCP into a MP3 box once.
 
Yeah, LCP's are nice. I think those even have USB which would have made my fan controlling delema less challenging. But what fun would this be if I didn't have to come up with creative solutions? As far as servers im probably going to run two servers. Mostly for home network related things. I have a media center set up in the living room so one of them is going to host files (mp3's, movies, and any other files that I feel like putting on there). and distributed evenly between the two will be: domain controller and active directory, NAT, DHCP, and all the goodies that go along with that, the fan controller. I am also trying to get all the P2P clients my roomates use onto one server so they can RDP into that and download their crap this way the viruses are centralized...lol. this is probably a bad idea, but I have a couple of reasons to try it and hope it works. Im also probably going to run a shoutcast.

Im still trying to get the motion sensing to work right, it looks like im going to have to build some simple circutry to get it to work. So until I get this done I'm not going to cut anymore of the mounting plate because I have to figure out where to mount everything to make sure it works right. As soon as I get the motion sensing working I will post all about it.

Also I've been trying to think up a theme for the network because I have to name the servers and the wireless, plus it would be cool to have the javelin terminal and the media center set up with backgrounds ect. that match the network theme. My roomate likes to call it Skynet (from the terminator movies) I think thats kinda cool but do you guys have any better ideas?
 
Also I've been trying to think up a theme for the network because I have to name the servers and the wireless, plus it would be cool to have the javelin terminal and the media center set up with backgrounds ect. that match the network theme. My roomate likes to call it Skynet (from the terminator movies) I think thats kinda cool but do you guys have any better ideas?
Click to expand...

I've just re-done my entire network and named them after characters from greek mythology. (My 2 cpu, 3 monitor computer is "Hydra", 3 montior single CPU machine is Cerberus, hot gaming computer is Prometheus, HTPC is Calliope the muse, etc). Norse mythology has a lot of possibilities. I used to have a network I managed where all the names were after constellations.

If you're an anime fan, you may want to look toward Neon Genesis Evangelion, which has heavy religous and phsycological overtones (Central Dogma, supercomputers named Melchior, Casper, and Balthasaur, or the different angels, etc). I've named a server after Elicion, the plant-sized supercomputer from Gall Force, etc.
 
Looking nice. Great job recycling an old rack that had seen better days.
 
Sweet mod.

Skycraft is badass for casemodders, there is no way to explain it to people you just have to go, everytime I hit that place up I always spend way too much money!

Any chance you have an extra touchscreen pc to sell to a local modder ;) :D

if so hit me up on aim, sn is "ucf"
 
In the CompSci labs at my university, they name the computers with a theme for each lab. One lab, for example, is spices. No wait, that's one of the engineering labs. Anyway, you can find a list of categories (and names) here. They asked for suggestions for a new lab, and I suggested spacecraft from Star Wars (everything from X-Wing to Star Destroyer), but they didn't go for the idea.

 
It's time for an update. Ok so I was all excited because I devised a way to wire the touchscreen of the javelin termal to a motion sensor. I found the pinouts of the touchscreen and I could jump two pins with a wire to make it think it was being touched. Now to solve the problem of the motion sensor continuing to "touch" the screen after it had already been awakened, I got a relay and was going to wire it into the inverter of the backlight so once the backlight was powered up, it would click the relay and break the circuit causing it to "touch" the screen. I was really excited that I finally figured out a complicated way to do something simple UNTIL....I got the motion sensor and rigged it up to test it. I soon discovered that motion detectors sense the infared light emitted by body heat....this doesnt pass through plexiglass. I stood infront of the rack frustrated and flailing for a good 30 minutes trying to get the sensor to work behind the door :mad: so this whole idea I have been concocting is no good. I could mount the sensor outside of the rack but I want to keep things contained and plus it is visible mounted to the wall instead of people wondering how the heck it knew to turn the screen on. But I am a very determined person and I'm sure a brilliant idea will smack me on the back of the head one of these days. For now im sick of all the random rack stuff sitting on my floor and cutting my feet when I get up in the middle of the night, so I need to order 2 more pieces (a rack mount keyboard and KVM) then I will assemble this beast.
 
l0cke said:
cut a hole in the plexi
Click to expand...

That sounds like a good solution to me - simply cut a small hole, just the size of the sensor itself. Done right it will be very difficult to see.
 
The Grabulator said:
It's kindof a thrift store. It's called skycraft (I live in Florida) and they had like 10 of these racks. This store is so hard to describe...it's like a radio shack went crazy and collided with a computer warehouse.
Click to expand...


I used to work 5 mins from there in Winter Park and I used to go there every other day. That place has some of the coolest and craziest stuff around.
 
The Grabulator said:
It's kindof a thrift store. It's called skycraft (I live in Florida) and they had like 10 of these racks. This store is so hard to describe...it's like a radio shack went crazy and collided with a computer warehouse.
Click to expand...

When I moved back to MI from Orlando Skycraft was one of the things I really missed. What a great place filled with so much useful shit. :) I might be moving back though!!
 
Ok...I finished the mount for the Javelin terminal today. Hopefully now everyone will see what I was trying to accomplish. As I said before I cut a piece of metal out of the door scrap because it has bracing on the back and the javelin terminal is heavy. Then I cut holes for the cables and fans on the back of the terminal. It was hard to take good pictures of this because its all black and the screen is reflective but here it is.

After cutting, prepped for paint (looks like a smiley face lol)
touchmount1.jpg


After paint
touchmount2.jpg


touchmount3.jpg


I'm really close to having this finished. A few more parts have to come in and I can fill it up with all the goodies and take some more pics of the finished rack!
 
Allright, an update since someone was asking about it...

I have encountered tons of setbacks since the last post. The rails I ordered for the servers were too long for the rack. I tried to find shorter ones, however no one had them in stock for 3 weeks. After being patient I finally found some. Then I went to put the blue CCFL's in the front of the rack, only to discover that they were broken. Then I came home one day from work and the battery back up I purchased for the rack was overcharging the batteries and they were swollen and leaking all kinds of toxic crap all over the carpet, and I have only had it for a month. Luckily it wasnt in the rack yet and I was giving it a test run for a week on the floor in my room. ...sigh. So as of now I have the rack mostly assembled, it is functional at least.

It's not as pretty as it will be when all the finishing touches are on it, and I clean it up but.....taadaaa
garr1.jpg


Powered by microshaft!
garr2.jpg


The twins, Prometheus and Atlas...is it sad they have names?
garr3.jpg


And as for the ginormous battery backup. I bought it used, its a 2200 VA APC that could probably power this whole house if necessary (j\k). Regardless I was excited about it (until it exploded on my floor). It worked great for a week or so, then as I mentioned earlier I got home to discover it overheating, beeping, and leaking terrible things. I spoke with some people that work with these things and the consensus is that the circutry controlling when to stop charging the batteries is bad (AKA the regulator as im told) soo I found a place that will repair it for not too much money and it comes with a warranty after they fix it. Good deal IMHO considering what it is worth operational. There is a catch however.. I would have to ship this thing and even without the bloated, overcharged batteries I'd say its at least 75 lbs of useless paperweight. So freight is going to kill the deal. Anyways hurricane season is afoot and I want to weather storms with my network functioning! Off the expensive paperweight goes, for repair.

Until then it protects my shirts from power surge!
garr4.jpg
 
Bummer about the UPS. I've gone through at least 3 bumm units myself. I'm still lookin for a decent system for a decent price... I like the way it's all coming together though!
 
mroony said:
When I moved back to MI from Orlando Skycraft was one of the things I really missed. What a great place filled with so much useful shit. :) I might be moving back though!!
Click to expand...

He lies! He is stuck with me forever in Michigan! Or until I move when my wife gets a job! I wish I could go to Skycraft, because if Roony thinks it's cool, I'm there. Always name your servers, so much easier. :cool:
 
The Grabulator said:
It's time for an update. Ok so I was all excited because I devised a way to wire the touchscreen of the javelin termal to a motion sensor. I found the pinouts of the touchscreen and I could jump two pins with a wire to make it think it was being touched. Now to solve the problem of the motion sensor continuing to "touch" the screen after it had already been awakened, I got a relay and was going to wire it into the inverter of the backlight so once the backlight was powered up, it would click the relay and break the circuit causing it to "touch" the screen. I was really excited that I finally figured out a complicated way to do something simple UNTIL....I got the motion sensor and rigged it up to test it. I soon discovered that motion detectors sense the infared light emitted by body heat....this doesnt pass through plexiglass. I stood infront of the rack frustrated and flailing for a good 30 minutes trying to get the sensor to work behind the door :mad: so this whole idea I have been concocting is no good. I could mount the sensor outside of the rack but I want to keep things contained and plus it is visible mounted to the wall instead of people wondering how the heck it knew to turn the screen on. But I am a very determined person and I'm sure a brilliant idea will smack me on the back of the head one of these days. For now im sick of all the random rack stuff sitting on my floor and cutting my feet when I get up in the middle of the night, so I need to order 2 more pieces (a rack mount keyboard and KVM) then I will assemble this beast.
Click to expand...


Great mod,

As for the PIR (Passive Infra Red) detectors, I used to install these and we use to go though hell getting them right, If memeory serves (It was 10 years ago), you should be able to increase teh sensitivity on the PIR's to the point where the plexi glass should not be a problem although i have to admit i've never tried making a PIR work though plexi glass, alternativly you can take out the sensor and put it behind a wiremesh in the front door. Or paint the PIR black and put it on the floor looking up, V few people would look there for a PIR detector on the floor, as you don't need the height for a complete room just a narrow zone.
 
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