Artsy Fartsy mod.

[ilovetheusers]

As per a part of my previous post about making a painting, I think I'm going to do it soon. I've got an itch, no time, but an itch. I'm gonna paint something and add in pictures and poop then mount a mobo and all of the other computer components to it. Here's my issue.

How do i turn it on and off as I will not have a case???

I assume that I will need to rig up some sort of switch to short the "pwr on" pin connector thing on the mobo (what the hell are they called anyway?). Anyway, is there a particular sort of switch I could use? I'm used to seeing somewhat larger ones for repairing fluorescent lights but they are just too big/bulky and I think I need something lighter in weight as well as the guage of wire it uses to connect. Can I use a housing from a jumper and just rip the metal part out or is there a part a radio shack I can use to connect the wires to the switch to the pins?

I can prolly get a LED for the HDD activity light and wire it up in a similar way, but without the switch. I'm thinking of a jumper without metal bit, led and some electrical tape. I have such skills...

[RejectionMan]

a momentary contact switch from Radio Shack should about do it.... small as 1/2 x 1/2 inch... maby better

[asm481]

A door bell button (unlighted)?

[Rellik]

You could pull the reset button out of an old AT case for the wire and connector, if you feel lasy then just use the button too.

The power button for the ATX mobo needs to be a single pull single throw(SPST) momentary on type of button.

you can get buttons at Radio Shack and you can get a wider variety at Jameco

[ilovetheusers]

I like the radio hack "shiney red button" models.

What do you think I should do to connect the switch to the pins on the mobo?

What sort of wire is used as well?

[Matridom]

Originally posted by ilovetheusers
I like the radio hack "shiney red button" models.

What do you think I should do to connect the switch to the pins on the mobo?

What sort of wire is used as well?

Just pull an old case lead, and solder the wires to the new switch, much easier that way.

[ilovetheusers]

Don't have an old case I'm chucking, but maybe at work...

I was hoping to stay away from solder if I could. Honestly, I'm just bad at it.

[Poseidon]

Has anyone done this before or have you been wanting to do this for a while and are just now getting around to doing it?

I seem to recall a similar thread a year or two ago.

Great idea - btw

[ilovetheusers]

Originally posted by Poseidon
Has anyone done this before or have you been wanting to do this for a while and are just now getting around to doing it?

I seem to recall a similar thread a year or two ago.

Great idea - btw

I think I'm the first. I have another post where I was trying to disguise what I was doing from a month ago (last year now!) but Kato figured it out in like 2 seconds.

So far I've identified a lot of issues with this idea, most of which are from a lack of skill on my part with tools.

I'm going to most likely use 1/8" plywood. Most likely 5'x3' or so. I will set up everything to go onto the board much like this:

The HDD and CD locations may switch. The MOBO will have all peripherals facing down to minimize pull on the board. Should something have too much weight it will be allowed to just "fall out" so it doesn't take the painting out or pull the thing off the wall (like if a keyboard drops).

The painting will have photo art and paint from acrilic. I may use electroluminescent wire around the outside border of the painting, thus the extra PSU near the one side. I have a spare 150watt PSU for this.

My main concern is how to mount things to the wood. I have little skill with tools and the standoffs for the mobo are not meant to go into wood. This will be something I will spend a heck of a lot of time planning more than anything else.

The additional issue is that I am going to make it a functional machine. If I'm going to all this work I'm not going to put my crappy PC chips board on it. I'm thinking about an nforce board and my spare 800mhz t-bird cpu or if I have the $$$ maybe a newer CPU. Dunno yet. So much planning...

[kato2274]

Originally posted by ilovetheusers



My main concern is how to mount things to the wood. I have little skill with tools and the standoffs for the mobo are not meant to go into wood. This will be something I will spend a heck of a lot of time planning more than anything else.

here's a thought. drill holes in the wodd about the size of the standoffs, put a dab of hot glue in the holes and give it just a second to start to harden, then screw the standoffs in. they should grip well in the glue, and when it completely dries, they should be nice and secure. I use the hot glue trick a lot for screw holes that the threads have been stripped out of. it shoud work without difficuty here to.

if you're worried about hot glue not being strong enough, your local autoparts store should have heavy duty epoxy or some other adhesive compound that will work on all surfaces.

that would secure the mobo. as far as the other stuff . . . . . . hmm, that does take some thought. most hard drives also have screw holes on the bottom.

[ilovetheusers]

Hot glue is a good idea if I make the holes deep enough.


I'm not sure but I think the CD-roms have the same holes the HDD's have on the bottom. I'll find out when I get home and look at my stuff I have sitting around. If not I might use the standoffs for a HDD to mount the CD-rom to the board or not use one at all. Getting the power supplies on to the board will be tough.

This is going to be a major pain any way you look at it.

[Rellik]

Originally posted by ilovetheusers
Hot glue is a good idea if I make the holes deep enough.


I'm not sure but I think the CD-roms have the same holes the HDD's have on the bottom.

They don't
*edit* I'll rephase that, not all CD-ROMS have the holes on the bottom, and the screw type is usually the fine thread type rather than the coarse thread that Hard Drives use

I'll find out when I get home and look at my stuff I have sitting around. If not I might use the standoffs for a HDD to mount the CD-rom to the board or not use one at all. Getting the power supplies on to the board will be tough.

This graphic might give you some ideas as to what to do for the motherboard and HDD/CD:

I don't have any details as to what screws/nuts to use, and for the hd /cdrom braket, pci slot back plates could do the trick

[Tacit_k]

Why not make the switch part of the art? Use an old keyer from a telegraph. You can find some neet ones in ICQ magazine, contact your local hamm radio club.

it just has to make the contact for a moment and of coures most have a deadman switch that can be thrown to keep on costantly if you use an AT rather than and atx design.

[ilovetheusers]

I have an old hitachi dvd-rom drive that has holes in the bottom. I'm now wondering if I will even put a cd/dvd player on or not.

If I use my old poop PC chips board - then no, I'm not. This option is attractive as the whole shebang will cost me little and the only thing I need to buy is a tool set (dremmel/drill). With the poopy board it's got no power but i could put have a program display a slide show of say 100 of my favorite photos I have taken. This is the artsy approach.

I may - if a large chunk of $$$ comes shooting out of my butt - get an nforce board with an amd xp chip and some ddr. The cost of the ddr is what is putting me off - it's more than the damn board and cpu put together for 512mb of the good stuff. Anyway - the point was to get a half decent board with everything built in that was fast enough to do file sharing and other cool stuff. So, this is the functional approach. I lean toward this because if I'm going to spend the time doing all of this and the thing isn't a usable speed deamon, well, what kind of nerd would I be then????

So - it's gonna be this:
nforce board
xp-1600-1800
512mb ddr
60gb ata100 7200rpm
dvd-rom
benefits - smokin'
disadvantage - $$$ I don't have.

or this:
pc-chips board
366mhz OCed k6-2
192mb edo ram (4 shared to video)
2gb
benefits - free!!!
disadvantage - I'm a lamer if I use this.