Relocating ports to be mounted flush to the outside of the cabinet???

[zzsprade]

G'day guys!

This is a question about how to go about relocating ports to the outside/exterior of a cabinet. In other words, if you have your mother board and cards inside a box (lets just use that as an example) how could you go about having the your ports flush with the exterior of this box so that the could be plugged into from the outside without having to connect them from the inside. This would be for say the TV out and sound out jacks, monitor out, power etc.

Are there any male to female extensions available that could be connected inside the box and mounted flush with the exterior? Or can most of these ports on the physical computer card (eg. video card) be relocated to be mounted flush already?

Has anyone done something similar to this before?

eg.
          +    +   +        <- Ports mounted flush to panel
      -------------------
      |                      | <- Box
      |    ----------      |
      |    | Video |     |
      |    | Card  | <--|----- Video Card/Motherboard etc
      |    ----------      |
      -------------------

-Alex

P.S. Excuse the crappy drawing to describe but it was fun doing it like that again!

[u_rebelscum]

Your PC in a control panel?

How about making the bottom of the box extend all the way to the back, mounting the motherboard close to the back edge, and cutting a block in the back to let the motherboard through.  If you're good at woodwork, I think this would be easy.  (I'm not that good. )

Drawing: first a top view w/o back, second top view w/ back, third a back view.

[paigeoliver]

You can get extension cables for just about any PC jack, thus allowing you to flush mount them. A lot of motherboards technically have 4 onboard USB ports, two in back, and two more that can be tapped off the motherboard with the right cable.

[zzsprade]

Thanks guys!

u_rebelscum,

Mate spot on... its something I wouldn't mind trying to do so that I have something that is portable (because I travel between two main cities, and it would be nice to have for parties etc, or even hook up to the projector hmmm.... 10ft high Pacman lol). Actually, I was inspired to try this as a new project from some of the recent threads so I have been throwing around ideas for it for the last couple of weeks.

Mate I like the drawings!

That is what I thought I may have to do... but then I though that there must be a solution. I may just end up doing that way!



paigeoliver,

That is sensational to here. I am going to have to keep an eye out and do a bit of searching for these. Any online places that you know of on top of your head on where I could get a visual idea of what these extension cables for PC jacks look like and how to mount them. Just something to get me started.

Once again, as always... Cheers to both of you!

-Alex
 

[paigeoliver]

They are just extension cords, they don't look like anything special (except for the cables to tap the USB on the motherboard, those usually come with a 3.5" or 5.25" drive bay plate.

[BillyJack]

I have purchased cables from cableclub.com a few times.  I got a really cheap firewire cable from them, and I think I've gotten a SCSI adapter and cable from them before.  They have just about everything you could think of as far as cables...  Oh, but I gather you're probably "down under" somewhere...  (sorry about the down under phrase) so that may not help you out at all.

anyway, here's the link:
www.bonuscable.com  (They've changed their name)

[IIOIOOIOO]

If you're just mounting the board inside the CP, mount it right up against the back. When you buy a new MoBo without a case, it will come with a bunch of little metal back-side templates that you can simply mount in a cut-out on the back, then mount the board on pcb feet to match. Fin.

[SirPoonga]

you can always get extentions and mount those.

[IIOIOOIOO]

But why bother?

[BillyJack]

Well, for one, it would put the motherboard at less risk of being accidentally damaged.  If you jack around and destroy a port, you'll just be destroying an extension.

BillyJack