How much space would I actually save by de-casing?

[pjl83]

Hi Everyone.

Now I have all of the software up and running on the computer that will become the guts of my cabinet I thought I'd have a little go tonight taking the plastics off. It's a Dell 19" CRT.





After taking the base off and the outer shell of the plastic, I could see the mounts on the front behind the screen surround....



To get to these I would need to take the cage off. I have been reading a lot of threads and advice about being careful and the potential risk of touching the wrong bits inside a monitor so I was very tentative with my approach.

As I'm planning on building a wifey friendly cocktail cab for the lounge, I need to keep things as small as possible.

A couple of things sprung to mind whilst I was attempting to remove the rest of the plastic. The power and signal inputs are mounted to the back of the cage so how are these themselves connected to the monitor itself? I could see the size of the monitor behind the cage and thought that even with the cage off it would only save me about an Inch in size from the screen to the back of the monitor, so this got me thinking - Is it worth the hassle? The only downside being that I would not be able to get to the monitor controls so they would have to stay where they are. This means I'd have to make the top of the cabinet removable to provide access.



My thoughts now are to leave the monitor as it is and simply build a shelf into the cabinet for the back to sit on with a cut-out for the cables.

Any thoughts on whether or not you guys think it's worth the hassle of de-caging and relocating the controls? How many times would you actually need to touch the controls once things are set up and running?

Thanks in advance,
Paul

[lilshawn]

Any thoughts on whether or not you guys think it's worth the hassle of de-caging and relocating the controls? How many times would you actually need to touch the controls once things are set up and running?

it depends on how you are going to mount the monitor. if you are making a bracket, removing the tube and mounting it to the bracket might be not bad.

as far as controls,...never. once it's done it's done.

[pjl83]

If I could get to the corner fixings easily at the front of the screen then I was going to hang it on those, but looking at it now, I think it might just be easier all round if I build a shelf into the cabinet and just the monitor on it, the put some braces in to keep it from moving. I saw a good example of this on this site, I've just been looking for it but can't seem to find it now. 

[Marsupial]

that's what I ended up doing. if there's ennough room for it, its a lot easier. I was thinking of making brackets and decase the monitor, but why bother when there's even extra space?

here's my build:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=104083.0

I think it really depends on the monitor, the cabinet, the available room and what hardware is available. Sometimes it might be more trouble than required, and the last thing you want is to accidentally break the tube.

[pjl83]

Thanks. I think I'll just colour the screen surround black and leave it as it is now with the remaining plastics on. The shelf Idea seems the most sensible to me.

Thanks again
Paul