Yet Another Slim Upright Cabinet (almost finished)

[Staudt]

Just a small update: I made the cuts the control panel sides and it's now at a perfect angle. It was around 15 degrees (way too much, not comfortable to play) and now it is now around 6, which feels great.
I also cut the lower front piece below the control panel to the proper angle, not perfectly straight, but good enough  .

I did this is preparation to the next big sprint this weekend, where I plan to fix the monitor position, prepare the the back of the bezel and holder, mount usb ports (geee, this is going to be complicated), place the speakers and some finishing to edges where the mdf is showing.

[Staudt]

It's been a long long time since my last update, sorry about that. At this point the cabinet is nearly finished, missing only the power socket, a better bezel and the art (which is probably a lot of trouble).
So to catch up, let me post a few pictures of the building process and how it is turning out:

I got a cheap old Athlon XP CPU and disassembled it to use in the cab. First I installed the motherboard by screwing it to the side panel and used standard plastic motherboard spacers to avoid direct contact to the MDF. Then the HDD and power supply unit I just used L-shaped holders to attach them securely.
I also disassembled a regular PC speaker and attached the amplifier just over the back door so I can have access to the volume and also replaced the speakers to larger ones and installed them on the top.
Everything seems fine and secure.

On the top, I installed the marquee holders and the two plexiglass sheets. Since the plexiglass sheets were fairly think, I had to find larger holders so I could screw it secure. I ended up finding plastic (rather then the usual aluminum L holders) the were big enough. Also the speaker grills I used are actually meant for cars, I think. Anyway, I like them.

The I added 3 USB ports in the front, below the control panel by attaching a small USB hub. This one was tricky as I had to go back and forth with a chisel to cut the square holes in the MDF just right, it took me several hours really. Also to secure it I shaped a L-shaped holder to hold it down. This worked great.

On the next post, the first boot, the bezel construction and testing it all.

[Staudt]

So, first boot and everything seem to work just fine. Except for a few minor annoyances.

First one was that the CPU cooler was WAY too noisy. Thankfully that's an easy fix, and I had a replacement laying around. Second was a very noticeable "HMMM" sound that didn't stop regardless of the volume. First I guessed it was only a matter of re-soldering, then I figured it might have been the electric interference from the motherboard or something, but nothing seemed to fix it. It took a while until I found a guy in a electronics shop who advised me to use proper amp wires to the speakers and that finally solved it.

So back to finish the control board wiring. Nothing special there, just wired the controls, remaining buttons and added support boards that allow you control board to be attached tightly but remain removable. Notice I used the boards from two standard USB controllers to wire the buttons. Nothing fancy there at all. I also finished installing all the software.

So there's my little beta tester using the cab for the first time. Couple of tweaks on the software side to hide the OS and have it boot straight to the front end and it all works great.

So I installed a bezel by sandwiching a black poster board between a thin 3mm MDF board and the plexiglass. Nothing fancy there either, but it works .
For now it looks like there's a lot of empty black space, but I'll add some art on the bezel soon, just haven't decided on that yet. I'll also add the t-molding around the control panel after the artwork.

Oh, you might notice I'm stealing a usb port from the front to the inside. This is while I wait for a USB hub to arrive because the motherboard only has 2 ports. So that will be fixed very soon .

[Staudt]

It might take a while until I have more updates (the art thing can take quite some time), so here's another shot of the cabinet as it is right now:

A satisfied customer