another tvcade!

[civic83]

After seeing menace's work on the tvcade I figured I would have to try and make one myself, I wanted to make it as portable as possible so I have designed it around a via ITX mainboard.  Altho not fully operational yet I have some pictures.  The unit will feature 2 controller ports (compatible pin wise to menace's design), 2 usb, and a trackball port on the front, and the rear will have RF out (with a passthrough), composite video and audio, power, and lan ports.  The casing is made form an old merlin ups casing, and the top raised portion is drive bay covers form an old pc.

Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated, and I would like to thank menace once again for the idea!

[civic83]

Here is a pic of the front.......

[civic83]

the rear.....................

[civic83]

and the insides, the wiring is a mess and the keywiz isnt wired yet, but I should have it done by the end of the week.

[menace]

I can't believe you got that all in there!   Nice work--keep the pics coming  

[Robin]

Nice but use a fan for the power supply !

Greetings robin

[maraxle]

I actually did one of these a year or two ago using a mini-itx board and a Cubid 2677r case.  I added in a Playstation2 joystick adapter and a remote control.  Then I wrote my own frontend that let me play music and games.  I included a "random game" feature, which was kind of fun.

[civic83]

Thanks for the advice Robin, I have run the mainboard and the power supply as is without a fan for a few hours, and altho it does get warm it wasnt near dangerous levels, probobly due to the extremely low power consumption of the itx mainbaord, also, the top of the casing wasn't installed so it would have been getting some airflow there.  The plan is to install one or two small fans and some vent holes in the rounded portion on top located over the power supply that vent out the top, and putting the intake holes down in the case so it is drawn in at the bottom and out the top.  Hopefully that will cool everything enough.

[Robin]

1 week a power supply without a fan = BANG
The elko's on the power supply going leak from the heat
Dont use it anymore before you build the fans inside
If you have a home fan use this for test   lol

Robbie

[civic83]

ya, i've seen hundreds of power supplies blow up ( I am a computer Tech), its never a pretty thing!  I can buy a fanless power supply for the itx boards that  use an external brick to supply the power, before this project is finished I'll probobly switch to one of those, plus, it free's up some space inside the casing for other goodies.

[Robin]

I am a computer Tech also

Robbie

[Tahnok]

May I ask what board you are using? I am thinking about using a mini-itx in a cab and was wondering what other people are using.

[civic83]

this one is one of the original eden 533mhz ones, it works great for most games, only some of the fighters give it any problems.  i also owned a c3 powered 800mhz one, it definately had more power, but had a tiny fan that got annoying when it started to wear in.  Over all, the ITX boards make boards for projects like this, I'm starting a jukebox that will be powered by one as well.