Case mod

56 Articles

Nixie Thermometer Destined For Custom PC Case

February 21, 2016 by 18 Comments

There’s no denying the retro appeal of the warm glow of a set of Nixies, and when a friend was looking for a unique touch for the case of his new liquid-cooled PC, [Luca] pitched in with this sweet Nixie thermometer.

From the look of [Luca]’s detailed blog entries, he’s been at this build since the New Year. He starts with a list of requirements, including the oddly specific need for a round PC board. For the thermometer, three Nixies are enlisted for the display, two for the temperature and one for the units. Everything was prototyped on perf board before committing to a PCB design, but even with careful planning, the Nixie sockets on the final PCB came out a tiny bit too close together. Luckily the tubes still fit, even if they are snuggled together some. And yes, the tube bases all include the hated RGB LEDs – hey, it’s what the customer wanted. The specs are for the colors to change at the touch of a button; we’d like to see a color gradient linked to the temperature – blue for “nice and cool”, red for “leave the room.” You can see the finished thermometer in action below the break.

The recent run of Nixie projects continues unabated, and this one has a nice look that’s sure to complement the finished case. We’ve asked [Luca] to keep us up-to-date on the project, so hopefully we’ll get a look at why a round PCB is needed. While we wait for that, check out an earlier Nixie thermometer build with a bar graph twist.

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Flip Your Desktop Over To Boot Linux

February 1, 2016 by 27 Comments

[Andy France] built his computer into a Windows XP box. (Yes, this is from the past.) He needed to run windows most of the time, but it was nice to boot into Linux every now and then. That’s where the problem lay. If he was running Linux on his Windows XP case mod, he’d get made fun of. The only solution was to make a Linux sleeve for his computer. He would slide the sleeve over the case whenever he ran Linux, and hide his shame from wandering eyes. Once his plan was fully formed, he went an extra step and modified the computer so that if the sleeve was on, it would automatically boot Linux, and if it was off it would boot Windows.

The Linux sleeve could only slide on if the computer was flipped upside down. So he needed to detect when it was in this state. To do this he wired a switch into one of the com ports of his computer, and attached it to the top of the case mod. He modified the assembly code in the MBR to read the state of the switch. When the Linux sleeve is on (and therefore the computer is flipped over) it boots Linux. When the sleeve is off, Windows. Neat. It would be cool to put a small computer in a cube and have it boot different operating systems with this trick. Or maybe a computer that boots into guest mode in one orientation, and the full system in another.

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Steampunk IMacs With Real Turning Gears

January 4, 2016 by 13 Comments

Macs have always been favorites of case modders, with projects ranging from turning a Mac Plus into an aquarium to retrofuturistic machines that look like they came from the set of [Terry Gilliam]’s Brazil. Some of these casemods are of the steampunk variety, an aesthetic that usually means gluing gears to wood. [Valeriy] and [Cyrill] are bucking that trend with a beautiful iMac crafted from wood, brass, and leather (Russian, Google Translate)

The machine in question is a late-model, impossibly thin iMac. Unlike the old all-in-one computers with clunky CRTs, there’s not much space to dig around inside this iMac, and doing so would probably ruin the machine, anyway. Instead of a complete disassembly a wooden frame was constructed around the display, the aluminum base was covered in veneer, and the back of the iMac was covered in leather.

This is a steampunk computer, though, and that means gears. In this case, the gears and steam elements actually do something. The front of the computer is adorned with a decent replica of the drivetrain of a locomotive that spins with the help of an electric motor. There’s a USB port attached to the front, ensconced in a cylindrical enclosure that opens when a switch is flipped.

If a complete reworking of a modern iMac isn’t enough, the build also included the steampunkification of the Apple Bluetooth keyboard. That in itself is an amazing build, but to see the entire thing in action, you’ll have to check out the video below.

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NES Reborn As Nexus Player And NES

July 29, 2015 by 8 Comments

Anyone who has a Raspberry Pi and an old Nintendo has had the same thought. “Maybe I could shove the Pi in here?” This ran through [Adam’s] head, but instead of doing the same old Raspberry Pi build he decided to put a Nexus Player inside of this old video game console, with great success. Not only does it bring the power of a modern media player, it still works as an NES.

If you haven’t seen the Nexus Player yet, it’s Google’s venture into the low-cost home media center craze. It has some of the same features of the original Chromecast, but runs Android and is generally much more powerful. Knowing this, [Adam] realized it would surpass the capabilities of the Pi and would even be able to run NES emulators.

[Adam] went a little beyond a simple case mod. He used a custom PCB and an Arduino Pro Micro to interface the original controllers to the Nexus Player. 3D printed brackets make sure everything fits inside the NES case perfectly, rather than using zip ties and hot glue. He then details how to install all of the peripherals and how to set up the Player to run your favorite game ROMs. The end result is exceptionally professional, and brings to mind some other classic case mods we’ve seen before.

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Hackaday Links: June 14, 2015

June 14, 2015 by 8 Comments

You know we’re running this gigantic contest to build hardware and send someone to space, right? We’re doing community voting right now. If you’re on Hackaday.io, head over there and pick the best project. We’re giving away t-shirts and $1000 gift cards to people who vote. The drawing for this round is next Friday.

MicroPython is a pretty interesting development in the area of interpreted languages running on microcontrollers. It’s Python, the BASIC of the modern era, and now it’s being funded by the ESA. Great news, there’s going to be a port to SPARC, and it looks like MicroPython is going to be in a few satellites.

[EloquentlyMawkishBunny]’s calculator stopped working on the morning of his AP Physics test. It was the ribbon cable for the display. What did he do? He grabbed some magnet wire and made it work. If I’m reading this right, he did this the day of his AP test. Wow.

[Will] has made a name for himself by building roller coasters in his backyard. He’s also worked on the ProtoPalette, and now he’s building a hackerspace in Concord, California.

[Josh] needed to drill some very large holes with his mill. He decided a hole saw was the easiest way to do this, but his hole saw has a hex shank. He ended up chopping the shank of a hole saw extension, basically turning it into a hex to round adapter.

Did you know the Arduino IDE on Raspbian is stuck at version 1.0.5? The newest version is 1.6.4, and there’s useful stuff like autosave in the IDE now. Amazing. [CRImier] got the latest Arduino IDE working on the Raspberry Pi 2. Yes, there’s an issue up but if for some reason you’re programming Arduinos on the Pi, you should probably do this yourself.

Oooohhhh, case modding. The Intel NUC is a pretty interesting platform for case modding; it’s small, and I shouldn’t have to remind anyone of all the cool case mods that were created when the Mini-ITX format gained popularity in the early ‘aughts. [Femke] got herself an Intel NUC, made a case, and the results are amazing. How’d she get that metal bowl? Metal spinning. Very cool.

Fix A Broken DS By Removing A Screen

March 2, 2015 by 8 Comments

There are apparently a lot of broken Nintendo DS Lites out and about on eBay, and [Fede] has gotten his hands on one. His idea was to essentially turn one of these DS Lites into a SS (single screen?) (.es, Google translate) by modding the case, and he’s done it with pretty spectacular results.

If you’re going to do a case mod, you should go all out. To that end, [Fede] started by taking everything out of the DS and tossing the original 1000 mAh battery in favor of a 4000 mAh battery. From there he is able to shoehorn the two PCBs into the case with the speaker in between, which he notes doesn’t sound as nice as the original but works well enough.

After reshaping the plastic case in a few subtle ways and putting a few layers of paint on it, [Fede] now has a single-screen Nintendo DS for €2 plus parts and paint. While we’ve seen similar mods before, we’d be interested to see this one in action; some DS games don’t utilize the second screen as much as others, so perhaps this wouldn’t play every DS game perfectly, but for the price it can’t be beat.

RetroPie Turned Game Gear

March 2, 2015 by 12 Comments

Running vintage console emulators on a Raspberry Pi seems to be the thing all the cool kids are doing. The coolest RetroPie builds take a vintage console – usually of the Nintendo genus – stuff a Raspi in there somehow, and Bob’s your uncle. [Phil Herlihy] over at Adafruit is throwing his hat into the ring with a similar build. For this one, though, he’s using Sega’s oft-maligned Game Gear. He might actually get more than a few hours out of the battery with this one, and the battery is rechargeable, too. You can’t beat that.

The build begins with tearing down an old Game Gear, chopping up the PCB to save the button contact, and starting to fit all the components in there. The display is completely replaced with a 3.5″ composite display, a bit larger than the 3.2″ display found in a stock Game Gear. That’s not a problem, there’s a surprising amount of space behind the bezel, and if you’re good enough with an xacto blade and a file, it will look stock.

The rest of the components include an amplifier board, battery charge regulator, a 2500mAh LiPo, and a Teensy to read the buttons. There are a few modifications required for the Pi, but the finished device presents a USB port to the outside world; keep a keyboard by your side, and this is a portable Pi in every respect.