Neutrino joke.

The Barman says, "sorry, we don't serve neutrinos here."
A neutrino walks into a bar.

Another reason to boycott Sony

http://hassonybeenhackedthisweek.com/

For those of you who don't care about what an over litiguios, and amoral company Sony are, check that link out.

And think twice before buying Sony.

Classic game updated

Duken nukem forever, a game over a decade in the making, is not available as a demo. So if you have steam or and xbox 360, its about a 1.6 gig download. I got it on steam, as for the 360 you need to be a gold member. Now to find the time to play....

New project

Now that the lunchbox PC is up and running, I have been scratching around for another project. Even been given a 64Gig SSD to play with. Still not had any ideas...

The lunchbox is finished!

While looking for double sided tape, I found sticky Velcro! So now the DC-DC PSU is velcro'ed on the side and the HDD is velcro'ed to the lid. Cables have been neatened and its working great. Current hooked up to the TV for HD video watching and general internet use.

Almost there with the lunchbox PC.

Shiny!

Had to give up on the flashing power LED for HDD activity. Could not get the bugger to work. I will need to practice a few more circuits and figure out where I went wrong.

Otherwise, left to do is mount the HDD securely in the case, and that is it.

Holes, and a button.

Found that the best way to drill into tin was to use a wood bit.

Cooling holes drilled for the fan drilled off center so that the air should blow on to the main heat sink.



Some holes for heat to rise out.



The shiny button installed.



Also, given my circuit idea some more thought, and if the ground is common then this should work and simplify the design. This hopefully is the final final iteration before I break out the soldering iron.

Drilling holes

Dismantled the lunch box, in preparation for the cooling hole I need to drill, as well as the hole for the power switch. Here are the dowel supports that were epoxy'ed and are still rock solid in the base.


On another note, I have tested all the voltages for the power switch LED idea, and revised my circuit diagram accordingly.

So note the protection diodes to stop the 12v overloading other lines (in case my electronics is not up to scratch). Also, added resistance to the first transistor of the darlington pair to try step down the voltage as to not over power the signal to the base. I will add more if 2K is not enough.

Now I just need the time to solder it all together.

Power button, power LED, and mini project.

Power button for lunch box:

Isn't it shiny!

It uses the 12v line to power the ring LED. I had an idea that instead of drilling another hole in the case of the flimsy lunch box tin, I should just make the power LED flash off when there is HDD activity. However the first problem is how to power off a LED when another line goes high? Looks like a Not logic gate (inverter) would solve that one. 2nd problem is that the HDD activity LED would normally be 5v and my shiny power LED is 12v. So something called a Darlington pair should hopefully solve this problem. So putting the two concepts together I have arrived at this circuit.


Any comments on improvements? Is the resistor on the ground too much? I though that it may protect the 5v rails from the 12v rail, as the 5v rail is signals only, and the 12v rail is the one with the actual load.

Power - Done!

Closed the case, and ran Memtest86 for a bit.





Looked good, except the case did get a bit toasty. Don't think that an HDD will like that heat, so going to have to look at what I can do about ventilation or cooling.

PSU Install

The PSU is a DC to DC board, powered by an external laptop style 12V power brick.
So found that the best place for the PSU was glued to the lid. Note the insulating cardboard. The glue used is epoxy resin, so it sets rock hard and adds to the insulating quality's needed.

Motherboard installed

Still need to glue the rest of the pieces in, but the motherboard is snug as a bug in a rug.

Bitcoin

Been playing around with bitcoin and seems like a neat idea. If you like it as well, and have any spare bitcoins or fractions of bitcoins (BTC), please donate them to me at 1KoCVTnB7fbq7QTsQqqB9fcxT4Df31WsgZ and let me know that you have. Or just transfer 0.01 bitcoins to test it works, and I will transfer it right back.

Acquired - One lunch box

Its about 18.5 x 18.5 cm which is only just bigger than the 17 x 17 cm that a mini-ITX board is. So could be quite a tight fit. Next step is the right motherboard. Looking to get a Atom D510 dual core as cheap as possible.

Lunch box Challenge.

The challenge is to build before the end of April a fully functional PC into a standard lunch box, for under £150!

So the the targets are:

Boot Up Time Target 30 Seconds (Time to display a new e-mail sat in inbox not previously downloaded)

DVD Rip Target 10 Mins (USB DVD Supplied if not built in drive)

DVD Convert to MP4 Target 2 hours

CD Rip to MP3 Target Ten Minutes (USB DVD Supplied if not built in drive)

Ten Bonus points for quietest machine

Ten Bonus points for the lowest power consumption (MP4 Convert)

Ten Bonus points for the lowest power consumption (idle)

Ten Bonus points for the neatest (Independent judge)

Ten Bonus points for the best design (Independent judge)

Point for every point under £150

Items not included in the £150 are the lunch box, and all fittings, mountings, buttons etc.

Also, A maximum of 2 eBay purchases.

How hard can it be?