Nice job Mike!

Please give credit where it's due -- the project is Edward McKeating's.

That bit about wood warping was very informative; I'll always remember that now. Never occurred to me why ordinary lumber might be a bad idea for that reason. And the interesting thing is ... about an hour later I visited viaarena and read the article on the book PC. That author noticed that the wood of his case was warping due to...you guessed it, heat! Well, the heat differential, at least.

Note to self: for once, plywood is good for something!

My mistake, cheers Edward!!

Always praise a guy who creates things! GJ, Edward

One thing tho - you might want to be cautios with the PSU. Codegen is a brand, uhhhh, how to phrase that, known for blowing up. Sorry for being blunt but they make coughcrappycough PSU's and even tho your PC needs v little power you'll be much safer with, say, a 2nd hand FSP, Delta or SS. Suffice to say a Codegen combo of case+PSU sells for app. 15-20 GBP around here. And that's new. And I don't just mean it's got a poor & loud fan - I mean the whole thing can be dangerous for your other components.

Nice setup.....the price was right. I'd have been tempted to spend a little money and get a better PSU however. And the CPU heatsink/fan could be vastly improved for almost nothing.

I'm not sure how much ambient temperature variation there is in your location, but a better/automatic fan speed control could quiet the whole project enough to be worth the expense.

Building computers from left-over pieces is always fun. I'd like to see more of these sorts of projects among the SPCR population.

Good job Edward, and thanks to SPCR for hosting the article.

If you weren't on the other side of the pond I'd happily hand you one of the many PSUs I have laying around my apt that are better than that codegen. I really can't think of anything to do with them other than trash them or give them away...

While I'm here, grammar/spellcheck alert:

page 2. "I created a space space"

Fantastic job, Edward!

I'm thinking about building a wood case myself. I was thinking about using pinewood but not anymore after reading about the wood warping in this article. I'm not a great fan of chipboard or fibreboard because they can't be stained but have to be painted several times. Great material for making cabinets etc but a lot of extra work goes into the painting and it lacks the charm of real wood. Does anyone know if bamboo warps easily?

And after reading kater's post on the Codegen: does a wood case pose a greater risk of your PC catching fire?

ps page 1: self-explanatary

Note the wood didn't actually warp, this was just a hypothetical warning. Personally I think if you keep your temps low and live in a low humidity climate the wood should last way longer than the computer will before the warping is a real problem.



inevitably. With a normal steel case the chances of your computer setting fire to anything but itself is minimal. One way round this might be to build a steel case with wood cladding.

Yeah, or just get proper hardware. The chance of a PC catching fire is rather slim as long as you stick to quality stuff, and don't tinker with it without knowing what you're doing.

Anyway. Good stuff Edward, you inspire me

great job Edward couldn't believe it when I read this story this morning, I've just spent most of the weekend designing and building a wooden media centre case! it's in fibreboard too, more luck than planning though. hadn't even considered warping effects. I wanted pine but couldn't find any the right thickness!!

that IR sensor and software looks fantastic, I checked out ebay at lunchtime. just gotta find out if I can get one made up for an internal serial header as I have no external serial ports.

other than that I just wanted to mention that i've had an old Codegen 300W ATX PSU for over five years and it's one of my favourites. Unfortunately it doesn't have a ATX12V connector so it's just about end of life now unless I get brave and solder one in. I swapped out the fan some years ago. It has been one of my quietest power supplies because it has no coil whine which I have found common in other cheap PSU's. I was given it in an old case and initially though it would be rubbish but it surprised me and has performed sterling service ever since. maybe it's just sample variance or maybe they don't make them like that any more, who knows?

However, a large compartment will take longer to heat up. Independent of the compartment size, every second the circuitry is dumping a fixed amount of heat into the case air, and the fan is expelling a fixed quantity of air. When the compartment temperature rises such that the excess heat in that quantity of air equals the heat dumped from the circuitry, equalibrium is established. This equalibrium temperature is independent of compartment size.

If we look more carefully, it can still make a difference. Small compartment size means you'll have higher air velocity within the case. This means:
+ better flow over passively cooled components, which could otherwise form local 'hot spots'
- more prone to reducing the air-throughput due to obstructions.
(- more noise from airflow through the case, but this should be trivial.)

Unless you're making the compartment very crowded, or using passive heatsinks on important components, I suspect the compartment size doesn't matter much.

I don't love wood cases but this one looks pretty good, indeed. Just a little suggestion:



I always burn my BIOS files to optical media (usually CD-RW, turn on verification to stay on the safe side), and no need for a floppy