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Tell me if I have done something bad

wilsonsammwilsonsamm
edited June 2006 in Chit chat
I cannibalised a pc case and a 20-year old microwave oven, in order to put the computer + disks in the oven. I loved that oven, you know, my mother bought it with her first maternity benefits with me. It's my michaelwave.

Anyway, the circuit board and the disks now reside in the oven. Now the two things I'm worrying about are:

1) Ventilation. the layout was of course different in the proper case. The hard drive and the CD drive are getting rather hot (I don't know if this is unusual, I didn't touch them while they were in the case. It's not really a problem to put a fan in for this.) Should the circuitboard be mounted vertically for any heat to convect away? right now it is horizontal, but with plenty of space above and below.

2) Grounding. As everything was mounted in an electrically conductive case before, and as these fittings have been replaced by plastic, wooden, or string ones, could this at all be a problem?

What should I do?
Do ask questions or for pictures or whatever...
Post edited by wilsonsamm on

Comments

  • BruceNortonBruceNorton
    edited June 2006
    Is the Hard disk and Cdrom right beside each other?. If so it might pay you to separate them a bit . It also may pay you to get a better PSU. I used to often see hard disks and CD drives running red hot in Time and Tiny computers which had either 90watt or 110watt PSU's in them. Changed the PSU and things ran a whole lot cooler. Still provided you've got good airflow you should be ok but you could add a 12V fan to improve things further.

    Other than that it sounds like a cool idea. Does it burn disks in 3 seconds and ping when it's done :lol:
  • wilsonsammwilsonsamm
    edited June 2006
    BruceNorton wrote:
    Is the Hard disk and Cdrom right beside each other?. If so it might pay you to separate them a bit .

    Yes, they are stacked right on top of eachother. I think I will find a better solution somehow though. For some reason the two won't go on the same cable, which makes it a bit awkward...

    And you mention a 90W PSU!!?? That's not even enough to power the Pentium III on its own. My PSU is at 400W which powers the M/B and its fan, the hard drive and the CD drive.
  • BruceNortonBruceNorton
    edited June 2006
    Believe it, it's true. Some of the Time and tiny PC's had a non standard case requiring a very small PSU unit, about half the size of a normal ATX unit. Trouble is these units had a habit of going Ka-blam,destoying the motherboard + the HD and leaving bits of burnt out PSU in the bottom of the case. And this was round about the time your average ATX PSU was 300watts.

    Built in obselesence at it's best.

    I had to look twice when I first saw one
  • wilsonsammwilsonsamm
    edited June 2006
    How do I know if the PSU is too small to cope with the expanding system with ever more gadgets and fans &c.?
  • BruceNortonBruceNorton
    edited June 2006
    Your 400watt PSU is more than adequate. And you don't need loads and loads of fans. Just a couple at most. Just make sure that if you do fit extra fans that you fit them the right way round so the air flows through the case. You wouldn't believe how often people fit fans the wrong way round ending up with warm air just being blown back inside the case.

    But I'm sure I don't need to tell you that. Your a smart guy!.
  • wilsonsammwilsonsamm
    edited June 2006
    Thank you!
    I'll bear it in mind. Now what about the grounding of the PCB? Each screw point was earthed before, and now they're not. Well, not all motherboards need earthing, but is it worth assuming that this one does?
  • BruceNortonBruceNorton
    edited June 2006
    Just fasten your board in exactly as you would in a normal PC case using spacers and screws or those plaggy clips. As all your doing is using the microwaves casing and a proper PC's PSU this shouldn't be a problem.
  • wilsonsammwilsonsamm
    edited June 2006
    What I have done is to screw spacers into two parallel plastic chopped off curtain rails. Onto them the circuit board is screwed. Because they're plastic means they won't conduct or earth the points on the board.

    It does work fine, though...

    What I'm thinking of doing is to solder a wire to each of the spacers and to the case. That might be the easiest way.
  • BruceNortonBruceNorton
    edited June 2006
    Have a look at your motherboard, does where you screw the board into the case connect to anything. On a lot of boards they don't, it's just part of the manufacturing process. Hence the reason why you can use plaggy spacers.

    Seriously don't worry about it. Just don't forget to post some pictures of your finished machine for us all to share.

    I just have a picture in my mind that it's like one of the microwaves off the Rustlers advert, you know the one 0 - tasty in 70 seconds :lol
  • wilsonsammwilsonsamm
    edited June 2006
    Righto! I uploaded the pics here: Let me know what you think!
    http://s77.photobucket.com/albums/j54/wilsonsamm/
  • milemile
    edited June 2006
    looks ace.

    why the magnifying glass on you desk? are you a detective in your spare time. :)
  • psj3809psj3809
    edited June 2006
    And a Shakespeare book as well ! I'm embarassed by the books on my shelf now !
  • wilsonsammwilsonsamm
    edited June 2006
    You know, I think I could smell something burning and I was fearing it was the computer.

    I had left the soldering iron plug into the same extension lead as the computer. Therefore, it was burning whenever the computer was on.
    I'm quite lucky the house didn't catch fire...
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