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austintas · Jun 16, 2001, 11:09 AM

Yup, you guessed it. A Mac in a crate. A wooden crate, with an LC475 in it. Oh, and a few other features like an internal CD-ROM thrown in for good measure.

It's not quite finished yet, but take a look if you have the time:

The iCrate (http://homepage.mac.com/toby/)

Toby

Tristrami · Jun 18, 2001, 09:07 AM

That's excellent!

I've got a few old LCs in my basement & you've given me an idea...perhaps this forum should sponsor some kind of LC Mod competition....

austintas · Jun 18, 2001, 11:09 AM

Thanks

It'll be even better by the end of the week - I've just sent off the cash for an ethernet card so I can put it on my network as a webserver. It can serve it's own page then!

I considered putting a scanner inside it too (paperport, small sheet-feed thing) but it didn't quite fit (damnit). Maybe you can do that?!

Yeah, an LC mod competition... that could be fun...

funkboy · Jun 18, 2001, 11:34 AM

How is it for ventilation and temperature? I myself have wanted to do something similar, only take my G3 and maybe stick a scanner and printer all in a nice little box of some sort. Of course, the LC probably didn't have too much of a problem with keeping cool

Any idea if it would be feasible to stick a newer Mac (G3 / G4) into a setup like that?

austintas · Jun 18, 2001, 04:42 PM

Venttilation isn't a problem - the holes for the handles and the sheer amount of air in the crate make for a cool Mac even without a fan.

I've connected up the HD activity LED now to shine through a hole in the crate... looks kinda cool flashing away.

A quick bit of measuring shows that my G4 motherboard would fit in the crate, but of course it depends on the size of your crate

. The biggest advantage with the LC475 is that all the ports are on the M/B, so no fiddling around trying to get PCI slots in or wiring up the USB ports etc. It's perfectly possible to do though, it'll just take a little more work.

If you can get hold of a Visioneer Paperport they're ideal for putting in a box 'cos they're so small. Printer wise, a portable printer would probably be best. The most annoying thing is connecting them up - as you can see from the images the CD-ROM and modem leads are currently outside the box which makes it look a little messy. The CD-ROM can be made entirely internal when I finally get hold of a long SCSI cable with 2 connectors; no joy for the modem though unless I fance a bit of soldering!

Hopefully the ethernet card will be here soon, a little modification and the iCrate will become a webserver! Yup, it'll host its own page

Toby

austintas · Jun 20, 2001, 10:07 AM

No! The iCrate has died!

I'd just received my ethernet card, installed it and was about to install the drivers when... it failed to start up! The PSU made strange clicking noises, then sparking noises (worrying), and now just sits there, silent. Really, really annoying. Hopefully I'll be able to obtain a spare soon though.

finboy · Jun 20, 2001, 12:00 PM

That whole "plenty cool, even without a fan" may not have been true.

Forced air is usually necessary for most older systems, and a case is necessary for those which are convection cooled.

If you're gonna build something like this, why not put the fan in there too? Duh. In fact, since the case is bigger, and the fan doesn't pull air through in the same way, you may need a more direct fan or a processor cooler with that much circulation space.

Luckily, LC power supplies are easy to come by, over here anyway. The LCIII supply will work, I think. Good luck.

Don't hesitate, ventilate.

austintas · Jun 20, 2001, 12:42 PM

Nope, this defintely isn't a ventilation thing - for a start, the inside was only 3 or 4 degrees warmer than the air temp after 8 hours running. Secondly, I put the fan in earlier in the week

Anyway, the new PSU should be here by Friday. They're suprisingly easy to come by even here the UK - I had 3 offers in the hour after posting a request on the uk.ad.comp.mac newsgroup!

The only thing I rekon could have blown it (apart from the fact it was 8 years old) is the fact I'm running a CD-ROM as well as a HD off it. Unfortunately the CD drive doesn't give a current rating so I can't check.

[ 06-20-2001: Message edited by: austintas ]

finboy · Jun 21, 2001, 01:53 PM

Yep, you're probably right. Maybe you should get a SECOND PS and use that to run the CD-ROM drive. Or incorporate an external case power supply instead.

Didn't think of that before. Those PS are really low wattage, and those CD-ROM drives use a lot of power, as does the motherboard. I think the 475 is probably at the limits of the PS's capacity as it is.

Hakintosh · Jun 22, 2001, 04:10 PM

Very nice work Toby.
A second power supply is definetely a good idea.
I also have some very large fans from old AT&T servers
at work that might work well for your setup, let me
know if you're interested. Again, nice job!

- Hak
hakintosh@mac.com

austintas · Jun 22, 2001, 05:51 PM

Thanks

Well, I've been helped in the PSU department by a great guy here in the UK who I've purchased a replacement off. It turns out that mine was probably an early LC475 since it uses a PSU with an output rated at 3.75A, as used in the LCII and LCIII (don't quote me on that). Although identical in form, the PSU used in most LC475's was a 4.5A version, which hopefully I'll have more success in using to power both the CDROM and HD. If this fails I will install another PSU, but that would mean leaving out the scanner - and I've just found a way to make that fit after all!

On the subject of PSUs I've been shown just how wary consumers must be nowadays. I appealed for a cheap replacement PSU on uk.adverts.computer.mac and received 5 or 6 offers all in the region of �10 / $15 inc. postage. For an identical part a UK second hand mac dealer, MadMacs, quoted... wait for it... �69.33

. That's over $100 for a reconditioned PSU. Disgusting, especially considering I could obtain an entire LC475 for around �20.

I'm debating now whether to paint the box (metallic spray paint) or not after I've installed the new PSU and scanner. Any ideas / views?

Toby

PS. Thanks for the offer of the fans, but I'll see how it goes with just the one at the moment. Besides anything else I want to keep this system quiet.

finboy · Jun 24, 2001, 06:14 PM

No paint -- sand it down and keep the woodgrain and stain it. Woodgrain is far cooler than silver or gray paint. Really.

austintas · Jun 25, 2001, 03:46 AM

Ahhh, staining - that hadn't occurred to me. Yeah, that would be cool, I think I'll try that.

I've got the replacement PSU and that works, but somewhere along the line the ENet card's gone belly up. The machine won't switch on with the card installed, but works fine with it out. This is really annoying since I don't know if it's the card or something on the motherboard that's blown. I'll keep on testing... any ideas?

Toby