[stevieleaky]

This project is in the idea stage right now......If I take all the guts out of the imac rev a bondi and put it in to a home made case will I need to attach extra fans to keep it cool or is it alright to just put it in the case as it is. Is there any good links about taking it completely apart, with pics would be great.....I am going to try to make a case so all the ports at the side of the imac(ethernet, audio in, usb) are at the front(easy for plugging in musical instruments) and then hook up a 19" monitor with the pcp adapter... I am thinking on making this case out of thin wood and with enough room for the mezzanine/scsi card, another hard drive and a usb hub at the back... the bottom piece, I am thinking, would be the thin sturdy wood with holes in it to provide air circulation to it and it all sits on 1" rubber legs also for air flow to get in and out....
the idea I had for the fans were to have 1 fan on one side so the air is pushed in the case and another fan on the other side pushing air out. remember this is still in the idea stage.....
Another Idea I had was to make it into a drawer that easily clamps on/off under any table or desk... if i need to add memory or a hard drive I would just open it up... hmm

Any thoughts or sugestions?
Thanks

[vmarks]

Originally posted by stevieleaky:
<STRONG>This project is in the idea stage right now......If I take all the guts out of the imac rev a bondi and put it in to a home made case will I need to attach extra fans to keep it cool or is it alright to just put it in the case as it is. Is there any good links about taking it completely apart, with pics would be great.....I am going to try to make a case so all the ports at the side of the imac(ethernet, audio in, usb) are at the front(easy for plugging in musical instruments) and then hook up a 19" monitor with the pcp adapter... I am thinking on making this case out of thin wood and with enough room for the mezzanine/scsi card, another hard drive and a usb hub at the back... the bottom piece, I am thinking, would be the thin sturdy wood with holes in it to provide air circulation to it and it all sits on 1" rubber legs also for air flow to get in and out....
the idea I had for the fans were to have 1 fan on one side so the air is pushed in the case and another fan on the other side pushing air out. remember this is still in the idea stage.....
Another Idea I had was to make it into a drawer that easily clamps on/off under any table or desk... if i need to add memory or a hard drive I would just open it up... hmm

Any thoughts or sugestions?
Thanks</STRONG>

Yes, I've done this.
I've put early iMacs in rackmount hub cases of the 1U variety, I've put them in beige PC cases, and I've put them in Centris 610 and LC II cases.

The LC II is a tight squeeze, the centris 610 case is easy.

You need to think about your power supply. You can either use the iMac power supply (a very large board, size of the motherboard and thick with capacitors and a heat sink) or you can use a circuit card adapter I made that lets you connect an iMac to an ATX PC power supply.

• The adapter:
  
  
  You hook the atx power supply to the left connector, and the right one mounts on the bottom of the iMac motherboard.

You also will need to use a Griffin MacPnP adapter to connect an SVGA monitor to the iMac. I like 17" or 19" monitors- the iMac can display up to 1600x1200 resolution, and those monitors can take advantage of that (at least, the 19" can. the 17" will display 1280x1024.

I also make up longer cd-rom cables so you can relocate the iMac cd-rom somewhere useful, which it sounds like you'll want to do.

email me.
[email protected]

[petoria]

And don't forget that you can add a second drive as a slave to the hard drive. I would think that you could do the same for the cd-rom, but it has that wider connector.

By the way I like the drawer idea.

[stevieleaky]

O.K. I took my imac completely apart.......(uh ohhhh)

anyways. I noticed a cable labeled "H". It is made up of many small grey cables. It is connected on the power supply board and hooks up to the imac internal monitor board(????the board with all the cables going to the monitor) My question is, do i need this cable??remember I am using a different monitor now...

also the fan seems to be hooked up to this same monitor board.. is there any other way to connect the fan?

finally, Is this board(the one with all the cables going to the monitor needed for anything when transfering the imac to a new case and new monitor??

Sorry for the lack of knowledge on this but I thought I would try it out because I just can't live with the huge imac in the corner.....

Thanks

[vmarks]

Originally posted by stevieleaky:
<STRONG>O.K. I took my imac completely apart.......(uh ohhhh)

anyways. I noticed a cable labeled "H". It is made up of many small grey cables. It is connected on the power supply board and hooks up to the imac internal monitor board(????the board with all the cables going to the monitor) My question is, do i need this cable??remember I am using a different monitor now...

also the fan seems to be hooked up to this same monitor board.. is there any other way to connect the fan?

finally, Is this board(the one with all the cables going to the monitor needed for anything when transfering the imac to a new case and new monitor??

Sorry for the lack of knowledge on this but I thought I would try it out because I just can't live with the huge imac in the corner.....

Thanks</STRONG>

leaky,

you need the small gray cable that has the very small black connector on it- this goes to the power switch board with headphones

the monitor cable is beige/gray and has a 15 pin D Shell monitor connnector on it, with screws for connecting it- ignore this one, you'll never need it again for this project.

the round connector is the Infrared connector.

The large black connector delivers power to the motherboard. if you use my adapter, you can ignore it. If you use the iMac power supply on it's own (removed from the monitor) you'll want it.

Regarding the fan, the iMac can run without a fan, but if you feel better using one, buy a cheap PC case fan and a power splitter for hard drives, and power the fan off the same power connecter as the hard drive.

[stevieleaky]

thanks much...

when i get everything out and up and running i will probably get a cd cable and atx adapter from you.... till then couldyou tell me how the motherboard disconnects from the metal case? I took the screws out but underneath is this conector piece (the power to the motherboard i assume???) stopping it from coming off. looks like a black connector with small vertical silver metal rods, does this just pop out or do i have to leave the metal case on???

[vmarks]

Originally posted by stevieleaky:
<STRONG>thanks much...

when i get everything out and up and running i will probably get a cd cable and atx adapter from you.... till then couldyou tell me how the motherboard disconnects from the metal case? I took the screws out but underneath is this conector piece (the power to the motherboard i assume???) stopping it from coming off. looks like a black connector with small vertical silver metal rods, does this just pop out or do i have to leave the metal case on???</STRONG>

that's the power filter. You remove it, and then you can get the motherboard out. You can ease it off with gentle prying using a flat head screwdriver.

[MikeMarco14]

I was wondering how feasible it would be to do this to an iMac DV SE. (vmarks is probably getting sick of my questions by now, sorry!) And if it is, what steps should I take?

Also: is there any way to get the machine to display resolutions above 1024x768 using this method? If I'm going to attach a (bigger) external monitor, I might as well...

I've poked around the guts of mine before, so I'd probably feel comfortable enough doing this myself.

[ShaneHale]

Check out the iBox, on applefritter. Its an iMac in a standard wintel box.

iBox

That should give ya some info how to do it... at least one possibility. I still think a standard powersupply would help a lot too.

Shane