Order
One beautiful summer day of 2010, my phone rang. It was him. The order that you usually wait while raking mountains of routine. “It is required to integrate a computer into a molded car drive.”
It sounded like a challenge.
This is not asked every day. Without a second's hesitation, I agreed to get to work.
And then the customer was gone. He just didn't call me anymore. I had his number, but I never get imposed, so all the joyful experiences associated with the upcoming work on an interesting project quietly subsided and forgotten.
A year has passed.
The customer is calling. Turns out he lost my number. And after a year of searching - found!
And the work began to boil!
Modding
Finally, after agreeing on a general concept of work, they sent me a cast disc - Diablo 18 ”chrome.
And my partner and I started to work.
The endless fitting fittings in different positions did not give an answer, how can we put everything inside a small alloy disk.
Before us at that moment were tasks:
An optical drive must be placed in the central part of the disk, the tray of which will be pulled out together with the disk cap. It is required to come up with a fastening system that is simple and reliable.
Place the motherboard, video card, power supply and hard drive in the remaining space, which was sorely lacking.
Find a rational way to give a stable upright position to a round cast disk.
Regarding the placement of the optical drive - everything is clear, but somehow it needs to be fixed!
On the milling machine, they chose a rectangular groove with a narrow through part - under the tray.
Inserted. It stands, the tray extends.
A new problem - how to prevent the drive from "falling out"?
I love studs, ordinary steel studs. With their help, we secured the drive.
Wiring to the “Eject” button was soldered to the drive, connected the power and played, played for a long time. The retractable and retractable disc tray fascinated and captivated our eyes.
Subsequently, the wiring was brought to a special button, which was located exactly in the factory hole for the nipple.
The remaining free space did not allow us to install a full-size ATX motherboard (305 × 244 mm). Only trimmed FlexATX (229 x 191 mm).
It was at this moment that the client began to dictate his terms. He did not agree to FlexATX, insisted on installing a full-sized ATX, and he promised to send it to us along with other components.
Months passed.We waited. The disk was lying.
Every client who came to the workshop admired, but we did not advance in the work.
We received the components already in the fall.
A hefty ATX motherboard came to us with the words: "put it somehow."
She became only sideways and protruded beyond the edges of the disk by a good 50 mm.
We prepared a pallet for the motherboard, made fixing ears to it. Have settled. Based on the position of the motherboard, we began to make a basket for attaching the power supply and hard drive. Two in one.
The video card could only fit on the side of the drive on an extension riser. Acrylic served as the main basis for the video card.
All manufactured parts of the inner frame were powder painted in matt black.
Suitable design legs were found in the bins of the motherland, finalized and installed.
A hole was drilled between the legs - an output for wires.
In this project, the legs are a fundamentally important point, because in no such case there are legs, instead of legs some ridiculous pedestals are used, or even blocks on the sides - so that the disk does not roll.
We started the preliminary assembly.
Along the way, we made decorative nets bent according to the pattern, which will close the space between the knitting needles.
Along the edge of the disk, we drilled 8 holes for the M3 racks, on which we decided to install an acrylic shield, which acts as the back panel.
Initially, on a project using the FlexATX motherboard, it was assumed that the acrylic shield would fit snugly on the edge of the drive, but our board was 50mm wider. I had to get out and be smart with the racks.
Next was a long evening with monochrome wiring. Plain because in the workshop, at that time, there was only a blue single-core wire, I did not want to wait.
Computer control had to be moved to some panel. The panel is made of acrylic. A decorative speedometer was made for the control panel. Decorative because no one was going to pay for the functional, and there was simply no strength to do it anymore.
Decorative design - carbon pattern, inscriptions and the jackal of the speedometer itself were applied to acrylic using ultraviolet printing.
A button with a beautiful blue backlight is responsible for turning on the computer, the first toggle switch for illuminating the inside of the disc, the second for speedometer illumination. The ability to conveniently turn off almost all the luminous element is the basis for the convenience of further operation.
The control panel was mounted on chrome bent tubes.
Before the final assembly, the drive was equipped with a backlight using a blue LED strip.
The housing is assembled. Photo session time.
Demo video functionality:
The final
The name "Diablo wheel" will suit him perfectly.
All the tasks before us are solved.
The case is unique in its own way. The number of such buildings in the world disappears on the fingers of one hand.
This building was built for specific components, upgrade capabilities are difficult. The customer has been warned.
The case is finished and sent to the customer, and along the way we took first place in the modding contest.