The optical drive - required for the home theater PC to be a standalone player if needed

Another accessory which caused a lot of headaches and it was probably the hardest part of the redesign.

The box, viewed from the front, initially had the display on top and the tray below. This positioning was not possible with the case modded to a HTPC, because the motherboard would not let me slide the drive into place so that the two vertically had to exchange places. I solved this pretty nicely, but will write about it in a separate blog entry.

In addition, also due to the usual lack of space, a normal dvd drive was out of the question, so a small form factor laptop DVD - CD drive was the answer, who’s connection of course was totally different from the desktop format. Fortunately, eBay is full of cheap adapters and cables, costing only a few bucks. It looks like this:

mSata to Sata adaptor cable

However, the fitting caused more problems than the cables

Thus, I needed something the player to lie on above the motherboard. At the beginning, during build 1.0, this problem, together with the HDD suspension, was solved by a powerful component called “The Piéce de résistance”, but this did not fit in the new structure so I had to invent something again.

After much trials and error puzzling, i realized that the old backplate was sufficiently rigid to hold a tray and to serve as a crossrod too. So I found myself sawing and filing again, another drill and the small L-shaped rod stood firmly in the box. It is also to be noted, that it serves as a  brace too, making it perfect by giving another strength point to the backplate.

The final problem was with the left-back side of the drive and with the fitting. Since this is a laptop unit, the door does not open completely, as it jumps out on eject and needs to be pulled by hand from there, action which can result in pulling the entire drive out of the case if not properly fitted. Then I remembered “The Piéce de résistance”. After cutting it in half, i fitted it to the L-shaped rod obtained earlier, curled up the back and after a few measurements I drilled a small hole in it to hold the drive. The small screw to hold, I had to scour the area around the hole to be much thinner, but this already belongs to fine details :) Here’s an image with the new tool and the DVD drive installed in the case:

Lé Piéce de résistance 2.0

DVD / CD optical drive mounted and fitted into HTPC case

The wondertool and the optical drive highlighted inside the home theater pc case

The heart of the HTPC - installing the hard drives

As I wrote in an earlier post, this time I wanted to store the hard drives in a tray designed for this purpose, and salvaged from an old PC case. Since the entire tray was kinda big – was designed to hold four drives after all -  I had to cut the thing in half. The picture below shows the cut:

PC HDD tray cut in half for HTPC

The cut in half hard drive tray. Now is small enough to fit in a low HTPC case

One half was higher than the other, for obvious reasons I use the lower one. I secured it to the case with three screws: one small hole is visible in the image above, and i drilled a further two. I could not take a normal picture to show them, so here’s a simple diagram to illustrate this:

Low height HTPC case HDD tray mounting diagram

The yellow circles indicate the case screws, the whites hold the hard drives

The installation was smooth. Fixing the hard drives to place was way more problematic, but it is due to lack of space, nothing else. A man with smaller, more feminine hands  would have no issues at all for sure.

Here are the final results:

HTPC HDD tray in place

HTPC HDD tray secured and hard drives mounted - SSD not visible

The backplate of the HTPC - the hidden utility factor

As stated earlier, the new power supply ruined my plans and had to think through everything again. After the birth of the new positioning, i measured and drawed the rear panel connectors of the new power supply (just the power supply from now on) and began to cut. As suspected, the backplate could not stand the pressure and got bent. I note that even if the cut has been a success, the plate would totally lost it’s endurance, so gave it all up halfway (see previous post for the image).

Redesign 

I needed a new backplate – no questions. Found in the courtyard a 1 mm thick sheet metal that looked and proved durable enough for the job. I made two drawings on it: one contained bending lines (pictured at the top) and the other did not. The latter prevailed as I had no opportunity to do a smooth bend, and the plate was strong enough to keep the roof while bolted to the frame anyway.

The bottom drawing was the winner. No bending, cuts only

Here it is to be noted, that in the absence of a proper tool (like the Dremel 3000) the cut (I mean sawing, drilling and filing) was a painful and lengthy process. If anyone wants to go the same way without enough patience, just drop it. Seriously! The end result, however, made up for everything. Here are some pictures:

HTPC backplate cutting is done

HTPC backplate is fitted - very nice

The red metal cover goes beautifully with the gray color of the htpc case.
The colored spots on the table are the watercolor left-overs of my boys creative side

The back panel has a total of five bolts. Three are connected only to the frame, while two serve as a power station unit  holder too. Since this latter piece is pretty light, the two screws were enough. Thus, each is rigidly and firmly fixed.

Backplate mission success!

HTPC backplate installed - what a beauty

HTPC Power supply replacement and new complications

I managed to get hands on a MiniATX PSU, which is much smaller and more powerful, and at the first test it powered everything, so there is no more compromise with the multi-card reader. No sata connectors, but all can be solved with a converter. Here are a few comparison pictures about old and new htpc psu:

PSU Comparision

PSU Comparision

When you build your HTPC, make sure your PSU can handle all, and it’s a small form factor

I should mention, that I did look at Pico PSU’s, but they are much more expensive, and largely depend on the external power brick, which is usual less than 100W. E.g. a 160W combo is like double in price than a MiniATX 200W internal PSU!!!

So immediately after i had it home, had the first tests: i connected it to the motherboard, and everything else, than started the machine - and violá it run! This was followed by a steeper and less relevant thermal test: i put the cover on, and the remaining spaces were covered with a small blanket (the cover did not properly fit as the PSU was just inserted in the case for this test). Half an hour later, the temperature of  the CPU and motherboard increased only by a few values, which is a good sign.

So let’s install this puppy

Unfortunately, the new PSU size, shape, connection and placement of ventilation is completely different, so not only does not fit in the old place, the backplate of the box also had to be cut, which was already showing singns of weakness. Luckily there was enough space in the left of the case so every plan turned upside down and there came the complete re-design and optimization of this HTPC build.

This was the point where I decided a complete re-design and optimization

Thanks to an old friend, i received an empty tower box, and immediately removed the hard drive tray from it.

Empty PC tower

All i needed was the HDD tray - half of it actually

After some rough measurements, came up with a new plan: the motherboard remain where it is, the power supply and hard drives will be on the left side, and on the right side of the mouse and the CIR / infrared plate. And on the top of them the DVD rom. Both hard drives will finally get a normal bracket and screws to firmly hold them in place, even if the HTPC DVD Player will not be moved or shaked too much.

The HTPC PSU repositioning plan

HTPC Build – Stage 3 – The Piéce de résistance

I called this little piece of metal “Piéce de résistance”, because it saved my project – really. Supports both the HDD and the DVD drive!

I had a small holder for the HDD, but i did not know how to secure it to the case, because it overlapped the mainboard, and without a “leg” the chance existed to drop on it in the middle of a nice movie, and ruining the whole thing.

The other part was the DVD drive: the external part of the case was ready for it, but i needed something to secure it to inside the case also. First i was thinking to fit it on the top cover of the case, but that would have made the HTPC “take apart” proces to be a nightmare.

I had an old PC case lying around, and somehow i had the ideea to cut it in parts, and take out one top support rim, what in lenght was exactly the same as my HTPC (wide). And slowly, instead of just inserting it horizontally, i modified it, and created the “thing” what you can see in the pics. It holds the HDD, very strongly, and both the optical drive. It is mounted to the HTPC with a screw (both of them had a whole exactly where i needed it – 3rd and 4th image, the right side), so it is very stable.

The piéce de résistance  – a custom made HTPC part

The next part of the building is the assembly and first poweron – so be close!!

HTPC Build – Stage 2 – First bumps

Hi folks.

Sorry for the delay, but i got into some problems.

See the 2 bumps i told you about in the bottom part of the casing (pic in the earlier post)? Those needs to be cut out, and i had 2 versions: the nicer and the uglier. Well the nicer did not work So now i will try the harder. I will try to take pics with the process

UPDATE – Preparing the HTPC case:

As a first step, i've cut the top of the bumps and now i have 2 big holes:

Next i flattened the bump margins, and now i have a flat surface – with two big holes :)

Installing the PSU – small enough to fit a HTPC

I have this BTW from a small and damaged DELL desktop computer i got for free. My friend wanted to throw it out.

How do i mounted the PSU: lifted back a margin of the ex-bump (left), made a little cut at the back of the case (right) for the power connector and the PSU fits there like a charm (bottom).

Stay close as the next step will be a very important one!

HTPC Build – Stage 1 – Parts and case

Back!

The HTPC case – don’t think that Samsung ever taught about this  

Recently i got a Samsung DVD player from a friend – perfect condition BTW, but as a first generation player, it did play only DVD’s – so not much of a use. It was the perfect box for my HTPC, so i ripped it all apart, and i was ready to go. Here is the case:

Samsung DVD 709 - As new

The HTPC case - ready for action

The HTPC parts – or some atleast

 

I have since a while a MiniATX P3 motherboard with a 1ghz CPU (yes one), 512 SDRAM, what just sits and gathers dust. I have a few HDD’s, and a spare Laptop DVD drive. What do i need? A PSU, some cables, the project, software and a lot of thinking and wireing Here’s a picture:

HTPC parts

BTW, do not worry, it will have a dualcore at the end. Read all :)

Explanations of the pictures and HTPC parts from above

 

1) probably you wonder, why the mouse is there in the above image? Well the DVD player had 5 action buttons on the front panel (you can see in the 1st image) and i wanted to keep them somehow. Initially i wanted to buy a cheap gaming pad, but i remembered i had a mouse with 5 buttons with a cracked case (that is why top is removed). So my plan is to direct-link the DVD front button electronic board to the mouse buttons, and reconfigure thoose with some mouse editor software later.

2) I want to position the mainboard in the middle, PSU in the right, HDD and mouse on elft, DVD in the middle. Here i encountered another problem with the case: you see the 2 bumps in the sides on the second image? Those lift the bottom with 1cm, and the cooler of the PSU does not have enough space for proper airflow – so i need to cut thoose out and replace the created whole with something.

3) If you check the front panel of the case, you can see, that the DVD tray is in the bottom. Well, my laptop dvd player cannot be there, becase the battery and the memory on the mainboard does not allow it to go in Here my plan is to take out the black plexiglass (above the hole), move it down a bit, cut the case again, and in the created whole to insert the optical drive. Simple no?

4) The power button on the right had only 2 wires, so i cut it, and linked it directly with the power wire what leads to the mainboard. Plus connected the powerled the same way. That should not make any problems.

5) Bottom-right: VGA to s-video cable (2 bucks)

6) Bottom-middle (between the DVD and the cable): laptop drive to PATA cable converter, with floppy drive type power connector. Smart huh? 2 bucks

7) For software i have several options:
a) LinuxMCE as standalone OS
B) WinMCE + MOOVIDA (http://www.moovida.com/)
c) WinMCE + Mediaportal
d) several others, not deceided yet, and probably i will try out a few

That’s it for now. Let’s start the building process!

HTPC Build – Stage 0 – Introduction

Hi there folks

I will begin with stating, that i started to write down the steps of this project on a dedicated HTPC forum, but as the build is not finished, and i took some pauses between certain stages of the build, my account was deleted so i discontinued to document the process. This means that the first few entries will be more like a looking back rewrites of the original posts.

So let’s get on with it! Following is the original introduction post from the other forum!

—————————————
Hello everybody.

I do not like big introductions and hassles, so let’s get on with it. Actually i would like to say, that my native language is not english, so i will make mistakes.

About my HTPC project: i was always a PC user in the sense of multimedia. I watched movies on TV via the sVideo connector of my VideoCard, and listened music on PC. Actually i never had a proper DVD or CD player – but i always wanted one. So when i first came across HTPC’s, specially home built ones, i decided i will have my own!

It was no rush in the beginning, because i own a PlayStation2 what plays DVD’s and with a little trick, it does play AVI, MP3, audio and picture files too + it is a gaming station. So all should be OK, but the good old PS2 cannot handle movies bigger than 700MB properly.

What do i expect from my homemade HTPC?

Nothing complicated. I just want an enhanced DVD player, without any plus features like TV + TimeShifting or recording channels (i own a tv card, but i want a box as slim as it can be, and the tuner does not fit).

I have since a while a MiniATX P3 motherboard with a 1ghz CPU (yes one), 512 SDRAM, what i do not use for anything. I have a few HDD-s, and a spare Laptop DVD drive. What do i need? A box, a PSU, some cables, the project and a lot of thinking and wireing


Starting parts and ideas in my next reply, so stay close!