Dewalt Tool Box PC

Step 5 Other PC Designs

You can build one of these into just about anything ; including a receiver if you think that will fit in with your home entertainment system better for media pc applications. However, in my experience the most practical, portable, straight forward full board housing has been the tool box PC.

Here is another design Jon and I built, using an old receiver as a housing. That's the PSU mounted internally outside of it's housing so it all fit, which I do not recommend for unsupervised home use ; but it worked fine and we later insulated it from the main board and housing better. This PC was used as a media center / home theatre jukebox to store a friend of mine's CD collection ; and was operated through a big screen TV using a wireless mouse.

Good luck ; and have fun with your custom chassis project.

Comments

[crabbypup]

currently building my own case. my problem is that i need to fit 5 SATA HDD's, a custom fan controller, a home theater/volume/remote box (2x5.25") and a dvd drive into a case that ONLY vents from the front and back and is less than 7.25" wide by 24" tall. so far i have basically ripped apart a whole buch of old cases that fit one of the criteria but not some others. i have the tray and most of the back, but i still need the top and sides and i need to buy the innards. it will contain an AMD phenom II x4 940 (3ghz), 2x ati radeon 4790s and 4gb 1666 mhz dual channel DDR2 ram.

[bobertoper1]

no way your going to fit 5 in there i could only fit one and im still working on the disk drive  but just to tell you how much did that cost you! where did you get that kind of money!

[capth00k]

BTW, I have 4 Hard Drives in that little dewalt case now. Only problem is the heat can't dissipate fast enough, and I fried one. Will probably swiss cheese the box more before I fit another replacement. Using as a file server under the bed, and VNC into it when I need to control it.

peace,

Capt.

[crabbypup]

 the case i am building is not a toolbox. mine is designed for a specific space. it is 7.25"x24"x21" (WxHxD). and i have already built the drive trays for all of these, and they will fit, two of the drives are bolted sideways onto the case door to fit all of them. i have not actually bought the parts yet, i am waiting until february, when the price will probably drop.

[bobertoper1]

aah i see by the way you want to have some kind of material to protect the hdds because mine sometimes rattles (can reduce its life by 50%) and you might want to check Milwaukee PC they've got them for cheap.

[TheParadox]

Try SSD drives.

[capth00k]

 Rubber cubes work great for this ; or you could make 'floating' rubber footed platforms for the HDs.  Think of how the lens / mechanism in a CD ROM / CD player 'floats' inside of the casing with rubber feet ; so it isn't jarred. 

[fingerlikin]

better get all your  guts first !!!

[your_dragon113]

I'm 95% finished mine here. Capth00k used a DeWalt cordless drill case and I thought that was Great! I took it a step father and used the DeWalt skillsaw case for mine. I threw in a DELL system into mine and there's a lot of room to grow with in there. I tossed out the 250Watt Dell P/S and put in a full sized 450Watt unit. I was able to put in 2 HHDsthere's room for 2 more...SATA maybe?,  as well as the CD reader(Dell didn't like the thought of DVD readers(?)) as well as wireless WiFi and Wireless keyboard/mouse(Logitech MX 5500). I'll be adding a set of logitech speakers to the case, first time I've boughten something JUST to butcher...well...ok...maybe a small lie there, then it'll be complete. (still working on pics ASAP)

[capth00k]

 Nice dude, post your pics when you get time to

[djtomczak678]

:O is that a pioneer vsx series??

[capth00k]

Yeah, an old one that burned out one of the channels.