Geeksta Processor Belt Buckle

Intro: Geeksta Processor Belt Buckle

There`s been lots of progress lately relatively to the identity of geeks: more and more, we're affirming our dedication to the nerdy world in several ways, namely through how we dress, with those Thinkgeek t-shirts that mere mortals cannot understand but also by the way we decorate our rooms and homes, how we talk, and even what music we listen to.

Now I've had the idea for this Instructable while browsing around and falling on the e-shop of some kid my age who was selling PCB and electronic component jewelery: CMOS earrings, resistor pendants, and the like. Since then, I've been trying to integrate old hardware and electronic junk to my daily dressing, without much success. It wasn't until I stumbled on a pile of old processors that I finally clicked on what would be cool, and yet not be a total pain wearing: a processor belt buckle.

Although not useful in itself, this thing is nice showoff material for those times when you get together with your geeky homedawgs.

It's simple really: all we are gonna do is take a proc, brutalize it up a bit, then solder it to your standard issue slider and casing type buckle used with strap type belt.

STEP 1: Materials

You don't need much stuff to complete this thing, and most of the things are either found in most geeky households, available for free with the right connections or available for real cheap. Without any further blabber, here is the list:

-Belt buckle with a flat face. This can be either be the ones that clasp or the ones with the tightening pin in them... excuse my lack of more precise wording. There are pictures available at the bottom.

-Processor, the older the better. I used two Socket 7 Intels of the code name P5 era. According to pictures I have seen, and the size of the heatsink in an old box I have, the K6 series should be big enough, so rejoice, AMD fanboys. In this Instructable, we will be using a P54C, a pretty high end chip for the time, which used to sport 200 mhz and MMX.

-Some acid flux paste. If you have a soldering iron, you probably already have this.

-Solder. I used 60/40, I am guessing that 50/50 would work too, but any lower will bust it in my opinion. I used full metal solder, but if you don't have any flux you might want to try resin core. I haven't tested that though.

STEP 2: Prepare the CPU

In order to not have your CPU sticking out a quarter inch from your buckle, and in order to optimize contact for the eventual soldering, we will have to flatten out the pins.

For this, lay the CPU logo face down on a table, exposing the pins towards you. Take a blunt object, I used a Sharpie marker, and flatten out the pins torwards the center. Don't be shy to put some pressure, we want them all nice and flat, as uniform as possible. Check out the pictures if you don't understand. I have also recorded a video demonstrating how that is to be worked out.

Once that is done, we will prepare out pieces for soldering.

STEP 3: Prepare the Pieces for Soldering

Whip out the acid flux, and spread a healthy layer over everything metallic going to be soldered, that is the bent pins and the entire surface of the buckle. Once this is done, simple clamp the processor and buckle together in the desired position. Center it correctly, or soldering will be a real pain.

STEP 4: Solder!

Heat up your iron, and solder this baby up. Keep in mind that the solder has to be as flat as possible to eliminate interference with the little slider thingy on the buckle. Our goal here is to make a tight coverage on all sides. Solder this thing like you wanted it waterproof... I personally am not that good at soldering, and my solder gun tip was good for the garbage, so I think considering the situation I did pretty good.

STEP 5: Wear It!

After everything has cooled down and that your CPU is firmly attached to your buckle, but the buckle on a belt, and you're ready to go.

Wear at CS class and awe-strike all your class mates. Pimp it out in front of the ladies, and get loads of hot dates (or not). Although most will remain dumbfounded on the nature of that hunk of ceramic that is stuck to your belt, you can be sure that they will at least agree on one thing: it's hawt!

That was it... simple eh? I can't give a date yet, but I'll try to get tinkering on the same concept for slot 1 processors, for those who like uber huge belt ornaments.

If you like my work, check out my blog, http://MaximeRousseau.com and grab a feed or something, or hell even blog about it yourself.
Track-back link for this project is http://maximerousseau.com/?p=54, for those interested.

I also invite you to leave comments and suggestions; this is my first Instructable, and any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Comments

[AJMansfield]

This just makes me cringe...

[NSDCars5]

Give them to me... PLEASE!! Just kidding. But seriously, a P4 or C2D belt buckle? beNice=false; I've got a hundred more productive uses. beNice=true;

[devicemodder]

my comp teacher is throwing out old computers

[synthblade]

OH MY GOD. I have about 4 old POS computers (all with very old hardware) that are about to be stripped of their CPU sockets.... LOL - Incredible idea. Brilliant!

[devicemodder]

I want to do this with a pentium 4 core 2 duo

[hellstudios]

ohhh my godddddddd

[Punkguyta]

Oh dear..., use a bloody amd boy~! Intel isn't something to be proudly wearing. -P

[HotPinkBulb]

whats wrong with intel? i would do this with an intel q6600 just to make people cringe lol

[Punkguyta]

Amd's are worthy ceramics? A 400mhz amd k6 would still have some use where as a 1ghz P3 is still useless to most.

[hellstudios]

I'm all for hearing that AMD is better than intel, but this is just... WAYYY TOOO fanboy-ish..

[AussieJake44]

im running a gentoo web server on a 1ghz p3 so suck my bawlz

[Punkguyta]

I'm running a media server/FTP backups from a 2.0 celeron, and it feels slower than my 2.0 amd sempron, and the sempron is actually overclocked from 1.5. There is a reason my amd has only a paltry 128kb of L2 cache on the processor die, whereas the celeron has like 2MB of L2 Cache, the celeron may be able to process more data at once, however the sempron is snappier and usually bottlenecks out at the hard disk.

[AussieJake44]

its funny because we are having the same old amd/intel debate. over outdated architecture. anyet i also own an am3+ system and happen to like both intel and amd. however youre point about the l2 caches is good. amd used to make much higher performance processors than intel however the new phenom 2's arent as good as the i7's and i find are beaten by mos of the core 2 duo's

[Punkguyta]

I keep hearing that, that the new phenoms aren't any good, they however AMD did just release a new phenom designed for overclocking, however they've only managed 4.73ghz, which I suppose is impressive considering it's running 4 cores under there. I'm pretty sure italy has overclocked a plain old pentium 4 prescott to well over 5ghz, actually I think they beat their record and brought it up to almost 7ghz if I'm correct.

AMD architecture is a little out-dated, and the lack of SSE2 support pisses me off with my sempron because I'd like to try installing OSX on it, but not going to happen, that's sad that my thinkpad with it's 1.5ghz pentium D will run OSX and my 2.0 sempron will NOT.

But I will always stick with AMD until they prove otherwise, for a good example, I notice music skipping a lot LESS on my sempron when I've got the processor loaded up, unless it's reallllyyyy bogged down, otherwise It's treated me better than intel ever has, but then again I haven't had the chance to own a dual core intel to know for myself how much they have really improved since.

[AussieJake44]

i was an amd man up until pentium 4 (given didn't buy) and liked it. but intel most certainly outdid themselves with the core2 series especially the 8*** series dual cores, and the intel virtualisation technology is excellent considering for me as i run virtual machines. i think so far the only upside for me is that am3 series is cheap, and reliable. i think i did see a video on youtube somewhere of a team from the netherlands oc-ing a new am3 to 6ghz using liquid helium. but all in all i just think amd isnt worth it at the moment.

[Punkguyta]

I think you may be right, perhaps when I buy a new motherboard this summer I'll look into changing over to a core duo, however I happen to have a 64 bit AMD processor sitting here I found one day, but no mobo to go with it, perhaps it would be cheaper just to get a mobo for the 64 bit processor, and I'm willing to bet that will give me the extra power I need.

[hack124x768]

That's funny, as my brother is using a 650Mhz p3 and is too lazy to upgrade to a 1Ghz athalon I got him. I'm an intel man myself, but not by choice. Only by availability. I got a p4 board for cheap, now I have a p4 system. Rockin 2.8Ghz here, thinking about going to a 3.4Ghz soon. An k6 amd chip would be a more shiny buckly though...

[Punkguyta]

Amd is just more...reliable, and good for overclocking. Besides, known fact says that amd cpu's of the same speed of a certain intel cpu are more efficient and faster.

[hack124x768]

Well, I dunno. I've never followed the race much. I do know that If I unplug the fan on my p4, it will survive because of the throttling. I don't think an athalon will adjust as quickly. This really isn't the place for a cpu flame ware though. :p

[Punkguyta]

Lol okay, Although I will point out that amd's can survive without a fan themselves, and that's at 100% throttle, not this p4 auto-throttle shit.