Modded PSU and Completed Backdoor

Luckily my Dad is an electrician and has been able to help me with this project in all sorts of ways. One of my main concerns was how to supply power to the whole setup at the touch of one button. I'd seen online that many people were using Smart Strips but it seems in the UK many people have had problems getting them to work properly. There are also ways of modding a power strip, but as it's such a small cabinet, there really isn't enough space to hold one without it looking a mess. So my Dad's suggestion was to do away with the power strip altogether and instead just wire in a relay (we used a 10A DPDT 12v Miniature Relay). In effect what this does is when the power button to boot the PC is pressed, this makes a connection in the relay and allows the other devices (marque light, amp for the speakers and the monitor) to all be able to switch on at the same time. Here you can see the relay which is connected to the power supply:

Although we are using the power button found on the front of most PC towers to switch on the whole system, there is also a master power switch for the PSU which we decided to mount on the back door so that the power may be turned off completely from the unit. Along with this we also mounted the socket from the PSU for the plug onto the back door:

Because there was exposed circuitry on the inside of the cabinet from the PSU socket, we covered this with a plastic cap:

Next we added the fan for the backdoor and also a knob for opening it:

And here it is so far, with the computer fully shelled and running Hyperspin:

Mounting the Monitor, Motherboard and PSU

Now that most of the painting is complete (leaving the final coat for the side panels until nearer the end, so they don't get too scuffed), we mounted the monitor into the cabinet. The Dell monitor I'm using has a handy detachable bracket that we've placed onto the horizontal wooden monitor panel; this way, the monitor can be easily taken out of the cabinet if I so wish in the future (or at least while we construct it).

Then we arranged the motherboard and psu into the base of the cabinet and raised it up off base panel using a couple of thin pieces of wood. Sandwiched between the strip of wood and motherboard / psu, we used some heavy duty felt pads, these should hopefully help to dampen the vibrations from the on board fans (I suspect without these the wood would only amplify the vibrations).

The next jobs to do include; mounting the hard-drive, attaching brackets for the perspex monitor cover (with bezel), choosing an amp and speakers, fitting the mains socket into the back door along with a master power switch and the back door fan - all of which I'll cover in my next post. Here's the build so far:

Routing The Edges For T-Molding

Construction has slowed a little somewhat over the last week as I've been mainly just applying coats of paint and working on completing my Hyperspin setup. However, we did manage to get the routing done around the edging of the side panels for the t-molding. Neither me nor my Dad owns a router and so my girlfriends Granddad was kind enough to lend me his, unfortunately the bit needed for cutting the slot for the t-molding is very difficult to source in the UK and so I had to order it from Groovy Game Gear in the US; which arrived in exactly a week.

The cutter is designed for cutting a slot that is 1/16", the part of the t-molding that is pressed into the slot is 3/32" which allows the 'teeth' of the molding to bite into the slight narrower slot that we cut.

Once the blade was aligned with the very centre of the wood, the actual cutting was very easy, (be sure to wear safety goggles and a mask as this thing produces SO much fine sawdust) but make sure you're not running the router over your final coat of paint at it will leave marks. When we'd finished cutting we pressed a little of the t-molding into the slot and it sat in perfectly; looking forward to when the final coats of paint are applied so we can put it all on!