Well after a couple of weeks of light engineering, my friend, Gary Goddard (a fellow member of LAG) and I have finished our first EFIKA case project. Like Geit's excellent project, it is based on a 5.25" external drive case, which we gutted and fitted with a new back panel (hand crafted from sheet aluminium) and modified the base plate and front panel to mount the board, the USB hub and accommodate the front ports and switch. It turned out better than both of us had even hoped. I hope you guys like it too :)
The Front...
The Back...
Just to prove yes it does work :)
The front panel contains a small black push-switch for power on/off, and 4 powered USB ports. The USB hub receives power via a floppy drive header off the PSU. The front corner pillars also have a red (power) and blue (hard drive) LEDs, which we re-wired to connect up to the EFIKA using standard PC connectors. Note that the USB ports are actually upside down. I felt I had to do this to minimize the amount of modding to the front as they stood up off the hub PCD a little - I wanted the USB ports to be right at the bottom, and as subtle as possible and make as little impact on the mesh front as was possible.
The rear panel was cut out leaving just the corner pillars and enough plastic to attach the new one. A custom metal one was made and sprayed up, then attached to the remaining corners. We were particularly pleased with how it turned out as this was one of the hardest parts, and took a long time. A lot of fingernails, blood and metal shavings were spilled to make this part :)
Note we had to notch it at the top and install a grommet to allow the USB cable to come out and plug into the USB port at the back. It's a little untidy but it's not a huge issue.
The RESET switch is fitted on one side (at the back to avoid it being hit instead of the power switch and vice-versa) and the Power hook-up for the 12V DC IN is on the other.
Inside is quite well packed in. Both the boards are fitted using long screws screwed through the base plate, then spaced off the plate using small nuts. The EFIKA stands high enough not to need an insulator, there is 2mm at least of clear air below there.
The only thing it may need is a quiet, slow moving fan to push air across the CPU/GFX card/Hard Disk. I've discovered it sits nicely vertically in a stand I have for a external drive case, so a fan may aid convection and help cool the gfx card. Of course, the two plates that for the top and bottom of the case are aluminium plates so they help to dissipate the heat well too. I have used it for about an hour so far with no noticeable heat issues, but I'd like to fit a fan just to be on the safe side.
So there you have it!