Stealth

The Coffee Table!!!

Category

Case Fabrication

Status

Ready for Battle

Deets

The Coffee Table!!!

The Coffee Table is my second case mod. Following the success of my first mod, The Desk, I decided to continue bringing further functionality to my computers then what the internal components could provide. The idea for this coffee table mod came to me as I was sitting on my couch, playing a competitive game of Halo with my roommate. In a moment of intensity I accidentally knocked over my glass of Coke that I had set carelessly on the rug. I decided it was indeed time to get a coffee table. It then came to me that this piece of furniture could also function to tie my living room into my computer network. A coffee table that would act as a file server, media control for my living room TV, and light entertainment for guests.
For this project I wanted to keep the cost down as low as possible seeing as it did not have to be a high performance computer. To start out I grabbed an old computer case and cut out just what I needed to mount the motherboard. I then went to our local steel yard and grabbed some tubing and sheet metal. I first built a frame to mount my old 15inch LCD in, and then built off of it a little panel for an old Kensington trackball that I had found. Once the upper frame was complete I went about creating a frame for the bottom half. I bought a small TFX power supply to mount at the very bottom and used the main leads to power also the LCD and a auxiliary power socket at the bottom of the case. With both frames done, I welded them together and then skinned them with sheet metal. The rear panel is removable, and as a final touch I tore apart an old 5” 4 gig drive and gave it a Plexiglas window to display through the case.
The system requirements are the best, but it works perfectly for its purpose:
Pentium D 930
54mbps Belkin wireless
Asus P5PL2
Radeon x1300
400gb Western Digital HD
4gb OCZ 6400 Platinum
The total cost of the project was about $75, and a big part of that was in wire for my welder and cutting wheels. Except for the power supply and motherboard most of the components come second hand when I upgraded my other mod, The Desk!!!