When I was ready to make the lid, I reached for some masking tape ($.50) and a marker. I wrapped the top of the box to protect it from the marker. I then held the pegboard ($3.00 - $4.00) on the top while Kristi traced the shape onto it. The wall thickness on the box is ¼” so at all of the corners I put a dot a quarter inch in. I then traced between the dots and cut the lid out. After dry fitting it I marked where the floppy drive would sit. I went back to the jig saw and cut that out. Kristi then sprayed down the cover with adhesive ($2.00) and wrapped it (wrapping material $5.00 a yard, half yard was plenty). I drilled a hole and mounted the knob ($.50). The screw for the knob was too long so I cut a piece of my Bic pen ($.20) to fill in the gap. Have a look below at the before and after… Nice!

Cut pegboard

Kewl lid :)

Moving on, I sprayed ($1.00) the bezel of the DVD drive black and wrapped that as well. I test fitted the drive on the lid and noticed that the top of the door was hitting the top corners of the drive. I took out the file on my Leatherman and rounded them off. I then touched up the freshly filed corners with some paint.

Filed bezel and lid knob

At this point I soldered the wires to my new switch ($2.00), drilled a hole for it, and mounted it to the box. I then began to mount everything else inside. I had to remove the mounting bracket from the modem, because it was in the way. I once again cut a piece of my Bic pen to use in between the modem and the bottom of the box. I ran a bolt (10 for $1.50) through the modem ($10.00), through the Bic, and out the bottom of the box. Everything else went in and was strapped together.

That's how it all fits

I filled in any divots with wood putty ($1.50) and purchased a stain marker ($2.00) from the hardware store to cover my efforts. I also used the stain marker on the inside of all of my cuts. It really cleaned up the holes nicely.

Finished product

Switch at back right near the bottom

Wow, I need to clean the back!

Conclusion

This project did take me slightly longer than I thought, but I finished it all in one weekend. I hope that maybe this gave you a few ideas for your next project. Be watching for my next Mini-ITX project, because it’s going to be slightly more outlandish! If you weren’t paying attention to all my costs it was around $300.00. Although I did have a lot of extra materials left over. Any questions, comments, or foul language can be directed to me. Thanks for reading, and if you want to see more, then email me! Feedback is greatly desired!

PC Specs for the curious (in case you were wondering what was in there)...

- VIA EPIA 800 motherboard
- 20GB Maxtor 7200 RPM Hard Drive
- Intel PCI 56k Modem
- 2 Sticks generic 256 Meg PC133 memory
- Aopen 16x DVD
- USB Mitisumi Floppy Drive
- Wireless M$ Keyboard and mouse
- Windows 98 SE

Project kindly donated by extensiontech.net

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