CES Report - Section 12

CES Report - Section 12:
7/20/2004 to 8/6/2004

8/6/2004 - I spent today shopping online for components that would make the initial build of CES more powerfull. Around 2:30 this morning, a Google search led me to the ituner online catalog, where I found a VIA EPIA V10000A motherboard for only $185.00. This was a motherboard I was planning to upgrade after the initial completion of CES for the 2005 QuakeCon. However, because I had found it at only $185, as opposed to over $200 on Mini-ITX.com and on other sites, I was beginning to think that I could use it instead of the VIA EPIA V10000A. About two or three weeks ago, when case modder Jeffrey Stephenson responded to an e-mail question of mine, he pointed out a few weakness of the V10000A, and this influenced me to look for alternatives. The P4 came to mind, but until now, it was too expensive for my $800 budget.

> The last time I checked CES's budget, the total cost between items already purchased and items on my shopping list came out to be $696.95, giving me just over a hundred dollars to spare. If I am to go with the P4 instead of the V10000A, I will have to buy a processor separately, since the P4 does not have one soldered onto it. I'll also need a stick of PC2100 DDR RAM, as opposed to the PC133 SDRAM that the V10000A supports. Therefore, both the VIA EPIA V10000A motherboard, and the two sticks of SDRAM can come off my budget. The motherboard and RAM cost a total of $259.97, and adding the $103.05 left on my budget will give me a total of $363.02 to spend on the P4 motherboard, the DDR RAM, and the processor.

> Getting the $185 P4 motherboard leaves me with $178.02 to spend on the RAM and processor. These two components are often the most expensive in a computer system, so I knew I'd have to do some serious shopping around to stay within my $800 spending cap. I knew that Directron sold RAM, and since I was already planning to buy a bunch of items from them, I checked to see if they had any PC2100 DDR RAM modules. I found a 512MB stick of this kind of RAM for $112, which seemed a little high, but since I was buying other items on Directron, I would only have to pay shipping and handling costs one for all the items. Eventually, after more shopping around, I came across a site called Xtreme Computer Systems, which sold various types of RAM. I found a 512MB PC2100 DDR RAM module for $85.75; over $25 cheaper than the same one at Directron.

> The P4 motherboard supports Pentium and Celeron processors, and because of my tight budget, Celeron was the only way to go. Luckily, Xtreme sold processors as well as RAM, and I found two 2.4Ghz 478-pin processors; one for $80.99, and the other for $76.99. I'm planning on buying the $76.99 chip, but I'm keeping the other one bookmarked just in case the cheaper one either became unavailable or had a price increase. Because I'm buying both RAM and a processor from the same site, I'm only going to have to pay one S&H charge for both items.

> As far as how all of today's shopping around will affect my budget, here's the breakdown. Starting with a total cost of $696.95, I'm replacing my $87.99 Via Epia V10000A motherboard with a $185 Via Epia P4 ITX. This increases my budget by $97.01.

$696.95 total budget + $97.01 more spent = $793.96 total budget

> The P4 does not come with a processor of its own, and that's where the $76.99 Intel Celeron 2.4Ghz 478-pin processor comes in.

$793.96 total budget + $76.99 for 1 Intel Celeron 2.4Ghz 478-pin processor = $870.95 total budget

> This pushes me way over my $800 cap, but fortunately, the RAM comes to the rescue. There is only one DIMM slot on the P4, so this means I'm only getting one stick of RAM. The 512MB PC2100 DDR RAM module I'm getting costs $85.75, $86.23 less than the total RAM with the V10000A.

$870.95 total budget - $86.23 less spent = $784.72 total budget

Items bought so far...
2-WIRE JUMPER CABLE 2 Pin Internal 24 inches from PCCables.com - $7.00
Assorted LEDs from Radio Shack - $2.64
CES's 12" x 7" x 4" aluminum chassis materials from OnlineMetals.com - $61.00
3 6" x 7" x 1/8" lexan panels from FreckleFace.com - $12.00
2 hard drive coolers from HardwareCooling.com - $17.00
2 80mm Green Cold Cathode Fan Grills from FrozenCPU.com - $21.00
2 brass concave knobs from the Home Depot - $2.11
1 pair of middle brass hinges from the Home Depot - $3.12
2 brass roller catches from the Home Depot - $2.00
17 packs of various nuts and bolts from the Home Depot - $14.00
1 Samsung 120GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive from NewEgg.com - $90.00
1 Slim CD + 1.44M FDD Adapter from MPI Services - $29.00
Money spent so far - $260.87

Current shopping list...
1 Via Epia P4 ITX Motherboard - $185.00
1 Intel Celeron 2.4Ghz 478-pin processor - $76.99
1 512MB PC2100 DDR DIMM - $85.75
1 Samsung Slimline CDRW/DVD drive - $81.99
1 Mitsumi Slimline Floppy drive - $26.99
1 Directron Tri-Lighted 40mm Case Fan - $9.99
1 PW-60A external power supply - $49.95
1 Bart Simpson Case Badge - $0.01
UPS Ground Residential shipping for Directron items - $7.18
Money left to spend - $523.85

Total cost of CES - $784.72

> This puts me very close to my project's spending limit, with only a $15+ dollar cushion for shipping and handling. I've already calculated this charge for the Directron items, and it looks like I'm going to need two more; one for Xtreme Computer Systems, and the other for ituner. Assuming the charges for each site is less than $7.50, and assuming none of the items in the budget go up in price, I should finish this project just below the budget's limit. If I have any problems with the budget, I can always take the $9.99 40mm 3-LED fan out of the picture to save money. Speaking of which, I don't know what kind of fan the Celeron chip will come with, if it comes with one at all. If it does come with a fan, it sure as hell won't have LEDs. But I can always get an LED fan of the appropriate size from Directron for less than ten bucks.

> Going through with this upgrade will come at a cost other than the extra cash that needs to be spent. With $15.28 left on the budget, I no longer have the cash to upgrade my Samsung Slimline CDRW/DVD drive to a DVD burner. However, I think the sacrifice is well worth it, since the motherboard upgrade will more than double CES's processing power. It will also have a TV-out connector, which will allow me to hook up CES to a TV and give it a true gaming console feel. Just before the 2005 QuakeCon, I will spend an additional $400 on upgrades, and I can use that opportunity to buy a DVD burner, a more powerful Celeron processor, a 1GB stick of RAM, or some combination of the three.

7-29-2004> This afternoon, I began the restoration process of the flames on CES's left panel. I began by restoring the black background, and in the process, my black Sharpie died on me, so I had to grab a new one from upsairs. Once the background was a solid black, I moved on to the dark green areas. I fixed the outline of the right fireball, and as was doing the same for the left fireball, I noticed that a pixel that should have been dark green on the right fireball was light green. It had been like this ever since I first painted on the flames back in January, but I never noticed until today. After I fixed the parimeter of the left fireball, I re-colored the errant pixel to its proper color. After the dark green was restored, I fixed few faded pixels of the light green areas. I then went on to fix up the background of the letters a little bit with my black and green Microns. I am now letting the panel dry, which should only take another half hour or so.

> The left panel has dried, and so I wrapped it up and put it back in the Puma shoebox, along with the right panel and the four completed 4" angle irons. The paintjobs of both side panels and all four 4" beams may be completed, but I'm not celebrating just yet. It's not over until I can find the ideal coating that will protect the paintjobs from any threats that they could reasonabley face, such as a sharp object bushing against the side, or a spilled drink. The coating will also have to be clear, not ruin the image on application, and never yellow with age. Only after the coating is on will the paintjob phase of the CES project that I've been working on for the past two months finally come to a close. Next month's task will be bolting the chassis together, and if I ruin the panels or beams that I've worked so hard on in the process, then my several sleepless nights of working on them will become meaningless.

7/28/2004 - It's 5PM, and I'm almost finished applying the white to my side panels, which I started working on around nine this morning. I used the same Scotch tape method I used on the white pixels of the angle irons. I covered the white flame centers of the left panel with Scotch tape, scored the parimeter of the white pixels with my X-Acto knife, peeled off the tape over the white pixels with the X-Acto knife and the round-tipped tweezers. Then I followed the same process with the right panel, and then applied the Wite-Out to the white pixels of both panels. I peeled off the remaining tape on the right panel without a problem, but when I did the same with the left panel, some of the Wite-Out came off with it, resulting in holes in the white pixels. I'll have to fix it, but I'm currently babysitting my nephews, so it will have to wait until later.

> This evening, I began to fix the left panel's white flame pixels. There were three tiny primary areas with missing Wite-Out, and I fixed them one at a time. I had to use tape on two of the areas, but I managed to fix the holes without too much of a problem. After this, I didn't have to use the Scotch tape anymore, and every time I had removed a piece of tape from the panels, I placed it at the edge of the baby high chair immediately to my right. I made one hell of a mess doing so, so I'll have to clean that up before I go to bed.

> I also had a chance to apply a second coat of Sharpie ink on the flames of the right panel. Months of handling and the protective tape for the filling of the white pixels resulted in the flames being partially scratched off and faded, and so I felt restoring the flames by redrawing the pixels was a good idea. I fixed first the black pixels, and then the dark green, each color taking me about an hour to restore. I basically drew the outlines of a small section first, filled in the appropriate pixels, and then moved on to another area. I did restore some of the light green as well, but that color wasn't as scratched or faded, so I only had to draw over some of the areas. I waited an hour or two for the ink to dry, which was more than it needed, and then wrapped the panel in its plastic wrap and paper towel. Tomorrow, I will work on the other panel, and if I don't find a better protective coating than the nail polish, I may start applying the protective coating tomorrow as well.

7/27/2004 - I drew a test pattern on my second top hatch scrap aluminum sheet. It was just a simple pattern of horizontal black, green, and yellow stripes; nothing too fancy. I then put a coat of nail polish over the pattern, but I put it on before the pattern fully dried, resulting in a little bit of smudging. I waited about a half hour before putting on a second coat, and then let that dry for nearly an hour. I then tried to scrape the pattern off with my fingernail, and it did indeed scrape off, but it took a little more force than it did with the acrylic. Although this seems like a failure, I'm willing to give the polish another chance. I drew an even simpler pattern on the panel; a smiley face. But this time, I'm going to wait until it fully dries before applying the first coat of polish.

> Jeffrey Stephenson got back to me this morning, and he confirmed that the VIA V10000A motherboard does in fact use a 40mm fan. However, he did address some concerns about the motherboard that got me a little worried. He said that the V10000A only supported 8MB of video RAM and that it does not support USB 2.0, only USB 1.0, but these are issues that I can live with. However, he said that the motherboard does not have a video out connector, and this got me a little worried. I checked Via's official site, and it did say that there is one S-Video port on the back panel, but I'm not sure if this is in or out. My plan is still to buy the V10000A, although I am shopping around a little more now for alternatives, mainly the Insight P4 ITX Motherboard.

> I came back down to the kitchen sometime after 8:30AM, and the Koopa Troopa angle iron was FINALLY dry. However, there where tiny specks of Wite-Out on some of the green areas. I used a toothpick to scrape them off, and fortunately, I didn't scrape off to much green in the process, so I don't have to fix it by putting more ink on it. I put one more coat of yellow on the Fire Flower beam, but that sould dry soon. Just to be safe, I'm going to wait another half hour before taking both beams off the table.

> It seems that I was once again mistaken about the Koopa Troopa beam being dry. It's just after ten in the morning, and incredably, the beam is still slightly damp. However, I think it's dry enough to take of the table, but I'm going to wait a while longer before wrapping it with anything. I think another six hours should do the trick.

> Throughout the morning, I applied two coats of nail polish to the test smiley on my test panel, and allowed them to dry. But this time around, I made sure that the first coat was fully dry before applying the second. Just now, I tested the polish to see how well two layers could stand up to scratching off. I used my fingernail to scratch at some of the Chartpak acrylic that was still on the panel. It scraped off very easily, and so I tried doing the same to the nail polish. It took a lot more force to remove the polish, and it seemed to stick a lot better to the surface. However, I'm still not ready to use nail polish on my beams and angles. I'm still going to consider other alternative coatings, but if I had to choose between using acrylic or nail polish for protection, I would definately choose the polish.

> Just now, I tried an experiment to see how a coat of nail polish over a coat of acrylic would protect my gridded test pattern. I put some polish over the left side of the pattern, but used a little too much polish. When I wiped the brush over the pattern, the pattern became badly distorted, even under the acrylic coat. So using this acrylic / nail polish combination is clearly not a good choice for my work.

> I started to apply the yellow ink to the Coins and Mario angle irons this morning. I began with the Coins beam, taping it to the table's edge on the left side of my chair. After drawing the outlines of the yellow areas of the two coins, I filled them in to completely finish all the colors of the Coins angle iron. I then taped the Mario beam right next to the Coins, just right of it. I then used the yellow Pigma Micron to fill in the front of Mario's hat, draw the outline of the face, fill the single pixel buttons, draw the outline of the hands, fill in the face, and then fill in the hands. This completed all of the colors of the Mario angle iron. After all the colors were applied to Mario and Coins, I then began applying a second coat to the beams. I started with the green Micron, restoring first the green of the Coins block, and then the greens of the Mario block. I'm going to let the beams dry a bit before moving on the next color.

> I restored the black background of the Coins and Mario beams, but I didn't fill in every square. I found that only redrawing the lightest areas and where the pencil showed through was sufficient, and used up a lot less ink. This will hopefully be the last time I make any major use of the black Micron for the rest of the project. After taking a break and letting the beams sit for a while, I came back and restored the brown areas of the Mario beam, which were the eyes, hair, mustache, shirt, and boots. Finally, I finished the restoration of the Mario beam by re-inking the red areas, which were the hat and overalls. Because I haven't inked the Coins beam in a while, I can remove it from the table while the Mario beam can stay to finish drying.

> Just after 5:30PM, I tested my Mario angle iron to see if it was dry yet. Some of the red was still a little wet, but I still felt that it was dry enough to remove from the table's edge. I then cleaned up the table, and the baby high chair I was using for extra temporary storage space. I took my stuff back upstairs, and carried the four angle irons with great care, so the inked surfaces didn't touch anything. I will let them rest on my desk overnight unwrapped to give them at least twelve more hours to dry, just to make absolutely sure. I think I'll take the rest of the day off, and work on getting the Wite-Out on the side panel flames tomorrow.

7/26/2004 - Last night, I applied the Wite-Out to the white areas of my Koopa Troopa angle iron. I was going to go to bed right after that, and fix the faded colors when I was fully rested, but I decided to take a chance with restoring one color first. This way, the ink of that color could dry as I slept, and I could then start on the next color as soon as I got back to the kitchen. Even though I was falling asleep, I still managed to restore the green areas of the beam without any problems.

> It's after five in the morning, and I filled in the black spaces around the Koopa Troopa. This result is a slightly higher contrast between the turtle and the background. Some of the smaller areas were tricky, because they had another color directly on either side of them. I suppose I could have redone the black areas of the bricks as well, but I didn't want to push my luck. I'm going to grab myself another slice of pizza while the black ink dries.

> It appears that I had the nerve to fill in the black parts of the bricks after all. I still didn't have the balls to restore every nook and cranny of the black areas, so I only focused on the most faded spots. I also drew over the big black space at the bottom of the anlge iron, because the penciled grid was showing through. After I'm sure that the new black ink has dried, I will then start restoring the orange areas.

> It's just after eight in the morning, and I decided to start working on the orange. Soon after I started, I began to notice that some of the green ink wasn't dry yet, and started bleeding into the orange squares. So I'm going to wait a few more hours before trying to further fix the bleeding green. When I get back, I plan to scrape off this errant green, and try filling in the orange again.

> Just before 10PM, I finished fixing the errant green ink that leaked over to the orange squares of the Koopa Troopa angle iron. It was simply a matter of scraping off the green that invaded the orange squares with a toothpick, and then drawing over the erasurer with orange. Fortunately, the green ink was now dry enough to work without causing any further bleeding. In addition to fixing the orange, I also restored the green areas of the brick block. Once all the dries and I put the angle iron away, it will be the first beam to be completely finished, sans the protective coating. I'll be sure to put it in a safe place so that nothing bad happens to it until I can get the coating on.

> I was going to wait until the Koopa Troopa beam fully dried before removing it and taping the Fire Flower beam in its place, but instead chose to tape the FF beam next to the KT beam. My plan was to use the same Scotch tape strategy to get the white outer rim of the flower on the Fire Flower angle iron, using Wite-Out as my ink. Once the beam was securely taped to the table, I covered the oval part of the flower with a single, horizontal piece of tape. I scored both the outer and inner edges of the tape over the white area, and then removed the white section of tape. I then filled in the exposed oval with the Wite-Out, and the paintjob turned out OK, except for a slight leak on the right edge, and a little bit of bumpiness on the bottom edge. Once the Wite-Out was in place, I waited for it to dry a little, and then removed the rest of the tape; first the part outside of the white area, and then the tape filling the oval that covered the orange, inner-most part of the flower. Finally, I restored the orange part of the flower with a new coat of Micron ink. I'm going to leave both angle irons on the table while I run out to the mall to get my hair cut.

> Some guys arrived at our house to change our basement freezer, buying me some time to purge the camera's pictures for the sixth time this month. I also took some time to fix the pixel on the far right edge of my Fire Flower angle iron, onto which the Wite-Out got under the tape and leaked. It was a simple matter of scratching out the pixel with a toothpick, and then drawing the black over it. In fact, I had time to put a second coat of black over all of the beam's black areas.

> I got back from Paramus Park mall a little after four this afternoon, but stopped at Pearl Paint on the way home. While there, I found that some yellow Pigma Micron 05 markers were in stock, so I bought one for only $2.05, thanks to my old Bergen Community College student ID card. I also talked to some of the people there about a better alternative to the acrylic I've been using, but the advice they gave me troubled me. It seems that the best thing that I can use to protect my side panels and angle irons is some kind of coating that is meant to protect the metal on cars. It consists of certain chemicals that you have to mix yourself, and you have to know which ones to put into the formula. Not only that, but the chemicals are very expensive, the Pearl guys said the stuff would cost about $50 to $60 a quart! So right now, I'm at a loss as to what kind of protection to give my hard work.

> I did a bit more work on the Fire Flower angle iron. I filled in the yellow part of the beam, which was the middle section of the flower's oval, between the outer white and the inner orange. Fortunately, I did not have any problems with it. I then restored all the green on the beam; first the flower's stem, and then the used "?" block. I then used a toothpick to test the green on the Koopa Troopa block to see if it had dried. To my surprise, it was still wet, even after TEN FUCKING HOURS of sitting! I suppose I'm just going to have to wait even longer before taking the Fire Flower and Koopa Troopa off the edge of the table. After that, I will have enough elbow room to put the Coins and Mario beams on the table's edge on the other side of the chair. In the meantime, I think a short break would do me some good.

> It's after 11PM now, and the green ink on the Koopa Troopa beam is STILL not dry. I tested this by wadding up a small section of the green plastic protective wrap for the beams, and touching it gently to the turtle's shell. I then touched the wad to my thumb. A trace amount of ink ended up on my thumb, so I knew the ink was still wet. But the dark areas are disappearing, so I guess that this ink is almost dry.

> I was talking to my mother about alternatives to the acrylic coating I've been trying on my test panels. She suggested some kind of enamal, when she all of a sudden thought of nail polish. Nail polish should be relitively inexpensive, and provides excellent protection for fingernails. It does not rub or scratch off easily, and some of it is clear. However, I don't know if it will yellow in the long run. I scratched a large section of the acrylic off my second test panel with my fingernail, including a section with some horizontal lines. I will draw a small pattern on the lines, and then test some nail polish on that pattern.

7/25/2004 - This morning, I was trying to get a better idea of how the slimline drive mounting rack would fit into CES's chassis. My bottom panel is twelve inches wide, but 17cm, or 6.75" of the width will be eaten up by the motherboard. I measured the width of the mounting rack, which turned out to be 5.75". The remaining 5.25" on the bottom panel didn't seem like enough space to acccomidate the rack, but I had an idea to make it fit. My plan for mounting the drives into CES is to first attach four mounting spacers onto the bottom panel. These spacers will be two inch-long tubes that are bolted onto the bottom panel at one end, and bolted to four mounting screw holes on the other end. I was going to use four straight spacers, but the two spacers on the left side would have run into the right edge of the motherboard. To fix this, I now plan to use two straight spacers on the right side of the mounting rack, and two S-shaped spacers on the left. This way, the left spacers will be closer on the bottom to the right spacers, and miss the motherboard by millimeters. As for the hard drive, it will be bolted to the drive cooler, which itself will be bolted to the bottom panel. I found that even though the spacers will be closer together, there will still be plenty of room for the hard drive to fit between them and under the mounting rack.

> This evening, I decided to give my white Pen-touch pen one last chance to prove it was worth at least SOMETHING to me. I tried the same Scotch tape method I used on the left panel's down arrow once again, but this time on the angle irons. I began with the Koopa Troopa angle iron, because it had three white parts, as opposed to the Fire Flower beam, which had only the one oval-shaped white part. This way, I could start with the harder angle iron, and then move on to the easier one. Before I began, I tested the tape to see how much Micron ink would come off when I eventually removed the tape. Only some of the ink came off, so I decided it was safe to proceed.

> I put two pieces of tape over the Koopa Troopa vertically and slightly overlapping each other, and then I taped the beam to the table with five pieces of tape. I used my X-Acto knife to score three pixel shell highlight, and then the eye. The edge of the bottom of one of the pieces of tape clipped the bottom of the white shell edge, so I added a third, shorter piece of tape, this time oriented horizontally. I then scored the shell's edge. When all of the edge of the white areas were scored, I used the tip of the blade and a pair of round-tipped tweezers to remove the tape over the white areas, but I ended scratching the aluminum in the process. But I figured that the scratches would be covered up by the white pen's ink.

> I began to apply the white ink on the eye, but the pen seemed to be leaking under the tape. I stopped using the pen immediately and then switched to Plan B. I used the Wite-Out to finish the job, filling in all the white areas. Fortunately, the Wite-Out did not appear to leak under the tape. I then removed the tape from the beam, but removing all three pieces proved to be tricky. It was tough to get under the tape without causing any further scratching, and when I did get some tape off, it tore off into smaller pieces. This meant that I needed several tries to get all of the tape off. After the tape was gone, I could see that the leak from the pen wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, and I figured I could fix it easily. However, I had another problem. When I removed the tape, it took some of the Micron ink with it, giving the turtle's shell a more faded look. This will be a little more tricky to fix.

> I then noticed that I missed the top-most pixel on the eye, and the corner pixel on the shell's highlight. I put a tiny piece of tape over each of these two areas, cut out the tape over the missed pixels, and filled them in with the Wite-Out. There were still a few tiny areas that needed some white, so I touched a toothpick to the Wite-Out brush, and used it to fill in those areas. It's just after 8PM, and I'm feeling a little tired now. So I'm going to leave the beam on the table, clean up the kitchen a bit, and get some sleep. I'll trust myself a lot more with those Microns once I'm fully rested.

7/23/2004 - A little after 4:30AM today, I began testing the double coat of Chartpak clear gloss spray on my second test panel. First, I tested to see how well the coating protected the Sharpie and Pigma Micron pattern from rubbing off. I rubbed the eraser hard over a few of the guiding lines, but the coating held. When I rubbed the eraser against the checkerboard pattern, one of the red squares began to rub off. Apparantly, that part of the panel was not smooth as I was applying the coating. Sensing the Chartpak coating may not be ideal for CES, I then tested the coating's ability to resist scratching. I rubbed a smooth part of the panel with my fingernail, and the coating scratched off very easily. I then rubbed the eraser over where the coating was peeling off, and this further shredded the coating, but oddly enough, the line under it only partially faded. I then scratched at the checkerboard pattern with my fingernail, causing some of it to come off without much resistance. I knew right then and there that the Chartpak clear gloss spray was a failure, at least for CES. I don't know what kind of coating to use on my panels now; I may end up taking Mishra's advice and using clear tape as my protection, but only as a last resort.

> Throughout the morning hours until around 8:30, I was working on two e-mails that will hopefully generate responses that will be helpful towards my project. After running a certain Google search, I came upon a site called finishing.com that speciallizes in applying finishing coats to metal surfaces. I found a message board, and asked about an alternative coating to my side panels and angle irons. If anyone replies to my post, I hope I finally can find the perfect coating to protect my paintjobs.

> I also e-mailed Jeffrey Stephenson, the builder of the Humidor series of small case mods, which look like small wooden boxes. I asked him about the size of the fan built into the Via Epia V10000A series of motherboards. I was forced to do this, because Via's website did not reveal the size of the fan on this particular type of motherboard. If it turns out to be 40 x 40 millimeters, I can then order an LED fan of the size. A few months back, I was searching Google for a better 40mm fan than the three LED case fan on Directron, when I came across a six LED fan on a Canadian online store called ADPmods. Two of the fan's LEDs are red, two green, and two blue, and they flash in a particular pattern. The unit costs $15.95 in Canadian dollars, but that's about twelve American dollars. However, I will keep Directron's three LED fan on the budget until I buy the ADPmods fan, so I can always know exactly how much I'm spending.

7/22/2004 - Just after midnight, I opened the box containing my slimline drive mounting rack. The package contained a two-piece rack; one small piece to mount a slimline floppy and a slimline CD drive, and the other, bigger piece to make the smaller one fit snugly into a 5 1/2" bay. The smaller piece was meant to fit inside the bigger rack, and lock into place. There were also two faceplates, one biege, and the other black. My front panel is black, and the black faceplate would give it a more integrated look. But I'm going to use the biege plate to give my front panel some contrast. There were also a whole bunch of different kinds of screws.

> The package also came with something I did not expect; a slimline to IDE/FDD adapter. This is an integrated adapter that will make both a slimline floppy drive and CD drive work with a standard motherboard. As I said, I didn't think such an adapter would be included, which is why I put a slimline FDD adapter and a slimline CD to IDE adapter, each costing $9.99, on the budget. But since I no longer need the separate adapters, I can now take them and $19.98 off of the budget.

$716.93 total budget - $19.98 for two adapters = $696.95 total budget

> I only paid $29 for this mounting rack at MPI Services including shipping and handling, and saved myself a bunch of money by not buying the exact same thing at MyCableShop.com, who sold it for $58 not incliding S&H. This is just one of many times that I found something online in which I thought the price was a little high, but then decided to do a little more shopping around. I was mere hours away from ordering the rack at MCS, when a last minute Google search led me to MPI, allowing me to pay a third of the price for the EXACT same item.

Items bought so far...
2-WIRE JUMPER CABLE 2 Pin Internal 24 inches from PCCables.com - $7.00
Assorted LEDs from Radio Shack - $2.64
CES's 12" x 7" x 4" aluminum chassis materials from OnlineMetals.com - $61.00
3 6" x 7" x 1/8" lexan panels from FreckleFace.com - $12.00
2 hard drive coolers from HardwareCooling.com - $17.00
2 80mm Green Cold Cathode Fan Grills from FrozenCPU.com - $21.00
2 brass concave knobs from the Home Depot - $2.11
1 pair of middle brass hinges from the Home Depot - $3.12
2 brass roller catches from the Home Depot - $2.00
17 packs of various nuts and bolts from the Home Depot - $14.00
1 Samsung 120GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive from NewEgg.com - $90.00
1 Slim CD + 1.44M FDD Adapter from MPI Services - $29.00
Money spent so far - $260.87

Current shopping list...
1 VIA EPIA V10000A 1Ghz Motherboard - $87.99
2 512MB PC133 SDRAM DIMM - $171.98
1 Samsung Slimline CDRW/DVD drive - $81.99
1 Mitsumi Slimline Floppy drive - $26.99
1 Directron Tri-Lighted 40mm Case Fan - $9.99
1 PW-60A external power supply - $49.95
1 Bart Simpson Case Badge - $0.01
UPS Ground Residential shipping for Directron items - $7.18
Money left to spend - $436.08

Total cost of CES - $696.95

> I tried to slide my broken slimline CD drive into the larger part of the bay, but it wouldn't fit into place. It was then when I noticed a piece of the smaller part of the bay was sticking up in front of the larger bay hole, appearantly blocking it. Also, the part of the adapter that was supposed to fit into the back of the CD drive was appearantly the wrong kind. However, when I went to Directron.com to take a look at the Samsung DVD drive I'm getting, the connector looked the same as the one at the back of the adapter. The broken drive I have is a slotload drive, but wouldn't fit into the bay, and had the wrong connector. But since the Samsung drive has the right connector, and does not appear to be a slotload drive, I'm guessing it will fit into the bay.

> When I picked up the assembled rack, I found it to be a lot heavier than I was expecting it to be. So I went upstairs to get my mother's postal scale, and tried to weigh the rack. This wasn't as easy as it normally is, because the rack kept slipping off the scale. So I separated the two pieces, and weighed them separately. The smaller part of the rack weighed about three and a half ounces, while the larger part was reading off the scale. For now, I will assume that the larger piece weighs five ounces and a half ounces, so this adds up to a total of nine ounces. CES's weight is 8 lbs, 15 ounces the last time I checked, but the last time I factored the drives into the equation, I assumed that the slim floppy drive plus the rack would weigh about the same as a standard floppy drive. However, the rack itself and a standard floppy drive weigh about the same. All I have to do to get a good estimate on CES's current weight is to add the weight of a slimline floppy to the total, but I don't know how much one weighs. Just now, I used the postal scale to weigh my broken slim CD drive for comparison purposes, and the result was way past the four ounce limit. A slim floppy drive is a lot smaller than a slim CD drive, and so I will assume that a slim floppy drive weighs exactly five ounces, just to play it safe. This brings CES's current weight to 9lbs, 4 ounces. Once I apply the finishing coat to my 4" angle irons and side panels, I will have all the parts weighed again to get a more accurate official weight.