I have a Dream...The Dreamcast SFF build!

[Ross Siggers]

And here it is, next to one of my other, real Dreamcasts;

 

 

 

 

 

Yes I know they're different colours...Dreamcasts are notorious for fading/yellowing, OKAY?!?  It's actually the real Dreamcast that's the faded one...

The 'DC-PC' could do with the lid being spaced upwards ever-so-slightly at the back, and maybe mesh over the controller ports...but I'd say the sleeper look was 100% maintained, don't you? It now lives on the shelf above the TV, runs windows 10 and is loaded up with all manner of emulators and retro PC games

 

[TheCamba]

Dude!  Sick completion of a build.  Been following this post and waiting for that final reveal.  Looks great.

 

As always, don't forget to do a final thermal testing/sound test!

 

Jk, do what ever you want.  Looks great!

[Ross Siggers]

On 11/12/2019 at 2:38 PM, TheCamba said:

Dude!  Sick completion of a build.  Been following this post and waiting for that final reveal.  Looks great.

 

As always, don't forget to do a final thermal testing/sound test!

 

Jk, do what ever you want.  Looks great!

Thanks bud! There were plenty of times where I though I'd bitten off more than I could chew, but we got there  Definitely a bit too ambitious for a first time Small form factor builder though  

 

Honestly as long as it has airflow to the CPU fan on the underside, it's manageable. It's only when the temperature gets up to 75-80* that the fans really start to get obnoxious, and the lid is off for gaming sessions anyway. Had to compromise somewhere in a case with basically sero ventilation.

[TheCamba]

On 11/14/2019 at 7:36 AM, Ross Siggers said:

Thanks bud! There were plenty of times where I though I'd bitten off more than I could chew, but we got there  Definitely a bit too ambitious for a first time Small form factor builder though  

 

Honestly as long as it has airflow to the CPU fan on the underside, it's manageable. It's only when the temperature gets up to 75-80* that the fans really start to get obnoxious, and the lid is off for gaming sessions anyway. Had to compromise somewhere in a case with basically sero ventilation.

That makes sense.

 

Still an awesome build.

[thevicparable]

Absolutely beautiful.

[Ross Siggers]

I opened up the exhaust vent a bit. By default this has really chunky slats, so I filed the backs into a V shape, might actually improve the airflow.  

 

If not, well, maybe it'll make it quieter

 

[Ross Siggers]

 

[Ross Siggers]

Little bit of tidying up today. It's windy and miserable as fuck in the UK, so I'm indoors doing diy. Been trying to sort out the mess that is the front I/O, canle lengths are ridiculous;

 

 

 

As you can see for some reason, the plastic housings were too big? I don't know why, anyway one I trimmed down to within an inch of its life, and the others I just wrapped in electrical tape. Pretty janky, and it left a whole rats nest of seperate wires at the front of the case. 

 

 

So first I used heatshrink on all the cables, so they fit straight. Could have just left it at that really! But I also had some leftover sleeving from an old fan I dismantled, so I slipped that over and used more heatshrink to hold them all together. 

 

 

 

It looks pretty official now!  I'm going to cut the cables to length at the other end of the sleeving, and glue/tuck them up inside the top half of the case, as that's where they all go to anyway(buttons, light etc) 

 

[Ross Siggers]

Update coming this weekend, potentially the penultimate one. Lots of little bits done, mostly making it more presentable and tidy internally;

 

- Tidied/tucked the front I/O wiring

- Fitted the correct colour power LED

- Cleaned up 90% of the case cuts

- Made magnetic attachment points for the lid

- Strengthened the motherboard standoffs significantly

- Sourced wire mesh to cover up the rear + CPU intake

 

Spoiler: All the legit-looking sleeving and heatshrink from the last post? Yeah I took it all off... >.>  

[Ross Siggers]

On 2/28/2020 at 1:38 PM, Ross Siggers said:

- Tidied/tucked the front I/O wiring

- Fitted the correct colour power LED

This was without doubt, the most tedious and time consuming thing I've done on the entire project...The front panel wires need to be connected BEFORE you bolt the motherboard in, so all throughout assembly, you've got the top half the case just dangling, as you try and flip and rotate the base to try and screw everything down...huge inconvenience. 

 

Originally I was just going to just sleeve the front I/O wiring, see previous post...but it wasn't flexible enough, the sleeving just couldn't handle it, not to mention it was still super long; I had to zig-zag it across the front of the case just like before.

I ended up going total overkill. I ordered a pair of fan connectors,, and proceeded to make little pigtails for the motherboard. I then rigid mounted the cable runs inside the top half the case. They're not going anywhere, they're held in with dabs of epoxy  So now, you assemble the PC with the little pigtails in place, and when you get to the end you simply plug the I/O in and close the case! All that hand crimping on the tiniest wires...holding things while the epoxy dried ack...but the end result really pleases my OCD  And I took the opportunity to solder in the correct orange led; It was tricky to see in the photos, but the led was actually red before.

 

I now have a lot of space in the front...space? In a 2.8L case???

 

 

 

 

 

[Ross Siggers]

 

On 2/28/2020 at 1:38 PM, Ross Siggers said:

- Cleaned up 90% of the case cuts

- Made magnetic attachment points for the lid

 

So this was just a lot of filing and a little dremelling. Time consuming but not massively exciting. I took out/smoothed off a few more things inside the case, and made the back opening much tidier. Straightened edges, wiped off all the marker lines etc. The one last thing I might do is actually desolder the DVI port...hmm  Once the mesh goes on it'll be mint. 

 

 

You know those thin metal sheets you stick on the back of your phone to use magnetic car mounts? I cut up one of those to get some thin metal contact patches, stuck those onto the case, and sunk some magnets into the lid. Now it actually clips on, and sits a few mm higher to boot; it was too low at the back before.

 

 

[Ross Siggers]

This attachment size limit is killing me...I didn't shrink my pictures in PS this time >.> 

On 2/28/2020 at 1:38 PM, Ross Siggers said:

- Strengthened the motherboard standoffs significantly

 

This was a something I always planned to do. The long stand-offs for the motherboard were threaded straight into the plastic, by this point after multiple re-assemblies, they were very loose and all mashed up. I have these little knurled inserts, designed to be pressed into plastic. So I enlarged the holes, heated the brass up with a soldering iron tip, and they sunk into the plastic perfectly. I'm also going to throw a washer on each one; spread load, whilst preventing flexing.

 

 

 

 

On 2/28/2020 at 1:38 PM, Ross Siggers said:

- Sourced wire mesh to cover up the rear + CPU intake

 

So I looked at buying mesh online, but it was a little expensive...I mean, £8 for a sheet? So i just bought this desk tidy that I'm going to cut up  

 

 

 

[GDRRiley]

On 2/2/2020 at 5:22 AM, Ross Siggers said:

 

 

that kinda makes me temped to make a computer in a PS2 but I don't have a broken one or the parts on hard to do it. I'd have order a mini ITX board.

 

Build looks amazing. nice work

[Ross Siggers]

27 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

that kinda makes me temped to make a computer in a PS2 but I don't have a broken one or the parts on hard to do it. I'd have order a mini ITX board.

I was all set to start that build, I had the broken PS2, I bought an AM4 ITX board... then realised it was a ridiculously tight fit, so I'm thinking of using an STX like I did here. But the build is on hold indefinitely, I have to spend my money on real life things right now... Yaaawwwnnn...

 

27 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

Build looks amazing. nice work

Cheers dude  The amount of hours put in, I'm glad the craftsmanship somewhat shows through in the end result. 

[GDRRiley]

4 minutes ago, Ross Siggers said:

I was all set to start that build, I had the broken PS2, I bought an AM4 ITX board... then realised it was a ridiculously tight fit, so I'm thinking of using an STX like I did here. But the build is on hold indefinitely, I have to spend my money on real life things right now... Yaaawwwnnn...

 

Cheers dude  The amount of hours put in, I'm glad the craftsmanship somewhat shows through in the end result. 

tight yes impossible no

oh yeah from the front I don't think anyone could tell.

[Ross Siggers]

@GDRRiley oh no, never say impossible...  But the ITX is actually the exact same width as the top section of the PS2. So it would fit, but STX boards(If you can get them) are actually slightly smaller than the narrow section of the PS2. They're roughly 2/3 the size of ITX.

 

Maintaining the sleeper look was always Priority #1, but I'm also happy the internal construction came out tidy and sturdy, nothing looks 'janky', or noticeably 'bodged'. Once I mesh up the openings, it may not look homemade at all  

 

If I was being hard on myself,  I'd have avoided ketchup and mustard cables, and I'd make new mounts for the gpu; it's offset by a tiny bit atm, meaning I can't put the shroud on. If you saw the pictures a few pages back it looks badass with it on, so that would really be the icing on the cake.

[GDRRiley]

3 minutes ago, Ross Siggers said:

@GDRRiley oh no, never say impossible...  But the ITX is actually the exact same width as the top section of the PS2. So it would fit, but STX boards(If you can get them) are actually slightly smaller than the narrow section of the PS2. They're roughly 2/3 the size of ITX.

 

Maintaining the sleeper look was always Priority #1, I'm glad the internal construction came out tidy and sturdy, nothing looks 'janky', or noticeably 'bodged'. Once I mesh up the openings, it may not look homemade at all  

 

If I was being hard on myself,  I'd have avoided ketchup and mustard cables, and I'd make new mounts for the gpu; it's offset by a tiny bit atm, meaning i can't put the shroud on

just mount the board upside down. the issues with STX is there is so few boards.

hey janky and bodged are the only way to do things in a rush.

 

I wouldn't care about the cables.

[Ross Siggers]

11 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

just mount the board upside down. the issues with STX is there is so few boards.

That's true. It's basically an Asus, an AsRock for Intel, and I believe there's an AM4 if you buy a barebines system just to get the motherboard. 

 

Problem with reverse mounting is it works better in the Dreamcast because weigh is going directly downwards onto the standoffs. In the PS2 you'd need some crazily over engineered supports because the plastic is much thinner, but the stress on the mounts is much higher because you're literally hanging the board off of them. 

[GDRRiley]

12 minutes ago, Ross Siggers said:

That's true. It's basically an Asus, an AsRock for Intel, and I believe there's an AM4 if you buy a barebines system just to get the motherboard. 

 

Problem with reverse mounting is it works better in the Dreamcast because weigh is going directly downwards onto the standoffs. In the PS2 you'd need some crazily over engineered supports because the plastic is much thinner, but the stress on the mounts is much higher because you're literally hanging the board off of them. 

gigabyte has a board or 2 I think.

I'd go with supports up from the base to hold it

[Ross Siggers]

23 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

I'd go with supports up from the base to hold it

Possible... the idea in my head was to have everything connected to the central spine and the top and bottom covers would just slip on. Seems like we've got very different ideas about packaging because supports from the bottom Wouldn't really work the way I'm looking at it.

 

I've been toying with the idea of water cooling. Yet another ambitious leap into unknown territory  

[GDRRiley]

10 hours ago, Ross Siggers said:

Possible... the idea in my head was to have everything connected to the central spine and the top and bottom covers would just slip on. Seems like we've got very different ideas about packaging because supports from the bottom Wouldn't really work the way I'm looking at it.

 

I've been toying with the idea of water cooling. Yet another ambitious leap into unknown territory  

yeah that is a fun part of modding, everyone has their own idea.

 

that would be a pain.

[Ross Siggers]

12 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

yeah that is a fun part of modding, everyone has their own idea.

For sure! As ambitious as it sounds, the cpu and gpu could both be in a loop with a only 120 or 140 rad, I've seen it done in other SFF builds with surprisingly useable results.

 

Also with the 'bottom' wall of the case being cut out for vents, that would remove the necessity of having them both oriented a certain way, to catch air coming from that side. Although you lose flexibility when it comes to add the pump and rad. I can't wait to try it though!

[GDRRiley]

11 minutes ago, Ross Siggers said:

For sure! As ambitious as it sounds, the cpu and gpu could both be in a loop with a only 120 or 140 rad, I've seen it done in other SFF builds with surprisingly useable results.

 

Also with the 'bottom' wall of the case being cut out for vents, that would remove the necessity of having them both oriented a certain way, to catch air coming from that side. Although you lose flexibility when it comes to add the pump and rad. I can't wait to try it though!

its probably better than a tiny air cooler

[Ross Siggers]

@GDRRiley yeah I've noticed the slim coolers I have on the Dreamcast work well for their size(up to 65w supposedly), but they can be erratic, twitchy almost.

 

When the cpu comes under minor stress, loading up chrome something simple, the fan ramp up is ridiculous. Even tweaking the fan curve doesn't eliminated it entirely.

 

[GDRRiley]

Just now, Ross Siggers said:

@GDRRiley yeah I've noticed the slim coolers I have on the Dreamcast work well for their size(up to 65w supposedly), but they can be erratic, twitchy almost.

 

When the cpu comes under minor stress, loading up chrome something simple, the fan ramp up is ridiculous. Even tweaking the fan curve doesn't eliminated it entirely.

 

yeah you probably need some stupid delay like apple does but bios software doesn't give you that