Paladin NES - Yet Another Nintendo PC Build

[Scott_Paladin]

I know these things have been done before and by people better at this than I, but that's a terrible reason not to do something cool. The real impetus for me was finding some digital photos of a similar build I did a decade and a half ago. (Album here) I was pretty damn proud of this thing when I was a wee boy, but looking back the overwhelming though was: I could do so much better now. Shortly afterward, the new low profile 1050 Ti was announced by MSI, and in quick succession I found ungreedy's build here on these very forums. After that, there was no hope; I was going to build my own.

 

So another guy is going to build a another PC into another Nintendo Entertainment System.

 

Let's talk hardware real quick. This isn't meant to be a monster. It's going to be small. It will hopefully be quiet. Frankly, it's going to go right into an entertainment system like the old NES was. This will be a couch gamer. Nothing crazy.

• Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-H170N-WIFI
• CPU: Intel i5-6500T
• CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-L9I
• RAM: Ballistix Sport LT 8GB DDR4 2400 (PC4 19200) x 2
• SSD: Intel 600P PCI-E 240GB
• VGA:  MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti DLP
• Fan: Fractal Design Silent R2, x 2 or 3
• PSU: 160w Pico PSU

All of this has been purchased and is already in my bin of parts. Choices here were determined as much by my constraints as anything else. I'm using a T series Intel chip in part because I'm a bit worried about heat, and in part because I found a good deal on eBay. There's a bit of thermal headroom with the cooler, but not so much on my PSU. I have a higher watt DC-DC board that I could move to if need be, but that comes with some cabling woes that I'm hoping to avoid at the moment. That SSD doesn't provide a ton of room either, but it's small form factor more than makes up for it. If I can still with the smaller PSU, than a larger 2.5" drive could be added to gain some  local storage as well.

 

The NES doner was specifically purchased as a DOA "for parts" box. I needed decent plastic, but none of the guts. The circuit board and other internals were not in working order when I acquired this unit, so I don't have any guilt about binning a working unit.

I am also, regrettably, no the most conscientious about taking a bunch of in progress photos. In fact, this post is stepping in well into the build. I'm going to post everything that's already digital, but even that's a bit behind. Anyway, let's get to the good stuff.

Spoiler

 

 

Here's an early progress shot of the lower half of the NES shell. Every bit of intrusive plastic was roughed out with a dremel and then sanded down. A later of glass mat was then resinned into place to shore up the now gaping hole in the bottom of the unit. Some more fiber was laid into the T shape channel. Having never worked with fiberglass in this manner, it was a bit of a learning experience.

 

How to make everything nice and smooth? Bondo. This filled in the T channel nicely, but I also elected to lose then sticker indentations and the plastic molded feet sections as well. I knew I was going to cut into this later for an SSD access door, and didn't want these details interfering.

 

First test fit. I knew my tolerances were going to be tight, but this was a bit of a wake up call. I had to send a couple of ideas back to the drawing board after this.

 

At least the top shell fit on. That was a huge relief. This would have been a lot of effort for nothing if that video car proved too tall.

 

There's just not much room front or back inside this shell. I knew is was going to have to get creative to fit in any IO connectors.

 

 

There's been plenty of work since this initial fit, so more to come.

[Scott_Paladin]

Not long after the first fit, I fabbed up a simple - maybe even crude - panel to hold the switches and power LED. 

Spoiler

The brass M3 standoffs were epoxied to the plastic shell, but I'm a bit worried about their integrity. The light pipe is out of the original NES, but the buttons are must lower profile. You can see that there just isn't room for anything much bigger.

 

 

[NinJake]

That's awesome... would like to see the finished product!

[Scott_Paladin]

Just now, NinJake said:

That's awesome... would like to see the finished product!

When it's done, you will!

[Scott_Paladin]

The old Nintendo system board didn't need nearly as much air as even my modest modern components do. So I'm definitely going to need some  ventilation. I could have drilled large holes and then covered them with some sort of grill, but that felt like it would make the NES look "modded". I really want to keep this thing looking like its possibly stock. Obviously I'm going to need to make changes, but I want them to be the sort of thing that "well, maybe it just like that". 

 

Spoiler

 

I started with a template.

This is just a piece of perforated galvanized steel. Good enough to put my drill bit in the right place, I hoped.

 

It just makes sense to do a test piece first. This is the expansion slot cover from the NES case. This was my proof of concept that this idea would even work. You can see some of the holes are countersunk, which was an experiment that I decided against. The simple holes looked  better.

Template attached to one side of the bottom shell. The plastic was protected with blue painters tape, then the template affixed with hot melt glue to hold it steady. The masking tape was to remind me where not to drill.

End result for the bottom shell. Pulling off the template and tape was a bit harrowing. I was really worried this wouldn't turn out. The hole drilled through the fiberglass/bondo areas are a bit soft but they look better in real life than in this photo.

 

 The same template was then carefully lined up on the top shelf and the drilling repeated. So far, I am hoping that the top shell won't require painting and this was a step where that could have gotten blown. So far, so good.

 

 

The end results are pretty satisfactory. Off camera I repeated this whole procedure on the opposite side as well. The hope is that the GPU fans can draw air in through these holes, and the exhaust fans on the other side will pull the hot air around and out.

 

I have another batch or two of photos still sitting on my camera, so hopefully another update is to follow soon.

[Scott_Paladin]

Work continues on the Paladin NES. I've been trying to find a color match for the darker grey of the case, so that it wouldn't jar with the buttons, but to no avail. I think I'm going to have to paint them to match, but that will require sourcing or making some new labels.

Spoiler

One small mod was to fill the switches. They're normally hollow which means they didn't activate the small push buttons on the new power/reset/led bracket I made.

 

A set of short jumpers were then solders to the switches and a new LED installed in the light pipe. The blobs are hot melt glue to prevent anything shorting on the back of the components. I wish I'd been a bit more careful here. The panel also required a small notch to add clearance to the 1050 Ti. I'm getting pretty close to remaking this part from scratch.

 

However, at least having a working one allowed me to get the unit up and running for some heat tests. (Forgot to get a shot of the top shell on). The corner where the video card's heat sink does get quite warm, but after a few hours of Furmark and Prime95 burn in, nothing melted yet. You can see above two of the FD fans installed. This was using a small L bracket I made. I've since take two more stabs at that and failed each time to make a proper one. I'm starting to think working with sheet metal is not my bag.

 

 

I did get the motherboard standoffs installed and a access port cut for if I ever need to get to the SSD. This will need a cover of some sort, but my recent misadventures in metalwork have me a bit gun shy on making one by hand. Exploring laser cutting or 3d printing as a solution.

 

If anybody can point me at a rattle can that's a good color match to the original dark grey of the NES, I'd appreciate it.

 

 

[Scott_Paladin]

I need a bracket to hold the 60mm fans in place. My first attempt was a small L-shaped section of aluminum sheet, but it was a bit flimsy. Attempt number 2 was larger, built for 3 fans, but I bungled it's execution something awful. So I decided to slap together something in 123D Design and send it off for a test print. Pics below:

Spoiler

This was the worse face of the print. Honestly, that finish didn't bother me in the slightest (I could have a nicer print ordered in from a slower service or go for bondo and sandpaper). I was really impressed with the local guy who did my print. The turnaround was only about 13 hours total.

 

Alas, I ran into a major clearance issue.

 

As you can hopefully see, the additional thickness of the printed part overruns the available space between the motherboard itself and the screw post that holds the two shells of the NES together. 

 

So onto attempt #4. There are a couple of options here: try hand cutting another aluminum part, redesign the 3D printed part and sacrifice a fan to allow for clearance, or maybe go looking for someone who can C&C cut a small piece of sheet for me without it costing an arm and a leg. 

[Scott_Paladin]

 

After another amazingly quick turnaround from my local 3D printer shop, I got my latest revision of the fan bracket tonight. In order to fit everything in, I had to go back down to just two fans. My initial heat tests were with two so I should still be ok. The cabling is getting pretty cramped; it might be prudent to shorten the fan cables. Anyway, onto a could of pics.

 

Spoiler

Need to drill and tap the mounting holes and do a little light sanding but that will wait for the morning.

[Scott_Paladin]

Drilled the mounting holes for the new fan bracket today and shortened some fan cables. Unfortunately, I seem to have burned the fan on my Noctua cpu cooler. I've got a cheap 92mm fan in its place, but the fucker is loud. I've already ordered a couple of replacements and maybe tinker with the old one; I think it might just be a bad wire. Now I'm waiting on some more 3D printed parts (nylon, so can't use my local guy), but I've got enough now to do the most "complete" put together and run it while I wait. 

 

[JoeCoke]

Insta follow. I absolutely LOVE stuff like this! Keep up the good work, this thing look amazing! It also is probably the best specs I've seen from a "nintendo PC".