Hardwoodware

hamster writes: "Chris Pauli took computer case customizations to a new high: an oak cube. Looks like a lot of work!" I believe this is what happened to Flay's cutting board after he threw it away.

Comments

Re:Why haven't others used wood?

[Phroggy]

Apple has been making plastic cases for years. Standard metal PC cases are designed to shield EM radiation, as someone pointed out. With beige Macs, Apple lined the inside of the case with metal shielding. The original iMac also had metal shielding inside - you can see it through the plastic. With the newer iMacs (introduced in '99 I believe), Apple found a way to integrate EM shielding into the plastic - I have no idea how.

It seems to me that a wood case would have to have the same kind of shielding as a plastic case, and borrowing some ideas from Apple's beige Macs would probably be worth looking into.

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Who cares?

[VValdo]

I mean seriously. How many times is a "crazy case" a story?

once?

twice?

three times?

four times?

five times?

six times?

or do you want the palm pilot version?

I mean, yeah. You can make cases out of cool stuff. I guess the reason I'm pissed is cuz people are submitting real important items and they're getting rejected.

W
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I build my computer into the wall :)

[abelsson]

See http://abelsson.com/tystdator . Comments are in swedish, but it's the pictures that are interesting in any case.

It works extremely well. Best part is that my box is *completely* quiet. It's like having a fanless box. I've almost started to get annoyed by the noise my monitor makes. :)

It looks pretty cool too.

-henrik

Look at Apple hacks

[mr100percent]

I like the creative ideas Mac users come up with, they're far more interesting.

*Yawn* A wood case sounds like filler, I've seen far better wood cases on /. before

Interesting,

[loraksus]

It's 1 am pst, 3 am est, so I can't really bitch about the quality of this story.

It's cool, but I wonder about "heat" issues. Warm air blowing through something tends to dry it out pretty well.
Nevertheless, a very cool mod.

Equally cool mod done to the virgin webplayer. Go forth and slashdot him. Someone please post a mirror.

He wants to solar power this too.

http://www.unternet.org/~frank/projects/webplaye r/ ruggedized/

Some specs:

- sheet metal case (used to be part of an army 2-stroke fuel pack)
- 6 mm polycarbonate ('lexan') 'screen'
- aluminium chassis, doubling as processor cooler
- 2 * IBM Travelstar 20GB drives
- internal 12V->5V converter based on Max724
- external interfaces: USB, power, audio, modem
- IR keyboard
- DOC as 'emergency backup OS', it contains a small GNU/Linux installation.

I might choose to leave out the DOC and the modem, and go for an external USB modem instead. Anyone know a good place in Vancouver to buy stuff like that? I only need the modem when I find myself in the vicinity of a telephone, so I can put some imagery on the website I'll make for the trip.

It will be hosting a webcam which will snap a picture every X seconds and record 'interesting' sound events (hence the two drives, the trip will take about 2.5 months so I need quite a lot of disk space). It runs a slightly modified Debian GNU/Linux 'testing' distribution (currently using the 2.4.4 kernel with some USB patches). Agressive use of APM keeps power consumption down (eg. screen blank after 2 minute, I won't need the screen anyway most of the time. The camera will be mounted on a headband, or just attached to the canoe somewhere, and merrily document the whole trip.

The slashdot 2 minute between postings limit:
Pissing off hyper caffeineated /.'ers since Spring 2001.

Some ideas to improve the case

[NewbieSpaz]

I thought the idea was kind of interesting.
Since he had such nice wood, it might have been better to conceal the drives within, and use one of the solid pieces of oak on a hinge for the front piece. Think of how a small fridge or, in this case, a cabinet opens.
One other thought is more vents. He could have easily made a few slats to allow more cooling, and probably thrown in a couple more fans while he was at it. All in all nice. After all, I don't have an oak PC case.

Wood... ho hum. What about stone?

[aussersterne]

I've seen about a hundred each wood and clear acrylic cases on various sites. Nothing new, and nothing that great, IMHO.

On the other hand, I'd kill (or pay $$$) for a STONE case. Any kind. Black marble or onyx or maybe granite or even just reinforced concrete. Something very heavy, very primitive and very ageless-looking. No LEDs showing, hidable drive bays... So that most of the time, it's just a stone cube, sitting in the corner, being heavy.

Oh, the romance...

"Branding" his case

[Afreet1]

I think that he should have had "This case was slashdotted" burned into the side of the case. It would make a nice finishing touch.

On an unrelated note, Flay still managed to annoy Morimoto even after he removed the cutting board.

Some little physics...

[Alpha Zulu]

He does state that "Temperatures are a bit higher then they were in my [other case]".

So I thought I'd go into it. Since its 1:30am, and heck, its not like I really need the sleep. =)

(1) I noticed that on this Oak case, I didn't see and vents of the sort. Just an extra fan. Vents are good.
(2)There is a reason that cases are metal. Besides the obvious fact that its easy to produce and its cheaper. This being that the Thermal conductivity of Aluminum is 240 W/(m*Celcius), but for Oak, this is sooo much less, ranking in at just 0.15 W/(m*Celsius).

Conduction of heat through a material is = (Thermal Conductivity)*(Cross sectional Area)*(Change in temp between the outside and the inside of the box)*(time) / (width of the wood)

So one can see that having a larger value of Thermal Conductivity allows alot more heat to transfer through. And visa versa for a smaller.

Case in point, a metal case will allow alot more heat to flow through it than a wooden case.

Hey!!! We should build houses from Wood!!! Ummm, oh ya...nevermind. =)

Get out the sticky backed plastic

[Zeinfeld]

Brits will understand the reference. The case looks awful, if the guy was going to use wood screws he could have at least counter sunk them and stuck some infill plugs over them - it could have looked pretty good if he choose something like ebony for the plugs, but oak would have served.

Much better would be to do the job properly and use a dovetail joint.

I know the guy is living off welfare and had to save up for the case by collecting empty bottles and selling a kidney but I don't see why the result should be held up as an example to the rest of us. If we are going to have designer cases they should look better than standard ones. That case looks worse than the average homebrew of the 70s.

If we are going to do non-standard case stories lets at least see pretty ones.

A little fable about computer cases...

[President of The US]

Once upon a time there were three little programmers. Each set about to make a case for their computer to live in, so that all their important open source software (or was that free software? I forget, never mind) would have a safe home. The first little programmer made his computer case from straw.

But when Mr. Badday.mpg threw a temper tantrum in the next cube, he huffed and he puffed and came over and kicked the little programmer's computer, and the straw case crumbled and the little programmer's work was all lost - oh, no! And Mr. Badday.mpg was moved to another cube by a sweet little HR princess. And this cube was farther away from the boss who didn't like to hear temper tantrums, but right next to the second little programmer.

The next little programmer was a little smarter. In addition to not using goto's every ten lines in his code, he built his computer case out of wood. But when the Mr Badday.mpg threw another, bigger temper tantrum in his new cube, he huffed and he puffed and he came next door and picked up the little programmer's wood-case computer and smashed it against the wall. Oh no, oh no! There was a hole in the drywall and the computer was ruined! And the little programmer had to download all his Britney Spears mp3's again! And Mr Badday.mpg was moved to another floor, so that his rage could be ignored by management. Of course, he wound up next to our third programmer.

Now, this little programmer was smarter than all the rest. He built his computer case out of bricks (he was a big fan of the song "Brick House" by the Commodores; also "Word Up" by Cameo, but I digress). Oh, his computer case was a strong one! And when Mr. Badday.mpg blew not one, not two, but three full gaskets one Monday morning (sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays!), he came over to the third little programmer's cube because he had destroyed his own PC but had lots of nasty old rage left in him. He kicked and kicked the brick PC, but it didn't budge. He took his keyboard and smashed it on the brick PC, all the while the little programmer's work was safe. So Mr. Badday.mpg bent over and grasped the brick PC, but when he tried to lift it, he threw out his back and had to go on workman's comp.

Epilogue:
The brick PC was safe after its beating, and the third little programmer finished his open-source Linux DVD player, but then Big Bad Mr. Jack Valenti had the Army Corps of Engineers dynamite the brick PC. Sorry, that's how these things end up. In real life, the wolf always wins.
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I have had an awful glimpse of the future.

[No Tears In The End]

If these things ever take off in terms of popularity, every time someone's fan dies there will be a smoldering box of wood ash, molten plastic, and copper lying in an office building, den or bedroom somewhere.

Insurance companies will HATE these things.

"Before we can insure you Mr. Goldstein, I have a few questions. Do you use tobacco? No. Good. Do you have any of those silly flamable wooden computers? Ok, then you monthly premium is...DAMN, I pay this much per year, um,,,"