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Constructing A Low-Power 2U Wireless Rack-Box
adelayde writes "Recently we decided to build ourselves a custom rack-mountable box that we could use as a web and DNS caching proxy and which would offer flexible wireless networking facilities and have an uniterruptible power supply. The result was a 2U rack-box with dual wireless networks built upon a low-power Via EPIA MiniITX motherboard. The box has two wireless networks built in with external antenna connectors, locking switches on the front to avoid tampering, a battery to give at least 20 mins of autonomous operation, a low wattage power supply and most importantly lots of blue LEDs :)"
1. Sell these
2. Profit
No ??? needed!
Seriously...
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
Do you actually get decent performance out of mini-itx computers?
I've been toying with the idea of making a HTPC-ish box, but the performance questions stop me from buying anything.
Looking at the pics on the page, it looks like they could have easily built the thing inside a 1U chasis of they used the proper power supply and heatsink. All of the other parts should fit within 1U.
That being said, they could have simply used an ultraportable laptop with the screen unplugged and unnecessary parts removed/disabled.
You'd be amazed as to how little there really is inside a laptop. Think about it -- the drives and batteries take up about 75% of the chasis. Leave about another 10% for the power supply and heatsinking, and you've got a REALLY small PCB.
If space, not power, was their main concern, they could have also used one of the Shuttle cube boxes. They pack an incredibly strong punch for their size, and are usually on par with their desktop equivilants. Hell... they've even got an opteron box. The performance on the EPIA boards is horrific. What were they thinking designing a processor without a FPU? That being said, they're pretty cool because they're small, low-power, and widely availible (which laptop MBs strangely aren't). Still, they're pretty expensive considering that you're getting a PC which would have been considered pretty slow 4 years ago.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Personally, I found their antenna designs much more interesting.
There has to be something special or unusual about this setup, but damn it all I can't see it.
Sure, they integrated a wireless bridge into it, but with all that room, it doesn't look like anything special... So where's the nifty part that makes this thing "News For Nerds"?
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
How fast a CPU do you really need? Years ago I popped open a 3COM Ethernet bridge/router and found a Motorola 68020, running at 25 MHz if I remember correctly. It was fast enough to handle two fully loaded 10-megabit Ethernet segments.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
"To be fair, I saw 1 intelligent post."
Too bad it wasn't yours.
I know this is going to be modded as flamebait, and I'm not trying to be insulting, but maybe instead of criticizing things, you should help improve things by posting something truly worthy of "Insightful"?
Looking at this page, and a bunch of their other pages, I think cost was their main concern. They found a 2U box for only GBP29, while the 1U box mentioned in another post by jjshoe runs GBP149. The wireless access bridge "was just laying around".
Most of their projects are of the "cheap and green" variety. They have built pedal powered repeaters, solar powered satellite receivers and the like.
I'm a bit appalled by their lack of engineering knowlege on some of their projects. But I do admire their "slap it together cheap" attitude. They are not building reliable, production level kit, they are tweaking items they found in the spare parts bin and making useful one-off projects.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
here
Debian GNU/Linux Sid
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."