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My xMac Project
- Thread starter Schtumple
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According to the EULA you can only install OS X on an Apple branded computer, it has never been taken to court to know if that would stand or not.
Can the moral judgement please be saved for another thread?
I plan on buying a copy of Leopard so apple get their £75...
It's not like I'm saying "SO TO INSTALL OSX86 YOU NEED TO BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH" that's merely a part of the whole project, I'm not going to show people how to install OSX86 on a PC, that would be promoting piracy, I'm merely showing people the case part of this project.
Anyway, rant over.
Todays progress, I filed down almost all of the wonky edges, the case fits together much better now
My dad's going to find some 1cm thick alluminuim for the front, then I have to figure out the hole size and distance, that'll be a fun day
Going to town tommorow to pick up a bunch of LED's, gunna wire them off of a internal (PCI card) usb port, actually quite excited about getting this all finished.
I plan on buying a copy of Leopard so apple get their £75...
It's not like I'm saying "SO TO INSTALL OSX86 YOU NEED TO BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH" that's merely a part of the whole project, I'm not going to show people how to install OSX86 on a PC, that would be promoting piracy, I'm merely showing people the case part of this project.
Anyway, rant over.
Todays progress, I filed down almost all of the wonky edges, the case fits together much better now
My dad's going to find some 1cm thick alluminuim for the front, then I have to figure out the hole size and distance, that'll be a fun day
Going to town tommorow to pick up a bunch of LED's, gunna wire them off of a internal (PCI card) usb port, actually quite excited about getting this all finished.
I'm not doing it by hand
my dads a precision engineer, all I have to do is draw out the dimensions on auto cad, and he can use the file in a machine that'll drill all the holes automatically And 10mm thick because it's gotta be incredibly sturdy, the front is pretty much going to keep the entire case together
You've inspired me.
Ive had an old tower in my closet for about two years, I never could think of anything to do with it, and I could never bring myself to throw it away.
Im going to look at it, and see how complicated this would be.
Maybe Ill beadblast it and paint it chrome.
Ive had an old tower in my closet for about two years, I never could think of anything to do with it, and I could never bring myself to throw it away.
Im going to look at it, and see how complicated this would be.
Maybe Ill beadblast it and paint it chrome.
How are you going go about making the grill in front? I'm also working on mod (details posted later on) and need to a mp like grill
edit: just read your other reply. nvm
edit: just read your other reply.
nvm
Thank you and I'm not painting the case, I'm going to have acrylic board put over it, the underside will be painted white, it'll look like the white imac cases.
Good good, I can tell you it isn't difficult at all, just very tedious, takes a long time to cut down the casing, and you need good tools too.
Ok, so, I've decided to use a 5-7.5mm thick piece alluminium, rather than 10mm, because of the weight issue.
I'm in the process of building a so-called xMac myself although I'm going for a more Mac Pro-esque look. The basic idea is it's going to follow the design points from the aluminium iMac, ie. Anodized aluminium side casing, black glass up on top and front with a cut for the optical drive and some sort of riser handles so I can get the box off the floor and encourage air flow.
Technically, cooling is going to be the major issue for me because, as I'm sure you're aware, aluminium and glass aren't the best materials to make computer cases out of. I'm thinking of going with a combination of liquid cooling and traditional fans to hopefully gain a running temperature of around 70-80ºC.
I'll keep you posted on how it goes.
Technically, cooling is going to be the major issue for me because, as I'm sure you're aware, aluminium and glass aren't the best materials to make computer cases out of. I'm thinking of going with a combination of liquid cooling and traditional fans to hopefully gain a running temperature of around 70-80ºC.
I'll keep you posted on how it goes.
Very interesting keep up the awesome work can't wait to see the finished product and keep us updated with plenty of pictures and specs.
Aluminium is actually quite a good material to make cases out of. If you think you'll need water cooling just to keep the machine betwwen 70 & 80c, this indicates that there is something fundamentally wrong with the design of your case. Just take a look at Lian-Li cases if you want ideas about good case design WRT airflow.
It's not the aluminium I'm particularly worried about, it's more the black glass going on the top of the case. If I'm right, the combination of an aluminium and glass top along with the fact hot air rises has the potential to cause huge cooling problems. Mind you, it's only running on a massively heatsinked-2.1GHz Sempron, 1GB RAM and a cheapo graphics card so it might not be that much of a problem.
When I manage to scrape together some funds for the aluminium and glass and start actually building the case I'll run some temperature tests to see what, if any, other work needs doing.
When I built this PC into my desk it ran at about 40-50c under no strain, 70 under full strain, and that was with MDF as the majority of the casing...
Unless you plan on having only having one fan (one exhaust and no intake), you'll be fine, yours will look far more professional than mine, make some mockups and post them in a new thread, it's nice seeing these kind of projects
See problem is, the sides have to be drilled into, the screw diameter is 1mm, so 1mm either side is wayyyyy too small, 5mm thick should be ok though, we've got some 6mm alluminium in the workshop, could use that I guess, it's a bit scratched though.
