• iMac rev.a 233 mHz
  • 80 GB 5400 RPM HD
  • 160 MB RAM
  • Mac OSX 10.3.5
  • wooden box
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Concept:
I picked up this old iMac as-is from my local community college for $25. It had no RAM or Hard Drive. I put in some extra RAM I had and bought a cheap 80GB HD. It worked fine. I had plans to put it into some sort of a 1U rackmount kit, but never got around to it. I wanted to use the iMac shell to make into an aquarium, so a few weeks ago I started looking around for what to use as a new case for my headless iMac. While in Fred Meyer I noticed in their home decor section that they had a fun assortment of decorative boxes. I measured the inside of the one you see above, and it was 10 inches square. The iMac motherboard is about 9.5". A perfect fit.

I've never done a case mod before, or anything like it, so this was a new experience. I did a lot of research online, and conceptually the project didn't seem too hard, so I went ahead.

Getting Started:
Taking the iMac apart was pretty straight-forward. I thought I could use the old iMac power supply, but that thing is huge (larger than the motherboard). So I started looking online for info about how to use an ATX power supply. I found a few sites that had all the info I needed. (links included below) I shopped around for the parts I would need. I had ideas about having fans and lights inside of the box to keep it cool, and make it glow blue. I found most of what I needed at Hard Drives Northwest in Bellevue, WA. I bought a used mini ATX 180W power supply, and an ATX 20 pin extension cable. I cut the extension cable in half, as well as the iMac's power supply cable. The iMac motherboard uses an entirely different type of plug and pin layout than the ATX, so I had to do a bit of soldering work to get the cables to match. Making the cable to connect the ATX power supply to the iMac was the most difficult part of the whole project. I wanted to use the iMac's original power button and place it on the front of the box, but it was all wired through the monitor's main board and the old power supply, so I didn't bother. I ended up getting some flip switches from Radio Shack and creating a sort of control panel inside the lid. Now I like that better anyways.

Once I completed the cable I spread out all the iMac parts across my floor and connected them all together for the big test. Would it actually boot up? Of course not. It did nothing when I plugged it in. I really had no idea what I was doing anyways I thought. I tried another power supply and still nothing, so I started playing with the wires and realized that what would be my 'power switch' cable was disconnected. Once that was connected it started up fine. I was so excited I started singing the Starbucks "Glen" song out loud. It's kind of like my personal theme song now.

Construction:
With the confidence that I hadn't fried my motherboard I went shopping again for everything else I would need. The box (velvet lined) was $18 from Fred Meyers. I bought some fan grills, and a blue LED fan from CompUSA. I frequented Tacoma Screw and Loew's nearly every day buying parts I would think of as i went along. I got some switches and a breadboard from Radio Shack.

The actual construction wasn't real complicated,a nd I didn't bother taking pictures as I went because there really wasn't much to it. I ripped out all of the velvet lining, and I used my dremel tool to cut three large holes in the box. One for the power supply on the bottom, on for air intake on the bottom, and one to mount the fan behind centered on the top. I used my dremel again to cut out a square hole for the power cable, and a hole for my network cable. Since this was just going to be a server I didn't bother with making holes for USB, or a monitor. I sanded the inside of the box, and then spray painted it and the fan grills flat black. I tried spray painting all of the screw heads black too, but the paint just flaked off. I ended up just using a black sharpie. It worked perfect, so that is what I used to touch up anything that needed to be black.

I mounted the mini ATX power supply in the back left of the box with it's exhaust fan pointing down. The hard drive I screwed in on it's side from the bottom, on the right side of the case. I mounted the blue LED fan in the lid. I spray pianted the Radio Shack breadboard black, and used it to mount the switches on. The switches act as main power for the power supply, power for the LED fan, and power for the cold cathode light kit that I haven't mentioned yet.

For the mounting of the motherboard I used some L brackets and super glued them to the inside of the box. I glued rubber o-rings on the top of the brackets to cushion the motherboard, and then covered the metal brackets with a non conductive plastic wrap. I positioned the L brackets with pre exisintg holes on the iMac motherboard, and I just use black zip-ties to secure it to holes in the L brackets.

Finishing Touches:
With it all completed and in the box I again held my breath as I plugged in power and network and flipped the switch. But no worries this time, it booted right up. My new little server was ready to go. But I felt that it needed just one more things. I wanted it to glow blue from underneath as well. I started looking for a light kit to use, but all the local stores only had the huge 12 inch cold cathode light kits. I would need 6 inches or smaller. I found what I wanted online at extreme PC gear. It was a 4 inch cold cathode light kit in blue, but with dual light tubes. I had it Fedexed next day air, and proceeded to isntall it. It came with a cable out for a switch and custom cut velcro stickers, so it went in easy. After I powered it up though I realized that it was glowing the wrong color blue. The top was a deep sexy blue, and the bottom looked like cotton candy. I went shopping again and this time came back with blue cellophane. Folded over 5 times, the blue cellophane created the effect I was looking for. I only half covered the cathode tubes. That way they would show dark blue outside, but inside the box it would be the really bright white blue. It makes the motherboard glow green (I never knew motherboards were translucent). I was now happy, the box was complete.

Next i started locking down OSX from the inside. IPFW blocks most everything, and what I do need access to I create an SSH tunnel for. I keep Apple Remote Desktop on there, just in case I feel that I need a GUI. However it is turned off and blocked by default. I can ./kickstart it up from the CLI and then just temporarily open it up with an IPFW rule change. I use the box for PHP/MySQL development, and the occasional BitTorrent download. I'm fortunate to have this box colo'd in the wonderful Digital Forest. I think that its about time they actually had a server made out of real wood in their 'forest'.

Links:

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© 2004 : Glen Bowers
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