My crazy project.

[CJK3o3]

OK I am pretty new but I've been reading this forum for quite a while now.
I have a whole bunch of amigas and my weird hobby is fixing them up, turning them into their original state and trying to make them look brand new. Anyway a few weeks ago I bought this.


When it got to me I realized this is the most abused amiga I've ever seen in my life. The case was cracked, covered in all sorts of crap. Surprisingly the mobo, disk drive and keyboard worked so I gave them a good clean and retrobrighted the keys.

Anyway the case was beyond repair so I came up with an idea to modify it to a case that could be used with any mini-atx mainboard. Some purists may hate me for it but I think its a better idea to do this rather than just throw the case away. After a whole lot of work with fitting, soldering, grinding and messing with here's the result of step 1 (fitting a pc keyboard into the case) :




The next step will be putting an ssd cf card reader where the floppy drive usually sits, and on the left side of the case a dvd. Also I don't want to modify the back of the case so I came up with an idea to use the original spaces for amiga ports in the back with the modern mobo.

[CJK3o3]

Mfilos - that's correct I used the upper bit of a chicony keyboard. The bottom part will be fitted too of course in order for the keyboard to work. I already have a dvd case to fit in the bottom part. I will try to post more pictures today as I'm starting to mess with the bottom piece of the amiga case (It looks completely messed up but it does not matter to me, I should have enough plastic i cut out from the upper piece to form it into a trapdoor).

Today I will try to fit in new leds for the keyboard and for the future mobo.

I also tried a few mini-itx mainboards, they all should fit as long as there's a flat cpu vent. Also I'm considering putting a minimig inside.

[CJK3o3]

Here's some more pics :




Liteon DVD ready to be put into one piece with the bottom part of the miggy case (When I'm done it will be one piece of plastic) :



....

I decided to repair the old keyboard and give it a new life in another a500 I'm putting together.

This is how it looked when I pulled it out of the abused amiga :



Taking it apart...



Membrane cleaned with contact cleaner, metal shield sanded to get rid of any trace of rust and repainted with non-conductive paint.



Each key cleaned up and retrobrighted (some are missing - they are still in the jar getting rid of their tan). Rubbers treated with contact cleaner. Each spring either replaced or de-rusted and all treated with a tad bit of wd to prevent future rusting.

[CJK3o3]

How many keyboards did it take for you to look through, until you found one that exactly fit the width of the A500 case?

Looking forward to seeing what you decide to place inside of this rescued A500 case.

Also, amazing work on your restoration of the A500 keyboard.  I have great admiration for people who have the patience to restore old things that have been neglected and it is clear that you take great pride in what you do.

Pretty much all the keyboards I had were thinner than the one in the amiga. I had to weld in plastic stripes on each side of the keyboard. I picked the chicony one because i have a whole lot of them and besides the bump on top they're pretty much flat (like the amiga one) (the escape key is not inside for a reason - when i was painting it i needed a hole in the case to hook it).

So far I resurrected a few a500's 2 1200's one amiga 1000 and one 2000. Seems like the old ones are the most well made

[CJK3o3]

I'm working on the bottom part of the case. I filled the trap door and the side gap, also flattened the whole inside and now I'm smoothening it out. This weekend I will install the dvd case and finish the keyboard - add leds and put the original amiga badge back on the case.

I was looking through my options in regards to what kind of a mobo I can put into this case. Is anybody here familiar with Efika? Is it worth it?

To me the most reasonable option at this point is putting a mini-itx dual core intel inside but it would be something like what commodore usa does.

[CJK3o3]

What did you fill it with?

Melted plastic from the bits I cut out of the upper part of the case when making space for the new keyboard and fiberglass putty ro smoothen the whole thing up.

[CJK3o3]

Today I filled up the floppy holes. I drilled holes for leds and put the keyboard back together. It looks pretty crazy now when i put it on my desk and hook the keyboard up to my pc.

I still can't make up my mind whether to use the back of the case for the dvd tray or the side. Also I've been looking through mobos and came across this https://www.logicsupply.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/dn2800mt.jpg

Some dude already wants to buy it from me and use it as a gadget keyboard but I think it would be a better idea to finish it up and make it a standalone working computer.

[CJK3o3]

A little update... Lately I haven't had the time to work on it but I am gonna finish it sooner or later.

So I managed to fit the DVD inside.... At this point it looks ugly but with a bit of fiberglass and some sanding and grinding it will look like its always been there.




Of course it will be the same color and will be blended in with the miggy case. The inside looks nasty but I will smoothen it all and give it a coat of paint before fitting the mobo inside.

The keyboard is done along with leds... in fact I am writing this using this miggy



And here's a little bonus - A very old miggy I bought in a terrible state almost as bad as the one from the first post and here's how it turned out after receiving some TLC :

[CJK3o3]

DVD tray pretty much finished. I finally had some time to play with this thing.



And here are both pieces (almost) ready to be re-married...




I will finish the plastic work but most likely the case will be put for sale for any price I can get as most likely I will have no time to continue working on it.


My 500's and nearly factory condition 1200 will be sold as well

[CJK3o3]

I guess I can say the plastic work is done. There are some imperfections but I am not going to do anything about them - I think they look kind of cool actually.

Here are both pieces remarried together along with a DVD recorder in its place :





At this point the best sort of a mainboard for this thing would be a laptop one so if I don't sell the case to somebody willing to continue playing with it, I will probably find some nice lappy mobo to put inside and get it to be more than just a keyboard.

[CJK3o3]

Little update :

I have the mobo. It's an intel atom mainboard with all the stuff I need including an sd card reader. A CPU that is not likely to overheat. An external psu and some other goodies Now I just have to come up with a nice custom made back panel and the monster will finally wake up. I fixed some small dents and cracks in the upper part of the case to make it spotless.

Also in the meantime I brought an old abused Amiga 1200 back to life and into a perfect condition. New membrane, completely restored keyboard, recapped mobo, cleaned up and retrobrighted case and keys. PC floppy removed and replaced with an original amiga one.

[CJK3o3]

Pretty neat stuff.
You might want to consider a 2.5" laptop hard drive with an adapter.
It will cut down on space used, heat, and power draw.

Are you thinking of running AROS?

I have a 2.5 disk and an ssd drive. I am not sure if the SSD works as I haven't tested it.
Keep in mind that every single piece of the Amiga 500 PC thing is made entirely out of computer junk

[CJK3o3]

I am nearly done... The back panel of the miggy needs to be remade to look nice for the new mobo ports but its partially done now I'm waiting for a few minor parts and hopefully in a couple of weeks this thing will finally work as a standalone computer with a battery, card reader, dvd writer, 160gb drive... but what the hell will i install on it?

[CJK3o3]

How did you do such a seamless integration of the Amiga 500s original casing and your custom contoured top?  Did you use auto-body filler or something?

I mostly used the original plastic - just melted with acetone and high temperature. When I ran out of plastic i used fiberglass putty that's elastic enough not to break or split when the case bends.

[CJK3o3]

So I have the mobo and all other bits. I want to finally put it together buy here's the problem I have. When the lappy mobo starts up it seeks the lappy LCD but does not automatically switch to the external VGA port.

It's an MSI Wind Mobo. Does anybody have any clue how to make it automatically switch?