Anyone done a home made A4000 tower?

[RMK305]

Just wondering if anyone has made thir own home made tower for their A4000D? If so can you post some pics and some details of what obstacles you encountered?

Thanks,

Robert

[cv643d]

I have not made one from scratch but I mounted an A4000D mobo + Elbox 7 slot Z3 board in a small mini tower.

The problem is the turbo board. It makes the motherboard extrawide at that are which can be problematic.

[redrumloa]

Yes, it kicked butt but I sold it ~3 years ago. I had Prometheus installed in the second to top slot and the case would close. So, I was using 3 PCI cards and 3 other zorro cards. The top zorro slot was obstructed, but using only 3 pci cards left enough room to use kickflash in it. What a badass system that was, I miss it :-(

What I would recommend is getting a full (preferably AT) tower, the widest one you can find. Make sure it has the power supply mounted up top, not in the middle and make sure it will take a full size PC motherboard (not mini or baby AT). You will need to do heavily modification, making the back look pretty is the hardest part.

[cv643d]

Actually, you can fit an A4000D motherboard inside a Baby-AT case, I did it myself (with the 7-slot busboard). The A4000D motherboard is relatively small so you do not have to mess around with the PSU typically.

The problem when hacking A4000D into a small case is that the turbo is going to hit the internal 3.5" bays. So you either cut them off or run it with the 030 soldered onto the motherboard. Thats why it is a good idea to get a wide case, as said above.

[Dr_Righteous]

I did it in an Antec case with a Mediator 4000D. My biggest issues were getting the new mounting holes to line up, even after carefully marking them with a fine sharpie through the holes in the board. Just a little off and it's impossible to mount them with the brass stands.

So I used the best holes with brass stands and used plastic ones for the rest as they were a little more flexible.

Second issue was supporting the PCI/Zorro cards. I tore out the case's mountings in the back, since they didn't line up. I used a piece of cutter stick from an industrial paper cutter, which is firm yet soft enough not to crack from the screws, to stabilize the expansion cards.

Of course the bane of these cases is the drive cover, which is prone to breaking off, even if you're reasonably careful with the machine.

[RMK305]

Thanks for the tips. I'll have a look around and see what towers I can frind that will do the job. Pitty Amigakit wouldn't do one like they do for the A1200.

[yogisumo]

Did 2 of them.  Had to cut 3.5 bays.  

The back of the case / expansion cards mounting, and mounting the motherboard is the hardest part.

Motherboard mounting was done like this...

NUT
MOTHERBOARD
NUT
|
|    bolt
NUT
CASE
NUT

This allowed me to easily adjust/suspend motherboard height and align in the back for ports.


On one AT case, I cut with dremel and then made a thin plastic cover for the back with proper expansion/mouse ports cut out.

My ATX A4000D tower is not quite finished.  It has a prometheus inside and I'm still waiting for firmware update to finish it.

I found that I could make use of aluminum flat bar to stabilize parts, mount fans, and secure in general. It's easy to shape and drill and strong enough.

For my accelerators, I used plastic bolts and nuts that I got from local hardware stores to keep the boards from coming loose.  

Both ATX and AT conversions needed a power supply adapter for the motherboard.

Biggest thing... Spend a lot of time thinking measuring planning before cutting.

[yogisumo]

Did 2 of them.  Had to cut 3.5 bays.  

The back of the case / expansion cards mounting, and mounting the motherboard is the hardest part.

Motherboard mounting was done like this...

NUT
MOTHERBOARD
NUT
|
|    bolt
NUT
CASE
NUT

This allowed me to easily adjust/suspend motherboard height and align in the back for ports.


On one AT case, I cut with dremel and then made a thin plastic cover for the back with proper expansion/mouse ports cut out.

My ATX A4000D tower is not quite finished.  It has a prometheus inside and I'm still waiting for firmware update to finish it.

I found that I could make use of aluminum flat bar to stabilize parts, mount fans, and secure in general. It's easy to shape and drill and strong enough.

For my accelerators, I used plastic bolts and nuts that I got from local hardware stores to keep the boards from coming loose.  

Both ATX and AT conversions needed a power supply adapter for the motherboard.

Biggest thing... Spend a lot of time thinking measuring planning before cutting.

[orange]

I bought it second hand, already 'towered', look here.
The previous owner 'butchered' original desktop case, and riveted it to big tower..