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.

[Kesa]

Impressive! You are almost giving TheDaddy a run for his money with his x500 cases

http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=62923&highlight=x500

[mfilos]

Gief more pr0n pics please!
Really nice and elegant mod. From what I can tell (I might be wrong) you got a keyboard's upper shell along with the keys and attached it to the A500?

Really nice man, can't wait to see more of the project (innards etc)

[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.

[trekiej]

Looks great.

[nickoteen]

Yeah, looks awesome.

[amigadave]

Mfilos - that's correct I used the upper bit of a chicony keyboard.

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.

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.

[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

[Tripitaka]

Looks great ...apart from those nasty windows keys. Ah well, can't have it all.

[klx300r]

Looks great ...apart from those nasty windows keys. Ah well, can't have it all.

A couple of those Amiga stickers from ACube will solve that problem nicely :razz:
I think Amigakit carries them also

[Iggy]

That is some remarkable stuff. I remember being fanatical enough in the 80's to slightly modify the keyboard matrix of a Tandy Model 4P keyboard so I could install it in a Coco3.

You do clean work.

I was thinking of something similar myself, but going the easy route with a keyrah adapter. Then either a Mac Mini or a Powermac motherboard.

After all, since no PPC adapters fit an a500, I don't think MorphOS has ever been run on one.

[Matt_H]

A couple of those Amiga stickers from ACube will solve that problem nicely :razz:
I think Amigakit carries them also

Yup, I'm using some to detox a Dell keyboard that I use with my MorphOS Mac Mini. Very nice! Now if only I could cover up that nasty Dell logo, too...

[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.

[smf]

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.

What did you fill it with?