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Santa bought me this wee beastie for Christmas:
I've spent the last 3 weeks or so formulating a plan as to what precisely to do with it....
The amount of available space is quite small, the power supply sits in the cab, the hard drive sits underneath that and the atomiser, motors and optical take up the front of the engine unit. Shown here with the powers supply removed:
The mini itx form factor motherboard sits on risers in the carriage and with restricted length and depth to the case a full height/length graphics card won't fit:
So I have a loose plan:
I shall replace the manual switching arrangement (pictured above) for the motors with optical sensors attached to an Arduino and Motor Controller board. This will give me PWM control of the train as well as programmable control of the atomiser and proposed steam train sound generator board.
The cumbersome battery arrangement at the back which powers the atomiser and motors will get replaced with something bespoke located somewhere on the train. (I did say a loose plan)
Once those bits are done the case and importantly back panel are free for minor redesigns hopefully enabling a low profile graphics card to fit, a Sapphire 6670 is the current plan along with an ASRock Mini ITX FM2 board and A10 5800. In effect a budget dual GPU setup in a tiny box.
Cooling looks less than impressive as standard, just a single 120mm fan at the front of the carriage sucking air in, redesigning the back panel will allow me to fit dual 60mm fans blowing air out which should help. I may be able to redesign the bottom of the carriage to help cool the graphics card or even get it to fit but the design is more complex.
Oh, and lastly, the track is nearly 3m long so I shall use just 2m of it against a shallow silhouette backdrop inspired by a fallout 3 style environment with lighting to match in the train and backdrop.
I've spent the last 3 weeks or so formulating a plan as to what precisely to do with it....
The amount of available space is quite small, the power supply sits in the cab, the hard drive sits underneath that and the atomiser, motors and optical take up the front of the engine unit. Shown here with the powers supply removed:
The mini itx form factor motherboard sits on risers in the carriage and with restricted length and depth to the case a full height/length graphics card won't fit:
So I have a loose plan:
I shall replace the manual switching arrangement (pictured above) for the motors with optical sensors attached to an Arduino and Motor Controller board. This will give me PWM control of the train as well as programmable control of the atomiser and proposed steam train sound generator board.
The cumbersome battery arrangement at the back which powers the atomiser and motors will get replaced with something bespoke located somewhere on the train. (I did say a loose plan)
Once those bits are done the case and importantly back panel are free for minor redesigns hopefully enabling a low profile graphics card to fit, a Sapphire 6670 is the current plan along with an ASRock Mini ITX FM2 board and A10 5800. In effect a budget dual GPU setup in a tiny box.
Cooling looks less than impressive as standard, just a single 120mm fan at the front of the carriage sucking air in, redesigning the back panel will allow me to fit dual 60mm fans blowing air out which should help. I may be able to redesign the bottom of the carriage to help cool the graphics card or even get it to fit but the design is more complex.
Oh, and lastly, the track is nearly 3m long so I shall use just 2m of it against a shallow silhouette backdrop inspired by a fallout 3 style environment with lighting to match in the train and backdrop.
