Yesterday Afternoon's Project: Printer PC

MrScott

MrScott

MrScott

Associate
Joined
26 Jun 2004
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416
Location
Durham
Hello there. A couple of days ago a mate and I had the idea of putting a PC into a printer. Yesterday we spent about 7 hours beginning to end doing it (although the printer was already stripped out). Obviously for 7 hours' work it isn't a masterpiece (quite botched actually) but since we only had half a day and hadn't done anything like this before I don't think it turned out too badly.

The PC is a 2.53GHz P4, 512MB RAM and a 120GB HDD. The original printer power button is used to turn it on off, the original power LED should work but doesn't :P. The CD tray pops out where paper would usually come out, and the scanner glass is now a case window so you can see the insides. A few quick pics:

All the hardware fitting nicely into the bottom of the printer:
img6242tl8.jpg


Enermax powered all in one printer :p
img6252iy1.jpg


THe finished printer plugged in & ready to go
img6257mt5.jpg


Running with the lid open, the hardware is visible through the 'window'
img6261op1.jpg



The only reduced size hardware in there is the PSU which is a microATX model, apart from that it's a normal microATX board, HDD and CD-ROM drive. We have no idea if it will work for long periods or just overheat yet, that should be discovered today. The HSF is not far at all under the glass. It was all planned / done yesterday between mid-afternoon and 12:30 this morning. I'll put up a full project log somewhere within a week or two. Now we've had a go at this kind of thing we'll do some properly planned / better executed projects sometime too.

Thanks for looking.
 
That's excellent work. I reckon it'll work fine for long periods. I really like the scanner glass window. It has a certain "Tadaaa!" quality to it. Very, very good indeed in my opinion. What's next?
 
Can I make one tiny constructive criticism? I would probably get a black optical drive, the beige one sort of ruins the stealth effect for me. Tiny, tiny criticism though, on what is a great job.
 
messiah khan said:
Hehe, nice mod there. Get some cold cathodes under the lid for some extra bling. :)
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Yea get a darker tint bit of plastic and some green cathodes, i *** prefere blue but most scanners are green lights now anyway :p
 
Hey guys, cheers for the comments. It's now up & running with XP and it's fairly toasty: 55 - 65C. It's about 55C with the lid open though so it might be a poor contact or something causing that rather than the printer lid.

WJA96 said:
What's next?
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We've got our eyes on a big silver subwoofer from an old speaker system. It should be easy to mount everything in, already being boxy, and we're thinking of mounting red LEDs in the tube bit to give it a nice glow.

messiah khan said:
Get some cold cathodes under the lid for some extra bling.
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We were going to get a couple of blue cathodes in there, but as it only just closes as it is we aren't going to fit any in without some more head scratching.

WJA96 said:
I would probably get a black optical drive, the beige one sort of ruins the stealth effect for me.
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Good call, possibly a future upgrade :P. It would definitely look more subtle but we just made it out of bits we had handy at the time - the whole thing cost £31 and that was spent on the small power supply.
 
haha sweeet mod :D :D

the first thing i thought of was that it would be complete if the lid had a screen. stick some hinges on your tft and screw it on the scanner :D

well done ;)
 
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P_A_N_I_C said:
the first thing i thought of was that it would be complete of the lid had a screen.
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Yes! Cracking Idea.

I've got some 3" Cathodes you could have if you think they would be useful? Send me your address in my trust e-mail and I'll post them on to you.
 
cool, yea, but, a printer is for printing stuff, why not get a normal case with a window? it will look better and be better performance. and you still have a printer!!
 
Nice work! I like it!

Is there any vents apart from the PSU hole? If not a nice little 80mm blow hole would sort that lexmark out a treat ;)
 
Evening people.

The pictures seem to be dying off 1 by 1...damn imageshack! The screen under the lid idea is brilliant, we thought it would be cool to have a screen under the glass but hadn't thought of having it fold up with the lid. Update on the heat situation...for now it seems to be running OK with the lid closed. It's only going to be used for light stuff anyway - internet / msn mainly.

RoachycaL said:
and it only took you an afternoon?
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Adam stripped out the printer the day before so we just started with an empty printer case and old PC. We set to work at about 3:30 and took the last pictures at about 12:30. We took about 2 hours out for eating etc.
markyb said:
Is there any vents apart from the PSU hole?
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Only the openings which were already in the printer case, i.e. paper in / out feeds. Also there's a big rectangular cut-out at the back for access to the I/O panel which doesn't have any special cover on there, so there's *probably* enough opportunity for air to get around. We're thinking of drilling a grille into the glass above the HSF eventually.

taz488 said:
but...a printer :D
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Don't worry, the printer was broken before we started so it wasn't a waste of a printer or anything (course it was a Lexmark so goes without saying really).
 
Nice going, looks really smart. As for the HSF being close to the glass, is there anyway you could cut out a hole for a 80mm (or 120mm) extracter fan in the centre of the glass? Or is there not enough room to mount it?

Then again, on second thoughts it'd ruin the whole aesthetics of it.
 
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