-- LAN Box
Project: Part III
-- 7.13.2001
-- By: GideonX
-- Page: 1 2
3
Thanks for tuning in to our last part of our LAN box
project. I hope you read out first
and second
part to get the low down on what we have done so far. We have
finally put the finishing touches on our Lian Li Mini-30 case and I
have to say, this is one sweet box to use if your gonna carry it to
a LAN party.
We left off last time having put together the neon
and the grills. What we are left with is the addition of a bay
bus and the internal system. Let's start off with the
installation of the bay bus.
For our LAN box, we utilize the PCMods.com's
circuit board bay bus. It has 4 switches, and 4 leds. It
varies between 12v/off and a slower speed, which I am assuming is
7V. Each switch is rated at 6W per switch, so each should be
more than sufficient for your basic 12V fan. The LED above
each switch will turn red once it is at full speed, off when it is
off, and green when its is at the lowest setting.
To start off, we followed the instructions that came
with the Baybus. You're going to need a drill to get the holes
cut using their template. We won't go into details on that,
since this isn't a Bay Bus review. Here is what you should
have after drilling out the 8 holes necessary for the leds and
switches:
That is one of the aluminum bay covers
from the Lian Li. If you do plan on using this case like we
did, just make sure you go slow. The aluminum material cuts
very easily, I'm sure you don't want to scratch that fine finish.
The above picture's top row is for the
LEDs to show through. Each LED hole comes with a plastic bezel
to hold it with. Makes it look neater, a nice touch by the
fellas at PCmods.com.
Our next step involves figuring out
where and what fans we are planning to control. Since the bay
bus uses bare leads from the fans (red/black), we are going to have
to make sure to strip any kind of connector that the fans may have.
Our first fan is the top blow hole we
made in Part 2
of this guide. As you can see, there is a red and a black wire
protruding from the fan. We will be using these to control
this fan from our Bay Bus.
The next set of fans that we will
control, are the 2 80mm fans that are located in the front.
These are Adda 80mms that came with the case. The fans are
attached to a fan controller made by Lian Li.
This tiny circuit in the front, is Lian
Li's own tiny version of a bay bus in a way. There is an
option to set the fan speed to high, medium and low. This is
in effect, utilizing the same concept of what the bay bus is doing,
by limited the voltage, the speeds of the fans will slow down.
This in turn lowers the noise of the fan, but also weakens the fans
ability to suck and push air through the case.
Those are the two wires that we
stripped to prepare them to use on the Bay Bus. You can get a
pair of professional wire strippers to do the job, but if you are
ghetto like us, use your teeth. Those ivories are very
powerful.
To make room and have the wire as close
to the Bay Bus as possible, we strung the wires from the top blow
hole fan and the two bottom fans through this hole in the bottom 5
1/4 drive bay. Since we are going to be using a DVD/CD-RW, we
had an extra bay to use, that was perfect to install the Bay Bus.
The Bay Bus has 4 spots for 4 fan
devices. Each spot contains 2 screw down terminals for the red
(12V) and the black (ground) wires that come from the fans.
Try and obtain a small flat headed screw driver, its a lot easier to
work with those terminals using this small tool.
After successfully screwing in the
wires, they should be snug within the terminals. Don't pull
too hard though, they are tiny wires.
Take the washers from the switches and
screw them in tight. The Bay Bus should look something like
this:
This is a preliminary look at what the
Bay Bus is going to look like in our LAN box. Not too shabby
if I do say so myself! : )
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