|
Written by Jason Schrader
|
|
Saturday, 24 September 2005 |
As some of you probably know, I have modded my old iBook three times already. Well, its time for its final mod. I got an old Mac LC case which I though would be perfect for a print server mod. Follow along as I make two old Macs useful and actually cool looking.
The first thing I needed to do was tear down the old LC. Piece of cake! I didn't even need a screw driver. That can only happen in a Mac. I removed all of the little plastic tabs from inside the case and it was ready for a test fit. I removed the ibook parts from its last mod and set them inside. A perfect fit meant that I could start painting.
I wanted a simple look with out taking away the original Mac LC style. The beige color was ugly and I wanted it to match the rest of my equipment. I sprayed the case with one coat of primer and then three coats of metallic silver. I love that retro Apple sign, so that stayed. To help cool the fanless design I removed the front disk covers and cut some vents out of a sheet of steel. I also used some steel sheet to block off the rear ports. In order to fit in the LC case, the iBooks lower case needed to be trimmed. I used a Dremel and some metal shears. 
To make sure the iBooks cpu and system controller would stay cool, I added an old Ati heatsink to its heatpipe. Although there was no need for video output, I also put some ramsinks on the graphics chip. There are vents in the front, sides and top of the case to help keep it cool. This server will be running 24/7.
This model only has one USB port so I added a 4 port hub. That allows me to hook a photo, injet and laser printer. For power, I use the original round power adapter. It was too big to fit in the case so it ended up being external. The server connects to my home network via its ethernet port.
Well, thats it. This is a very simple mod. It is probably overkill too, but sometimes thats what modding is all about. How many people can say their print server has a 300mhz cpu, a 6GB hard drive and 320mb of ram!
To set up your print server, do the following:
Open Utilities
Open Printer Setup Utilities Preferences
Add printer under usb
On other computers on network
Open Utilities
Open Printer Setup Utilities Preferences
Check box for shared printers
*hint-you can check ink capacity in printer preferences
|
