A little while back I had painted my Powerbook Ti white to (among other reasons) cover up all the scratches and damage on the case. You can find that here. The laptop finally gave out, snapping its own hinges in a desperate attempt to leave this world. I decided that it was time to let the poor computer retire and be a desktop computer for the rest of its life. But I didn't want this to be any normal laptop - desktop conversion. I also wanted to do it using things I had laying around already, and spend no more than $25 on the whole thing. So, without further ado, I give you:
The TiMac
Before we start, here's what you'll need to follow along at home, step by step!
- wood of different sizes - I used 1/4" and 3/4" boards
- staple gun and/or drill
- wood cuttin' and shapin' devices
- paint (white primer, glossy white, clear gloss)
- working Powerbook Ti with damaged case and a death wish
- hot glue gun
- electrical tape
Cost:
- Wood - $10
- Paint - $8
- Screws - $0.80
- Filler and sandpaper - $5
- iMac stand (off of eBay) - $10
- USB hub + BT dongle (off of eBay) - $10
TOTAL - $43.80 (I was a little over my $25 budget, but not by much!)
I decided on an iMac design instead of the usual laptop-in-a-photo-frame conversion because
- I love the way the iMacs look
- I miss my old iMac and
- It gave me more space to fill up!
The first step in converting this to an iMac was to measure the 17" iMac and shrink down its dimensions to fit the 15" widescreen of the Ti. Due to the wood used, I had to add an inch to the bottom, and a half inch to the sides (quarter per side) in order to get all the insides to fit properly. It's also a bit deeper than a real iMac, but I was working with wood, not plastic. The front and back is made out of 1/4" wood, while the sides are 3/4" thick in order to accommodate the screws and nails better. The depth is 2" on the middle boards, so with the back and front, the whole thing is 2.5" deep.
My friend Roman, with his master carpentry skills, cut and fit the case together to my specifications perfectly:
As you can see, the front is permanently attached, while the rear is
screwed on, so that I can access the parts later on if need be.
Everything is pretty much flush with the case, so as not to leave
bulges after painting. The hole in the back is for passing all the
cables through, and there's no built-in USB or FW on the back just
'cause I thought it'd be too hard to mount and would no doubt put me
over cost. It's all inside anyways, baby! Uh, and yeah, it's a square,
the picture angle just makes it look like it slopes down on the sides.
Next Step: Painting!
We coated it with some primer first, and then patched up all the holes we could find with a wood filler. Of particular importance was trying to fill in the dents caused by the use of staples on the front. Next time if I do a project like this, I may go with screws all over, as it seems like it would be easier to cover them up. But the filler did it's job, and it came out looking like so:
And finally, the complete, painted front:
The wood was passed over with a few coats of primer, the holes patched up, then it was all passed over with some really fine sandpaper to smooth the wood, filler and primer, and finally glossy white paint was sprayed over it. I cut a stencil out of a phone book cover using a printout of an Apple logo, and used some matte grey paint on it once to get the Apple logo on there. Clearly you can still tell it's not a real iMac, and that it's made out of wood, but it still looks really good in person, and I really couldn't afford anything more than the $15 or so we spent on supplies to make this.
After letting it dry a few days to make sure it was all looking good, I went ahead and sprayed a few coats of clear gloss over it all. Gives it a shiny look, and protects the paint really well! I highly recommend not touching it for a few days, as the gloss can easily scratch and smudge as it slowly dries.
A Note: A little late (after primer and filler had been applied), I realized that I had completely forgotten to cut a slot for the DVD drive to eject, and I had also forgotten to set up any way to boot this thing up. Since the DVD drive can't really be moved due to the small cable that attaches it to the logic board, I had to mount it facing the top of the TiMac instead of the side like on a real iMac. Thankfully my friend Roman saved me again, and we used a drill and a jigsaw to cut the rectangular slot. It was eyeballed, as I didn't have exact measurements of where it would fit exactly, but it ended up fitting well. We drilled a hole in the side where the power button could be mounted, and placed it there. Kind of unconventional, but it works. The power button cord can't reach anywhere else, and I didn't want to bother soldering in more cable or whatever.
Next step: The insides!
The plan was to strip down the Powerbook and fit it in the case along with a USB hub (for hooking up a keyboard/mouse, a BT dongle, and a fan pad - which I neglected to photograph). I also took some 3" Altec Lansing powered speakers out of their cases and put them in under the laptop, facing backwards out of the case (so I could drill holes to pass sound through without having it be too visible). Here's a picture of how it all lays out in the case:
The speaker cable is really huge in this, as it attaches to the external subwoofer for them. I also didn't bother to mount the speaker controls as this was too complicated for my tastes, and I figured they'd just always be on until I unplugged them. The fan pad will kind of lay on top of all of that.
This is where I ran out of time. I was able to hold the whole thing together by putting in the fan pad and placing some foam on the inside which held it all in place when the back was screwed on. For the long timer, I'd like to use some hot glue and tape to hold it all in. The cover will also be taken off of the top there, in order to allow more room to plug the speakers in and to stick the power button in the hole next to it.
The USB hub... well, it's just layin' in there. No real need to tape that or anything, I suppose. Same with the speaker controls. They're set to medium volume and always on - I can just unplug the subwoofer to turn 'em off for good, or control them from the keyboard.
Final step: The back!
The back, as you can see, is not completely done yet. You can see where I've marked out a pattern to be drilled, in order to let sound come through the wood better. As you can also see, the cables are also able to all pass through the back there, and it all closes up really nicely.
The problem is I still haven't had the time to cut the back wood to properly mount the stand and complete the TiMac. The plan is to cut open a rectangular slot, put the top of the stand through it (it's on the left there, next to the TiMac), pass a rod through that, and bolt it onto the wood on either side. When I do finish it, I'll make sure to update this or upload a "Part 2", but I figured since that may take a while (damn grad school!) I'd give you what I've got up until now.
I hope that this has been informative, and gives you good ideas for your next project! Feel free to message me with any comments or questions.
 The final specs of the TiMac are:
15" Widescreen display
667Mhz G4
512MB PC133 RAM
40GB HD
Airport/Bluetooth
Internal powered speakers
Extra Photos:
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