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| MAXImini - Wooden SATA |
| Written by Peter Boons | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Monday, 04 September 2006 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
  Editors Note: This is a streamlined version for the 2006 Challenge. Visit the complete mod mini site here. Introduction It's because after searching for some materials and solutions for my own project, like: How using a good G4 powermac power-supply again. I ended up with no answers but I liked the contest on MacMod.com. I was already rebuilding two Apple macintosh computers. But what holds my project, just buying the right mac for the right needs. Only there was no Apple Intel Pro when buying the right materials and wanted to build it in my way of the Build To Order concept. The materials were coming around the world: US, England, the Netherlands and of course from my home Country Belgium. I could find one Apple product, the Apple Intel Mac mini, what's the powerhouse for the system I wanted to build. But, I hate a 5400 rpm harddisk, and a faster 2,5" internal Sata one costs to much. Cause I want to use all the I/O busses, to spread the load of data transfer over several harddisk, so the system performance is going up for my needs: Running virtual multiple OS'ses on this intel Mac Mini (More information is on the mini-site about this project). This means getting the internal Intel Mac Mini's Sata harddisk out, making an extra E-Sata II connector at the back of the mini for hooking up an external HD Case with a same connector. A second Apple computer, a G4 350Mhz one, will be the housing of a new 160 Gb 7200 rpm Sata harddisk. Also four extra identical 80 Gb 7200 rpm harddisks are added to that HD case. Everything is optimal placed for a good air-flow, with a lot of fans controlled by A DigitalDoc 5 temperature driven fan controller. Using all the I/O busses means using I/O converters or bridge-boards. There a two of them that can manage two Sata harddisks at once. One bridge-board for the Firewire bus, one for the USB 2.0 bus. Even Span and Raid 0 are one of the features of those bridge-boards.    So you don't see much at the photo's, just a grill in the front and an opening in the clap door of the G4. And YES! A little extra connector at the back of the Intel Mac mini. The photo in the middle shows at right an E-sata II with a 2 meter cable connection, the same for the Firewire and the USB 2.0 bus. Not the biggest external modification, but there's a lot under the hood of both machines. Detailed information is on the mini-site of this project, but also a lot of tips and tricks and much more ... Read on ... Supplies and Requirements
 a) Molex 876790003 - 2 pieces - 8,9901 EURO (incl. 21% VAT) /piece  b) Molex 674901220 - 4 pieces - 3,5000 EURO (incl. 21% VAT) /piece Knowledge about Sata plugs & connectors, male and female, internal and external.
You need a piece of REAL wood with a thickness from about 8 mm to 1 Cm ! Look at some used wine boxes, that wooden material is good enough.
To complete my system setup
Tip: For the belgian Mac (or PC) modders that wants digital television and digital radio stations:
Note: If you live to a country boundary, it's possible to grab their Dvb-T signals. Only in the Netherlands you need a decoder card. Also a better Miglia Dvb-T product in which you can use that card. (Everything for around a 2100 Euros, including extra and unused materials) The Intel Mac mini modifications - Short version (View the whole mod [unedited] here) I - The Sata throughput Connector One thing I wouldn't do, is hot-glue a Male Sata L-connector on the Mac's mini daughter-board (Henner Malchert - Germany). And I had to test the setup with the material I had (in the mean time, I was already busy with the HD Case):
I had a Female Sata L connector on the Mac's daughter-board and a Female Sata L connector coming from the Back plate Sata II Connection. Nature told me that such two things will not fit together. The solution I had in mind was using a Sata HD board-connector (this is a Sata data-and-power Male connector) and use a simple 7-pin Sata Male plug to pass data through. I needed just a pass through connector. This means like repairing a broken cable, I need connecting the pins starting at the L-plastic edge, to the same pins also starting at the L-plastic edge. Just lay the two connectors upon each other, soldering pins one side and the connections to the other side. The L-plastic edge of the plug at the same side and direction (left or right). Just flip the top plug 180° over, that's it ... soldering pins to soldering pins. I'm not going to hot-glue the innards of my beautiful mac, like I said i needed a self-made pass through Serial ATA connector. After two attempts and rendering the Sata plugs to trash, I had a final solution.    I took one 7 -pins Sata Male connector that is flipped over 180 degrees and sit back-2-back to a bought wide Sata Male HD soldering plug (Sata data & power plug). In my case: one Molex 876790003 (Sata data-and-power wide plug - Male) / one Molex 674901220 (simple 7-pins Sata plug - Male). I've shopped with a cutting tool the plastics parts aside the soldering pins, NOT the plastics clips at the Sata connection pins. ONLY at the 7-pins Sata male plug. Tried to flatten out the soldering pins at both Sata plugs (Only the 7-pins part, if you see at the wide Sata connector). I was able to hold those two connectors and solder it horizontally, because the larger connector is deeper there was no problem at all plugging it in the Mac mini's daughter-board. I had shortcutten pins by thick thin-bulbs and some lifting Sata-pins by the heat. But I now could manage it with flat grip and thin-pump. Before I hot-glued those soldered connection, did again some electrical pin-test to sure there are no not seen electrical shortcuts and the right pair of pins had electrical throughput. The glue will isolate the pins and make the back-2-back connection sturdy enough for the test I did. IMPORTANT: One thing I noticed when back opening the Mac mini again (means: taken off the upper half part of the machine again), is the wide Sata HD connector was loosing grips on the inner Mac mini's Sata daughter-board. Coming slightly out of its place a the corner. You need NO FORCE to plug this new Sata throughput connector on the Mac mini's female one (also the 2,5" hard disk), it simply GLIDES ON, but also even simply can GLIDE OFF. It is important to know that bending/moving a Sata cable or connecting an extra one (in this test: a 2 meter cable hanging down), you're using mechanical and torquing forces. Bending some materials gives it by material a memory to bending back (a little); by for example elastic features of used material in that cable. II - The Wooden Sata HD connection I need a kind of a dummy harddisk "enclosure" to put the ready made working Sata pass through connector in it. I did some basic work, or had the principle in a previous to make such a Sata pass through connector placed in the Printed Circuit Board. I will now photo-guide you how to make dummy harddisk "enclosure" in simple sturdy wood. I've used a wooden plate of a wine-box that's almost 1 cm thick (8 mm precise). Tip: If you work in wood, and you use little parker screws, drill holes so the wood will not split ! I've took some measurements of the real 2,5" hard disk. The important thing is the width and length that must match. Otherwise, you can not put in this wooden "holder", nor sliding it in. The thickness is a lesser problem: 1 cm to a max. of 1,3 cm, maybe thicker but less chance you can tumble it in at an angle in the drive bay. Also important is the distance from the connector edge measured to the "holder" edge. And there's one side (up or down-side) the connector must lay at same height, better said: where the connector surface must flow over on de wooden surface. Look at the real drive again: this is the bottom of the drive. At the above photo, my "wooden drive" lays at its bottom ! When this is placed in the Mac mini's drive bay, you must see two 'L' shaped plastic edges and a matrix of copper (or golden) Sata pins. So I've cutted out a big 'L' shape in the wood whereby I took lesser space for the big Sata Male connector. And why, just to place it firmly between the wooden edges. If you look good enough, you see the wood is burned, this means using I'm using a Dremel tool for this precision piece. Forget a big saw ... Finally I've cutted some slot in the wooden edges in front. You'll see why on the photo above. The connector is not going deeper, nor popping out at this "wooden drive" side. The Sata connector plastic edges will prevent this in the wooden cut-out slots. Drip a bubble of hot-glue in those slots and press the Sata passthrough connector in its place. Check the depth and the sides where the connector must sits even with the wooden surface. For some reason I knew the E-Sata II back plate connection cable must go out at one side (left, right, above or below) at the "wooden drive". I knew I had to bend/torque this Sata Cable and this means you need to make some room for it. There was a big 'L' shape cutted-out in that holder, the real wood has actually a 'U' shape holding a plastic connector at the front. Going out at one side means cutting out wood at one of the 'U' wooden shaped legs. Guess what happens ... the "wooden drive" will fall apart. So I need a hard plate that holds two parts of wood, without losing the right shape of the "wooden drive" I already had. Look at the following photos:   You see I glued (with glue for wooden materials, not Note that the electrical side of the print-board is turned outwards, not given the chance making electrical shortcuts. The second photo where there is a cut-out in the wood and PCB, is at a later stadium. Between the above two photos I had other testings to do like: a)  Could I get the "wooden drive" in the Mac Mini's drive bay ? If no, what's the cause ? Probably file or plane the longest wooden edges to get the "wooden drive" fit in he Mac mini's drive bay. b)  Try to snap the "wooden drive" in place by knowing the "wooden drive" can fall deeper in the drive bay. Then you can place marks where the wood-screws will come (drilled against splitting wood).You also see on this photo five wood-screws that are cut-off by a Dremel tool. Those screws gives an extra hold for the glued wood and PCB plate. The PCB is scratched for an optimal glued grip. The Sata Male connector you now see (7 pins), has the same strongest connection like all other Sata connections are when you click a Sata Female L-connector on. c)  Here you see the upper half of the Intel Mac Mini placed back on the lowest part. I marked the places were a Sata cable can pass to the Sata drive bay. The best choice was the nearest opening by the bluetooth antenna. Tip: The wooden screws had a big conical head (1 cm in length), so taking a big drill and making the drilled holes (and in the Mac mini drive bay) at the right side wider, puts the screws neatly deeper in place at a later time. Now used a Dremel to cut-out the Sata cable's 'escape route'. At this place, the cable will also be torqued 90 degrees (flip-over) to go flat through the Mac mini's drive bay holes and a flat connection at my pass through connector. I hot-glued the whole HD connector so al the soldering pins are electrical shielded and filled the gap so that it has a firmly grip on the PCB beneath and the wood aside. Cause I had a gap between the Sata connector and the PCB (cause the Sata connector was smaller compared the tickness of the wood), I also hot-glued it. Pressed with a wet finger the glue in the gaps, soften it out a little bit.   Maybe you noticed 4 extra holes were now wires popping out, this is to fasten the Sata L Female connector coming of the E-Sata II back plate. The wires simply are put through one hole and coming back via the second hole. These are wires you find when for example a power-chord is packed neatly together in a new bought device or something else. You can also use a binding strap. Cause of the difference in height by plastic Sata connector and the wood (it hoovers a little bit above the Print Circuit Board), some cardboard is used to cushion the plugged Sata connection. The pair of wire ends will bind the Sata connector against the print-board to level out the upcoming torquing forces. Tip: Before you connect and bend/torque the Sata cable, know were the 'L' edge ends. Otherwise flip the cable and put it back through the Mac mini's drive bay hole. The Sata cable is sturdy enough build not to break by a bend or torque, but not for one thousands times ;-) If you know the bended/torqued Sata Cable and connector will fit, put the "wooden drive" in place. Snap the "wooden drive" in the Mac mini's Sata daughter-board, fasten it with 3 or 4 wood-screws. Plug the Female Sata connector on the passthrough connector, fasten it seatbelts on the cushioned cardboard and hot-glue the gaps between the cable. Also over the Cable and even it out with a wet finger. This all is done so mechanical forces by benden (and later closing the Mac mini's Case cover) and torquing will have no effect anymore on the internal Sata connections. An extra few things had to be done like:   Putting an extra piece of plastic over the made gap in the wood, hot-glue it and flatten out at the corners. Re-use the T-shaped air divider (look at OWC's video) from the real Serial ATA hard disk on the wooden one. I now have the first wooden serial 2,5" hard disk in my brand new Intel Mac mini.   I placed back the upper half part of the Intel Mac mini and did some tests again, before fasten the upper part with the four bolts at the edges of the machine. You'll see a photo of the installed OS X desktop, the second is a boot option between OS X installed on the Firewire drive (yellow/orange icon) and the ex-inner Sata drive. Take note of how the Sata cable is bended and how it will search for a way out. It's the plastic fish-hook on the second photo at your left that needed cut-out. There are hooks enough to play with ... I can now safely bolt the upper part back on the lower part of the Mac mini. The longest bolt you need to place at the IR receiver in front of you. At this stage, nothing electrical can go wrong at the Sata level. Just only mounting the E-SATA II connector at the back of the Intel Mac mini. Room enough for that ... III - Sata Cable wiring and external part   Look the photo above and you see the red Sata cable laying almost a the right position. Maybe if I get the hole in the "wooden drive" bigger I could bend the cable so it had less curly shape. The second one gives a clear image which plastic fish-hook needed to cut-away. Tip: If you look at the black part of the E-Sata II connector, where the red part of the cable begins, you see a few iron schielding plates. I saw it at the last moment when pressing the cover of the casing back of the Intel Mac mini, but these CAN cut the red Sata cable like a knife. Bend them in a safe position, or try them cutting of.   I wanted to place the E-Sata II connector parallel with other connectors at the back of the Mac mini, but not sticking out 45 degrees on the rounded edge of the Alu-case. The second problem was, how to measure and mark a connector position on such a rounded case edge. From the wood of the wine-box I made a simple construction and could mark the beginning of the ALU case. Where the wood ends, the biggest wooden plate against the smaller one, is the actual end of a virtual sharp 90 degrees edge. Now I could take the middle of those marks what means that the E-Sata II connector will be in the middle of the plastic-connectors-back of the Mac mini and the side of the ALU-case (mark it with a new line on the wooden plate). A second measurement was needed, this is the hole distance from the E-Sata II connector (without the back-plate). Bring it over on the line what was marked as the middle. Tip: Look first inside. As you can see there's a smaller not as thick part in this ALU-case, the bottom that fits on the plastic part or the Mac mini's ground part. Try to avoid drilling in this not-as-thick part, cause a bolt has more grip into a hole that has more tapped wire in it.   I used a 2,5 mm drill for steel and iron materials, a set of M3 taps to put wire in the drilled holes. Cause most bolts on back-plate connectors are the M3 type. Tip: This wooden construction is needed so the drill can not bend and glide away of a round edge. But to be sure, cause wood easy wears out, you need wooden pieces to fill up the gap between rounded ALU-edge and the wooden scharpen edge. Now drill this two holes ONLY with a vertical drill holder and use a high drill rpm (2000 - 3000 rpm). Pull or rotate the drill gently down, with plenty of time and even go back up to loose drill chips. You will feel the drill entering the ALU alloy and when you pass through the ALU housing. Depending on the wire-taps, the tapping part of this instrument can be shorter and will not pass the thickness of the wood and gap between wood and ALU-case. Before tapping you need to take of the wooden part from the ALU-case. Also the tapping work is a simple but a precise job, like the vertical drill-holder, you must tap 3 times vertically through the holes. This by tapping in, back a little bit out, back in a little bit deeper ... and so on. Tap straight vertically in and out without wearing the holes and wire out. Here is the result:   The used PCB distance holder in my hand is 2,5 cm long without the wired part, on top it has a M3 hole for bolts. So you can re-use the bolts that were on the E-Sata II back plate connector. I used also a little ring so the Mac mini's case will not be scratched by turning this distance holder in. Tip: Just fasten it with a little force. Depending on tapping you can have a little displacement in angle, that's why I hot-glued the distance holders at the rings. You can't do better with the tools you have !   Now I only need to make an opening so I can bend the Sata cable out of the Intel Mac mini housing. Again a Dremel tool was used to cut-out room in the ALU-case, but also break away the bolts coming through the tapped holes. Also taking care of that. With an iron file the sharped edges are broken to protect the Sata Cable. You see that the hole for the Sata cable is in fact not one, but more a slot that act like a hole by closing the Mac mini's housing. Nice trick isn't it ?! When you see this new opening, it is not sharp anymore and you can manage the 3 little shielding blades at the lower part of the Mini Mac (That can cut the Sata Cable), you can almost can close the Mac mini. Just check the Flat brown sound cable again, look at the airport antenna and connection cable. Finally (again and again), remove the mentioned plastic fish-hook cause it can't bend back at the daughter-board. Otherwise the Mac mini can be closed, but not opened anymore. Guide the red Sata cable around the daughter-board by pre-bending it. At the Bluetooth antenna there's a difficult 180 degrees bend. Lift the E-SATA II connector and glide the ALU-case with the Sata cable in the new hole over the lower part of the Mac mini. Push and click it gently together.   Bolt the E-SATA II connector on the PCB distance holders what the stiffness of those distance holders improves. Maybe I can drop the transparant hot-glue, or re-do it. On the first photos you see those shielding blades blinking by the flash, almost cutting the red Sata cable.   I did some final testings with the original drive resting on top of the Intel Mac mini. The first photo shows a question mark folder cause there's no drive in the Mac mini to start from. But also, the new external placed 7200 rpm 160 Gb HD is not connected via the E-SATA II connector. Doing so, will not start the installed OS X, you need to power off the Intel Mac mini and back on before it can boot. This Sata connection is, and an external case is not going to change that, an internal NON-REMOVEBLE device. It will not (re-)check with an interval (like USB and firewire drives) the hard disk is on and connected, just one time. But connected and turning the Mac mini on will start the installed OS X. The Intel Mac mini modifications - Trying to avoid sound problems The Sound Problem and Solution  You see a green hooked up stereo plug, left the optical version of it.  At this side you see the electrical plug mounted on a print-board that also carries a brown flat cable, you can call it the sound cable or interface cable (that will connect on a daughter-board · gone on this photo). The brown flat cable have some bends and act like a spring pressing the connector in place when the Mac mini's case is closed. The "C E (!)" device you see is the airport-card which is now missing the airport antenna at the moment. Tip: Try not loosing the airport antenna, it's a hell of a job connecting the antenna back in place with thick fingers.  The red arrows points to the latch that holding/guiding the Brown audio cable. Cause of this little hardware and it can loose quickly, it's possible you don't know anymore how this cable fits neat and correctly in place. The latch can be pushed inwards against the Mac mini's daughter-board. And it is still possible to put the brown cable in the connector hole, but it is not electrical connected. Position A on the photo is the good one, position B is possible but gives no sound output.  But this is one of the important photo's about a metal fiber band that can cause electrical problems when it is damaged in the first place by opening your Intel Mac mini. So remove the parts that are loosing and check the internals of your mac on those little pieces. Also drilling and filing generates dust that can cause problems. Remove them with a soft cloth or with pressured air. G4 350 Mhz HD case modifications - Just my best of - Short Version I - Tip of re-using the old Apple's power-supply - But inserting a newer 550 Watt one Reusing the Apple Power Mac G4 power supply, in my case the 20 pins version, is possible. Only you have to know 'how' Apple's Mother-board is 'talking back' to the power-supply. I will describe it how it's possible and you can re-use this solution (depending on pin placement) on other Apple ATX power-supplies. When you look at the resources of the 20 pins ATX power supply and the Special one from Apple, you sees there's always power at pin 9 (+5VSB , or a constant standby voltage of 5 Volts * Purple Wire). This gives some basic electrical feeding to the Mother-board for little circuits like power-touch-button, maybe some IR-receiver and Chipsets like ram. To set a PC or MAC in standby mode /or to wake-up /or turning itself on. Now in this documentation you see how a standard PC talks back to the power-supply to wake up and power the other wires (Also those one going to harddisk / floppy / ventilators and so on). With the first thought it was via a 'PWR_OK' signal (standard ATX pin 8) by the mother-board. Pushing a power-on button lets the mother-board short-cut (on a TTL-logic level) pin 14 (PS_ON# - A green signal wire) by putting on ground. On pin 8 there's is standard a 'PWR_OK' signal going to the motherboard if the main power-supply is on a stable voltage. On the Apple's ATX, it has a total different meaning (Apple ATX 20 pins: +3,3V - Orange wire), notes that the system works on another principle. To startup a normal ATX power-supply, it's enough to short-cut for example
Now guess what, I had a cheaper solution with the Power Mac casing and power-supply but ... ... doing this with Power Mac (20 pins) power-supply (those pins are equal with standard ATX), you see in the back a ventilator spinning up and back down. Yes, a big problem! And the MacMod-forums gives no solution at all, every discussions stops immediately. No answer found on this problem, just buying a standard one. I wanted an answer and already had some idea about how an Apple mother-board could talk back. When shorten this circuit (pin 14 on GND · 13 or 15) with some pulse after each other, the ventilator in the back of the G4 case (beneath the powersupply) was spinning a little bit more and longer. And bought (not exactly a variable pulse-train generator) a basic timer-base from Velleman. A timer-base is a clock-signal of a pulse-train (on / off / on / off .... maybe seen a blocked oscilloscope diagram) that drive chipsets or digital clocks:   I've made the kit, read the documentation, and tried it with the TTL-Logic option (nice !). Just putting the right pins of the Apple's ATX motherboard-power-supply connector. And my idea is a really good one, the power goes on and the ventilator was continuous spinning. Only, the 'digitaldoc' was beeping, cause the voltage was not stable at 12+Volts and 5+Volts. Not the rigth frequency, but also no oscilloscope to measure it ... Tip: Maybe connecting a hard disk will stable the power-supply, some power-supplies need that. But, it can damage you drive !! So I believe, when the power is not stable (like the PWR_OK that sends signal to a mother-board · standard ATX), also for the stand-by 5 Volts on pin 9 (+5VSB * both Apple ATX and Standard ATX.) the 'generated' pulse train on pin PS_ON# will not drive the power up and won't startup the macintosh. Tip: If you have a good friend with an oscilloscope at home or at work, and is willing to measure the signal on pin 14 PS_ON# and pin 14 (or pin 15 - GND * or at pin 9 +5VSB for reverse signal) when the motherboard is connected on the power-supply. You then have the exact frequency (hopefully Apple uses one ?!!) for D.I.Y. pulse-train-generator that's powered by GND and +5VSB (+5 Volts Stand-by voltage). It will work whereby you can build a circuit (very cheap by components) that turns this pulse-train on by using your PowerMac push-buttons in the front. It will work !! Now you see how ingenious Apple builds their systems ... I had not that material or a shop who was willing to measure and the power was not stable by the Power_On signal, so I used a new one:   a Qtec tripple fan 550 Watt Power Supply So this new power-supply was needed, I had no material for re-using the G4 one. I needn't a power-supply with Sata-Power-Connectors. Just the plain old power-connecters will do the job on the Sata harddisks. The power-supply had just one Sata-Power-Connector. Other problems occur when placing this brand new power-supply (550 Watts, you can say a power-brick, so heavy). It was 3 cm (1.18 inch) deeper, had 3 temperature controlled fans; but how to place it without difficult modifications, what about the fan positions ?! What's in fact a difficult modification ? A power-supply that controls their own fans depending on power-supply temperature is a nice extra feature. But think: Spinning up 5 Sata harddisks at once (stand-by or sleep mode), 2 bridge-boards and all the fans outside the power-supply .. that's the call for a strong 550 Watt Power-supply that can cope with this strong electrical consumption peaks. Even the fans need a strong electrical peak when spinning up and down on a sequence controlled by the DigitalDoc 5. To startup a normal 20 pins ATX power-supply, it's enough to short-cut for example:
I used one simple on/off switch that I mounted on a PCI back-plate. I've found one with two holes coming from a CD-Rom add-in ATA card which had two cinch-connectors. I simply cut an electrical ground wire (black) and the Green Signal (PS_ON#) wire and solder it on two very flexible black and red wires. Crimped some isolation socks on the wires.  Tip: When placing this PCI Back-plate, I had to see that the not flexible part was not hitting the harddisk at the most right. Cause this one is placed at the upper bay on the removable drive-plate. There are socks individually on the soldered pins of the on/off switch, but also on the pair itself. Cause the crimped sock can get off, I simply used tape to hold it in place. It is electrical shielded and can not cause some harm when it would hit the harddisk at the most right. The same goes for the Serial ATA cables I'm using on the harddisks. These are angled versions, otherwise when closing the G4's clap door, it would bend and sets too much mechanical forces on the Sata connectors. Also this power-brick (cause of the heavy weight) caused some extra troubles. Heavy we said, but also bigger in size ... A) A new hole in the back of the G4 case  First thing to know, when you look at the original G4 power-supply, is the gap between the back of the metal case and the power-supply itself. I think it is about 1 cm. But also above the power-supply there's some spare room. It has to do with the idea how placing this BIG power-supply, I had two choices:
I took the simple solution for holding the same power-supply connection and position at the back of the G4's case. The holes to fasten the power-supply are in the same position, I only need other screws. That's all. But 1 cm between the metal back of the case and that power-supply will not give the best performance in cooling the HD-case and the power-supply. I took Apple's own solution and make a hole in the back of the G4 case, knowing the big fan vent-in. Also between the back of the metal G4 case and the outer case-part (with the apple logo) is a free space that lets air in at the bottom of this G4 outer-case. If this opening is not big enough for the maximum air-flow the big fan can generate, it will also take out warm air through the drilled holes hidden after the fan mounted under the power-supply. (Apple's own fan) Here we go, a step-by-step Dremel cut-out guide. You need a few cutting blades and a lot patience for this:  I had marked a rectangle that would not harm the sturdy case-joints, like cutting in the middle membrane in the case was not possible. Leaving the tapped hole at the right of the cut-out in place. This hole is needed to fasten the outer case-part.  The four sides of the marked rectangle are almost done.  A new hole ! And don't forget to round the sharp edges with a file, just for you own safety. At this stage, it's best to go out with the G4 case and blow every metal piece and dust away with high presured Air.  Before I put the new power-supply in place, I took a foam from packaging material and placed it in fully height and with a width equally to the side of the new hole. It mute some sounds and isolates the big fan from the new power-supply from directly getting warm air at the axial fans and the Optical Zip cage. Only at the top, if the fan is strong enough, warm air can be vented-in flowing over the big power-supply. In my case I needed a little bit more foam to isolate air-flow between the edge of the power-supply and the edge of the hole.  Placing this big power-supply was not easily. I needed just that little bit more room by sliding the case-lock-lever out. Then it was possible to tumble this big brick in place. By bolting it in place, the extra foam is squeezed for a good result in isolating the air-flow. Nice view, and the power-supply can cool itself with mostly fresh air flowing between this metalic case side and the plastic outer case-part. Only at the bottom is the outer case-part not touching the metal case, almost in the full length with a 1 cm opening. Tip: The same with the G4 clap door, only the opening beneath between metal clap door and outer plastic case-part is a little bit smaller. Later more ... B) shorten the 'optical and zip' cage  You see problem number two, the new power-supply is 3 cm deeper. This caused the problem described above, more room to get this power-brick in place. But also the free air-flow to the upper part of the G4 case will be lesser:  The hood that will be on the Optical Zip cage and containing a fan, will blow out rigth in the smaller venting-in fan of the power-supply. So I had to chop a part of the Optical part of the Optical Zip Cage, but in that matter not harming the sturdy construction of that cage. Not hitting the rivets: 
the Optical Zip Cage   I think this is somewhat better. Note that the DigitalDoc 5 has also its depth in that Optical cage. The last step is removing the Optical Zip cage again and do some wire management on those cables coming from the new power-supply. Also holding in mind how the air flow is going and to maximize it.  a professional look ! The first thing you need to do, is using tape on the not rounded edges in the holes you can use for cable management. Sometimes a few layers on top of it. Then I divided the wires from the power-supply in two separate bundles. Everything you need for connecting the hard disk at the power-supply is bundle one. They must go first out through the middle membrane where the power-supply rests on. Another bundle, what isn't the most usefull, is all the rest with the standard 20 pins ATX mother-board connector. We only needed an electrical ground and the green signal wire. That bundle is putted away in the far left corner of the G4 case. Tip: The two bundles are wrapped in pieces of hard disk / memory or expansion card anti-static bags. Taped it to hold together and prevents the wires being damaged by sharp hole-edges and the Optical Zip cage that slides in and knocks with metal pins in a holder. By wrapping the bundled wires it is also possible to lay it in good position with a plastic strap. Finally it gives a professional look of how you take care of the spend money and materials. Are you a professional case-modder, or not ? II - Placing a Silverstone Cross Flow fan in the G4 Clap door The Silverstone Cross Flow fan is a blower made of metal and is used in Silverstone stacker casings that's is placed to blow out warm air. It's not blowing straight out but under an angle for let's say almost 10 degrees. I'm going to use it to blow fresh air into my G4 case and build a natural air-flow in this case.  Cold air (room temperature) is going in at the lowest part of the G4 case and is pushing up the warmer generated air by the mounted harddisks in the case. Now I had to wait 2 a 3 weeks on this little piece of hardware, but in the meantime I've found a good alternative when it shouldn't arrive (or was not available by distributor). It was the Aerocool Turbine fan series, which generates high presure and a better airflow 37.44 CFM (the newer extreme version gives 89.39 CFM). The out-blowing of the Silverstone Cross Flow fan is not straight outwards, there's a little angle in it (more up or more down), I blow in air under the same angle where the flow is directed to the front of the G4 case. The warm air is pushed away over the harddisks laying at the bottom, reaching the Air-2-Top-Hole (more information on the mini-site) what now has a maximum air-bandwidth. The Cross Flow is vertically placed so it's blowing partly over the flying harddisk bay and put air between the flying harddisk bay and the harddisk at your most left (or in front of the G4 case). Knowing there's room between the metal clap door and the outer case part, but also knowing there is some space between closed G4 clap door and the flying harddisk bay, the cross flow is partly coming out at both sides and uses both free spaces around the metal G4 clap door. A nice idea and no air tunneling (a first idea) but straight ahead pushing outer air into the HD case. But how constructing it, is another nice question ... Cutting a new hole is a nice beginning:  Again you need some Dremel tools and cutting blades. But first I had to measure that Cross Flow unit in length and width. I also need to measure the distance from the Cross Flow unit at one side (imagine the lowest point when the clap door is closed) to ground, to be exactly the turn point of the metal clap door. Bringing this size over from the turn point on the metal clap door. So the clap door in front, you may not going over that line with (now) the upper side in length of the Cross Flow. You have to imagine that Silverstone Cross Flow placed against the hard disk and rotate/tumble it to you. Two other problems occur, the position to the left of the hole you need and must be the same were the plastic pieces on the "Locking Plate" starts and act as a spring.  the G4 Locking Plate containing 4 plastic grills that act as a spring I marked a rectangle around the plastic spring I meant. So the Cross Flow is laying at its length between the plastics just above the 'Clap' word, this is the minimal distance to the left side of the clap door. I can mark it as the left side of the new hole I need. I only need to measure down in length and right for the width of the new hole, equal to the size of the Cross Flow blower. The airport holder also disappeared in this project. The distance holder in the red circle is also cut away. The plastic cable clip is removed, it's just double-side tape on the metal clap door.  You see cloths around the case against the dust the Dremel tool produced. Also to protect the already installed components cause this is done a few days earlier. Now the hole isn't just finished yet.  This is the outlet of the Silverstone Cross Flow and you see why it's not blowing straight out, cause of the bended plate with label that's on the unit. You also see 3 measurement marks knowing the hard disk positions. And the thickest part will be placed so it points to the turning point. The vented-in air flows a little bit more to the front of the G4 case, so no dead-air corner (more on the mini-site ...). Tip: The wood you see is because of the already placed outer plastic casing, so the clap door was horizontal placed what prevents cutting in the worktable. Also handy because the Silverstone Cross Flow will popping out at both sides of the metal clap door.  A new hole is born in my G4 case, don't forget to round the sharp edges with a file. You can do this by holding the clap door in free air and the G4 case placed at the edge of the worktable.  This is how the Silverstone Cross Flow will be mounted on the G4 clap door. I will re-use the mounted angled grill at the front as a mounting tool inside the clap door. Because a plastic outer case part of the G4's clap door will cover the naked (no so sharp) blades. At this side of the clap door, air is pulled into the case.   Before placing the angled grill, I took some cable-isolation (stripped in length from an electrical cable) and pushed it over 3/4 hole edges. I've done this to isolate metal on metal ultrasounds and avoiding damages on the fan connection cable. You'll see that the air-flow is a little bit directed to the front of the G4 case. I also used a Sata-Power connector instead of the normal red-black-black-yellow power connectors. Otherwise it could be in the way of the Silverstone Cross Flow. The Silverstone Cross Flow is mounted with normal screws. The mounting of the angled grill is done with 4 mm drilled holes and rivets. The flat part of the rivet is at the locking plate side, the rivet bulb at the outer side of the G4 case. Tip: The locking plate can bend a little bit, so it glide over the flat rivet heads. Maybe you need to cut out more plastic away on the locking plate, cause of the use the stripped cable needs more width to slide around.   Because the Cross Flow needs grip on air aside (enough room) and in front, I need a hole in the outer casing to be sure the Cross Flow is not running in buffered air or can't take enough air when the outer casing is mounted back on the metal clap door. For a nice color scheme I cut out the plastic grill of the G4's back outer casing, cause this one is holding air in, and re-use it on the outer casings clap door. Also because air is pulled in that hoovers between metal clap door and outer casing, the re-used grill is good enough for passing the eventually short coming air.  This is a rectangle marked just before mounting the Cross Flow on the clap door. It is only the part of the naked blades and I have now a center point to bell drill a big circle in it. But the center part is a little bit moved so the length to center point is equally with (on photo) bottom and right side. It's placed nicely on a diagonally line between two mountings screws and the Apple logo. Tip: By placing the outer casing on the clap door (see clip on Apple logo) you can mark through the hole in the clap door and you can test the needed depth for the Silverstone Cross Flow fan. Tip: When you bell drill, lay the outer case-part with the logo down on a bundle of newspapers. The surface will not be scratched and the bream is lesser when the bell passes and go through the newspapers. Warning: Don't scratch inside the outer case-part, cause this is a kind of plastic coating and you will see it at the other side. If there was a light placed between the plastic outer case and the clap door, you will see the marks at the other side.  The nice (unsharp) blades are now shining through the new hole in the outer casing. A nice precision work whereby the blades don't touch the outer case of the G4's clap door.  The plastic grill is hot glued at 5 points. This means taking of the outer casing again and lay it on paper with the surface down. Placing the plastic grill in the cut out circle (I had a little bit room between grill and outer casing) and hot glue one diagonally pin. Then with a wet finger I pressed the hot glue deeper while even it out. I had to do it five times. After that, I used a not flexible copper core of a electrical wire, to bridge a diagonally plastic pin and the outer case. You won't see it at the front, but hot gluing such short copper cores (1 cm) of a wire gives extra strength and helps the plastic grill not collapsing in when pushed at the surface side.  Afterwards I drilled some holes around the inserted grill at the outer case because the diameter of the hole is lesser then the Cross Flow blade length. I chopped 10 cm away of the edge from the outer case-part, what is a difficult job not scratching the coating. This plastic has the bad feature melting and bulbing when cutting. I used some filter material that let as much air through its holes and glued it on the outer case-part of the G4's clap door.   Where the filter material is glued, is normally isolated from the air inside. It just gives a nicer black look when you see the gap in the front. The white plastic board I made comes in handy at a later time and will cover everything in a neatly way (you know the holes of the mother-board). III - A new flying drive bay, where the 4the 80Gb harddisk can rest on Placing 5 hard disks in that G4 case is a not so big problem, but if I want the drives spread in that case and also for better venting those disks, I need one extra drive bay. Were to place it ? Can I use another PC hard disk cage mounting in this mac ? What's the most simple solution ? How could I easily connect the needed wires and have still an optimal airflow ? How can I fasten it ? Nice questions ...   I love to work with aluminium (kind of alloy) and had some long 'U' and 'L' profiles laying around. Now a simple solution was bending a 'L' profile with bending points at sawed gaps, with the right measurements coming from the Serial ATA drive. Here's an example:  Once this 'L' profile is sawed correctly, with gaps of 90° or two times sawing at 45°, you can bend it in an 'U' shape. Now a 'U' profile that riveted underneath the ends this bended 'U' shaped L-profile, gives a sturdy drive bay. This also helps the drive bay not bending/hanging down by weight while it's mounted at the back on the fan-caging. Mounting at the back means getting out that fan and fan-caging. If you follow the lower edge of that fan-caging at the back, you'll find two screwdriver gaps. Loosen the bolts and the fan-caging is slowly coming of when you pull at an angle. Two metal lips at the top are sliding out of the membrane where the power-supply sits on. Remember the position when you place back the fan-caging and fan.   I drilled 3 holes of 4 mm and riveted the new drive bay against that fan-caging. What you also see is a kind of cushioning, but this is nothing more then isolating the rivet-flat-heads from the harddisk circuits. I drilled holes aside the new drive bay, but these are not perfect. At a later time I used plastic straps to keep the new Sata hard disk in place. I think this is a nice solution for an extra hard disk bay. Flying above the other ones with good venting under and above the harddisk. IV - The front of the G4 350Mhz HD Case - placing the venting in/out grill If you see the photos on this page, there are some axial fans placed above the Optical Zip Cage that blowing out hot air. Now making a hole for the axial fans is nice and you may go a little bit wrong, when covering with the Mac's outer casing, you won't see it. Placing a DigitalDoc 5 is no big problem at all, just slide it in.  G4 Mirrored Drive Door model Only, we need also venting holes (that's why I love the G4 MDD model) in the outer casing so that the axial fans and the fan in the DigitalDoc can work. Now a little note: When drilling or cutting in the outer casing plastic, the plastic can clog and melt back together by heat generated by the speed of the used tool. This can be very annoying. But I've warned you. Making a mistake cause your patience is dropping to zero, you can break small parts. I had to think of how making neat holes and how to cover it. How can I access the DigitalDoc when I've found a kind of solution? What I have was a big ALU venting plate you mostly use when venting out/in Air at houses for some reason. I've made it smaller by cutting it with a Dremel tool, cause the use of an ordinary metal saw bended the material. It's somewhat a wacky material.  So I had cut out a smaller plate with some nice wide venting holes. There was a hole made in the plastic front plate, exactly the same as the needed spare for the axial fans in the front. So I know, by holding this ALU plate in front of the Axial Fan hole, how many wide venting holes I needed on a separate plate. Tip: It is possible that you need to remove more plastic of the plastic casing, let's say downwards (using the third wide venting hole in the upper plate), cause the material between two wide venting holes keeps some venting-out air back in. I did this at a later state, also these wide venting holes on the ALU plate breaks the airflow down. The upper part of the ALU plate I've made is nicely drilled and riveted. And you can mount the front of the outer plastic casing back in place on the G4 case. Now you see where the DigitalDoc 5 fits, nicely on the place were the plastic CD-Rom door can flip open. Under the DigitalDoc 5 there's a metal plate that covers the mounted hard disk behind (If you had no Zip drive installed, you always has that piece on the Optical Zip cage).   I've drilled some holes in that plastic CD-Rom clap door (lays upside-down on the photo), two rivet-holes are also made (4 mm). On the inner-side, the long plastic handle is chopped away cause it can hit some DigitalDoc 5 buttons when pushing de CD-open button. Also with a sharp knife, the inlay has been cut cause the drill will wrap it up. Tip: So best cut the inlay nicely away before you drill a hole in the CD-Rom clap door.  In my opinion it was not enough and made from the drilled holes one big rectangle one (see photo, the right position now). And, I even took more just passing the old CD-Rom button hole halfway. Now I have only to rivet the second ALU-plate against this Plastic CD-Rom clap door. Tumble the plastic CD-Rom clap door back in place. This is the result:   The grill and filter from the DigitalDoc are taken away for a better airflow. Now I have a nice robust looking G4 front. What you can do with this system I - Making simple back-up's  OS X Leopard's Time Machine First of all ... Time machine, the new Mac OS X Leopard feature. This software should backup everything automatically, but you need an extra harddrive for this. It's nice I can setup my system so that one, or in a raid 0 paired harddisks, constantly makes backup's of my system. Without hooking up a new extra harddisk on the USB 2.0 or a Firewire extender port at the back of a firewire used bridge-board. But, with all the good things there also comes some negative ones. This Time machine will eat processing power (depending on data changes in a file) and data-busses bandwidth. Like they've said: just plugin another harddisk and it will be automatically configured for you.
Note: Why is Apple not shipping their machines with two harddisks in a smaller size for this new feature ? I think my system is a winner for this nice Leopard's Time machine feature. But ... ... by bandwidth it will use and aside from the many programs I run, it's better I manually make some backups. Think about it: every swapfile change in a virtual drive in a virtual environment that contains Microsoft windows 2000 or XP, will call the Time machine feature to search for the difference and write it away ... Also because the virtual drive is a file that's continue changing by the natural behavior of a virtual Windows 2000 or XP:
I need processing power for those virtual machines, Time machine will eat back away the needed processing power by constantly updating the backup drive ... Maybe a not so nice feature in Leopard for me ! But making normal backups should not be a problem when using this closed system. II - Use it as a stable test-platform You can use it as a stable test-platform like I do. Just install OS X and a program where you can run multiple operating systems virtually on top of it. With enough ram and some tweaking in the virtual operation environment, you can run these environments at ones. Microsoft Virtual PC is discontinued, the only options are Parallels software and the upcoming VMWare software. Very nice when you can:
Note: Using DOS programs or games, use a CPUidle.exe or you can dry you hair with the MAC mini's blower ...
III - More harddisks to secure your data I can just setup all the four 80 Gb harddisks in JBOD-mode on the bridge-boards. Using the OS X Software raid 5 feature for securing data for special work like Video editing and other work where files are big and important (Also a simple and good backup). Or use OS X software Raid 0 feature on two paired hardware Raid 0 devices. The G4 case I use is build against breaking in by using the leaver at the back. It's possible to hook the G4 case against a wall with an anti-theft slot and cable. Harddisk upgrades are cheap and easy ! A final word and some final photos All what you see here is a snippet of a bigger mini-website with the whole story who has build this system and why. There are more things to read: Tips & Tricks and reasons why you should the build the system in this way. Also there are other little modifications with lots of work in resources. And there's one more interesting thing ... but you'll find it out quickly enough.          
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