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The Final Touches
To finish up the construction of this project I needed to make vents for air to flow to the PSU intake fan. (Note: there were already vent holes conveniently placed over the CPU). I laid out a criss-cross pattern that matched the size of the PSU fan. Then I drilled holes into the steel that made for a pretty decent homemade ventilation system. After making the final air vents I took the steel case and re-painted it gloss black, since it was repeatedly scratched while the system was being built. Another little touch-up item was a faceplate for the DVD-ROM. This was quite simple, and I just took the old tape flap and cut it down to fit on the front of the DVD-ROM faceplate with double sided tape. At a first glance there was no longer any way to tell there was a computer hidden in this old VCR. One item that I did run into problems with was the RF receiver for the wireless keyboard and mouse. My original plan was to have the receiver hidden inside the system, but, after trying this out, I found the range on the components was cut down to less than 3 feet and they could only be used directly in front of the system. By simply using it the way the manufacturer intended it to be used (outside the case) I was able to attain a good signal anywhere in my room, and even through some walls in my house. So it was best decided to leave the receiver outside of the case. The final (and my favorite thing) done to the VCR was the custom light job done with ELwire. Since the entire bottom of the VCR was plexiglass I decided to use this to my advantage. I went to my local computer store and bought 5 feet of Blue ELwire and carefully placed it around all the corners and under all the hardware installed in the VCR since this was done after most of the construction. The ELwire uses very little power so I was not worried about the strain on the mini 180watt PSU. The final two cosmetic features made to this system were the little black feet on the bottom so that you can see the blue glow of the ELwire while it's on, and the Red Vinyl sticker that clearly displays the Greek letter "Xi" for the projects name on the top of the case.
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Conclusion
This is definitely the most time consuming computer related project I have ever done. It took a lot of custom modifications that to some may be crude, but to others may be the coolest thing they have ever seen. As for the performance of the VCR, I don't really have any exciting benchmarks to show you because this machine really isn't performance based. It is running off of PC133 RAM and a low end 64meg video card. But I can say that it does playback DVD's and DivX movies with no problem, plays most games with reasonable frame rates, and is currently running a tweaked version of Windows XP (I used TR.com's guide to tweaking windows XP). With the wireless keyboard/mouse and s-video out on the video card, using this system on a home television was very simple and fun to use. As for its looks, it is like a superhero: plain, meaningless and ordinary VCR by day, and blue gaming and movie playing home entertainment PC by night! It really throws people off when they walk into my dark room looking below my TV to see a VCR that glows blue from the bottom.
