Casemod

[SpinyNorman]

Hi guys!

Its the dawn of a new era, uhm at least year, and I badly need a new computer.
A new computer also indicates a new casemod.
And this brings me to the nature of my intended querry.
How does one go about using old electical gauges for monitoring cpu-usage etc?

[von Brasswood]

Totally off-topic: Oh my goodness! Another Norwegian?

[WisconsinPlatt]

With much difficulty in my experience.

I'd love to find an easy way to, haven't yet.  Especially if you want the gauge to display something meaningful.  I've got something up my sleeve, but still working out the bugs to determine if it was a Good Idea^TM or just a waste of $100. 

Time will tell and I will post either way...

[Fortigurn]

A very good question.  I can direct you to a forum on which you'll find a few people who have attempted this, or know someone who has.  In the meantime, I'll take the opportunity to post a few glimpses of my own Steampunk case mod (embarrassingly, about 6 years in the making).

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[Jake of All Trades]

*Looks up distractedly and slightly startled*  Oh, that would be my department, wouldn't it?

Well, I would start here.  This would be the most straight-forward way to turn CPU usage into usable hardware signals, though it does only have eight levels.  The are several ways to adapt this circuit to control an electrical meter, some more elegant than others.  My personal favorite method is somehow both the easiest and overly complicated--perfectly suited to a beginner Steampunk, eh?  Here's what you do:

1) Build the circuit exactly as shown on the above web-site.
2) Obtain a photoresistor ("electric eye!") from Radio Shack, an old night-light, etc.
3) Enclose photocell in a light-proof container along with the bundled-up LEDs from the CPU circuit
4) Connect the photocell between the meter and a power supply (the way one would put a switch in a simple circuit).  You will likely need to add a potentiometer and a resistor or two in order to get the levels right.  Basically, you are building a light meter that is tuned to varying levels of light put out by the LEDs (more LEDs lit, more light).  Savvy? 

I haven't actually used this method myself so I can't guarantee success, but I'm pretty confident.

[Mechanic Jeeves]

Lets say you've got an old functional voltmeter, the very simplest method I can think of to make it work to measure something from the computer is by building a little resistor network.

So, you connect a power supply such that the voltage of the supply is about enough to drive the scale of the voltmeter to 100% on its scale to some resistor. What value the resistor is doesn't really matter, just some suitable load. Then, you add some more resistors of the same value to the circuit each with a transistor in parallel with it. When you apply voltage to the base of one of the transistors, you essentially "short circuit" the corresponding resistor group, decreasing the resistance of the circuit as a whole and increasing the potential difference across the resistor your voltmeter is measuring.

If you connected the base of each of the transistors' bases up to an output pin of the parallel port, you could get up to 12 steps in your measurement. By building a more complex resistor net, you could potentially get a full 8 bits of data, but the complexity of the circuit increases exponentially.

There are some problems with this approach, namely that most voltmeters you get measure voltages far in excess of the tolerance of the average transistor. It's possible you may be able to ajust an old voltmeter quite easily just by loosening the spring, though. Another problem is that your meter would never read true zero.

Other possible approaches in a similar vein include a servo driven potentiometer (but quite frankly, if you're getting servos in to play you might as well hook it up directly you the needle...) or a digipot.

[WisconsinPlatt]

Other possible approaches in a similar vein include a servo driven potentiometer (but quite frankly, if you're getting servos in to play you might as well hook it up directly you the needle...) or a digipot.

Bingo.  I love the digipot idea...but I've never been able to make it work with my meager skills. 

[SpinyNorman]

Thanks for the quick replies people.

Im not much of an electronic expert, but I think i can put some heads together and make it work.
The resistor circuit sounds doable.

Mechanic Jeeves, would it be to much trouble if I asked you to post a simple drawing of the resistor/transister grid?
 

Ps:Fortigurn, love the case-photos. Keep it up, im a slow worker to :p

[Mechanic Jeeves]

Sure.

Here's a two input version of my idea, add more resistor/transistor pairs as appropriate.
(done in visio, which isn't too great for circuit diagrams, but it's better than nothing)



I realised what I said about true zero was stupid, in this version if input one is low (you may need to add schmitt triggers to the parallel port lines to make this work btw...) then the voltmeter will read zero. Making input one high turns the whole circuit "on".

After that, if input two is low then the value of the resistor group is just r1. If the input is high, then the resistance of the resistor group is more or less zero ohms.

[Fortigurn]

Thanks for the quick replies people.

Im not much of an electronic expert, but I think i can put some heads together and make it work.
The resistor circuit sounds doable.

If you do get it to work, I'd be interested in your notes.  Electronics confuse me totally (I can manage a simple circuit diagram with a battery, two wires and a light bulb, but that's about it), which is frustrating because I'd like to include something like this in my case.

Ps:Fortigurn, love the case-photos. Keep it up, im a slow worker to :p

Thanks.  Actually I realised afterwards that I'd taken the thread off track a bit, and was going to apologise for a bit of a hijack.  But since you're interested, you may appreciate the following.

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You may find these links of use (from another forum I frequent):

ELECTRONIC STUFF
(LED, LCD, rheobus/fanbus, etc)
  how to change case LED
  how to mod NIC LED
  how to mod keyboard LED

LCD how-to
  baybus how-to
  guide to fanbus/rheobus
flashing LED
PC port pin outs
resistor colour codes
PC dimensions, pinouts etc

FAQ's
Bit-Tech.net's Ultimate LCD Faq:
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5582

Contains all useful titbits, links to places to buy and software low downs.

LCD assembly

The Ultimate LCD construction page:
http://www.myrolypoly.com/lcd_project/lcd_project.html

Has information on just about everything you need on making yoru own LCD, step by step instructions, and best of all, pretty pictures

Pappasmurfs Crystalfontz FAQ and construction how to:
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/pappasmurf/CrystalFontz%20LCD%20Information%20-%20CFAH2004A-TMI-JP.pdf

Wolfy's Parralel LCD assembly Guide:
http://www.overclockers.com.au/techstuff/a_diy_lcd/

Setting up a serial Crystalfontz LCD:
http://www.overclockers.com.au/~mwp/cc/guides/setup-serial.htm

Setting up a hd44780 compatible LCD:
http://www.overclockers.com.au/~mwp/cc/guides/setup-hd44780.htm

Software

Crystal Control Software:
http://www.overclockers.com.au/~mwp/cc/

Written by OCAU's MWP, this nifty software is the ultimate in LCD control

http://www.markuszehnder.ch/project...ugin/index.html - Very good winamp plugin that work with Parallel and serial units.

http://www.geocities.com/special_4k4/ - some cool little LCD progs including HDD info, Stock ticker, Time and DUmeter.

http://www.jalcds.de - screen based LCD software, most of the plugins are on german though. Works with Parallel and Serial.

Software:

LCDMax
http://www.lcdmax.de/index_en.htm  - simple little program that does all the stuff.

LCDProc
http://lcdproc.omnipotent.net/  - Powerful *nix, *bsd LCD Program that can be used on almost any module, predefined screens only.

DriverLinx Port IO Driver
http://www.driverlinx.com/Software_Products/softwareproducts.htm - Windows driver that allows communication to the LCD, needed for most software

[alfa1]

How does one go about using old electical gauges for monitoring cpu-usage etc?

Instead of measuring cpu usage, would you settle for the somewhat lesser goal of measuring the temperature of the cpu?
A thermistor placed on the cpu, leading to a fan controller circuit, instead of powering a fan the power goes to a panel meter instead.     Quite simple really.

[Fortigurn]

How does one go about using old electical gauges for monitoring cpu-usage etc?

Instead of measuring cpu usage, would you settle for the somewhat lesser goal of measuring the temperature of the cpu?
A thermistor placed on the cpu, leading to a fan controller circuit, instead of powering a fan the power goes to a panel meter instead.     Quite simple really.

There's a tutorial on building a thermistor controlled fan circuit here.  This may be useful for what you suggest.

[SpinyNorman]

Sweet pictures and lovely collection of links, thanks Fortigurn.

If the whole deal of temperature reading is simpler, I might opt or that instead.

The other day I visited the place at the universety where they throw away old and non working electronics, and I must say, what a sweet loot. I got a big bag of old components (not really victorian old, but still), a GIGANTIC coil thing with cast metal suports, an old voltmeter complete with needle gauge(need to test if it works), and a cool sort of three in one coil thing. If i find my camera, il post some pics. I am planning on incorperating them in my casemod.

[Fortigurn]

Sweet pictures and lovely collection of links, thanks Fortigurn.

Thanks mate.  I'll have some more photos up tonight.

[TinkererInTraining]

failing all that you could just buy one of these.

http://www.apevia.com/product.php?pid=200&xcSID=4f561d9a1818dd27deccaae62dfa89ab

I have one, the guages themselves are easily removed, if you have the time an inclination it would be easy to switch out the blue ones for some white, change the LEDs to amber. The rest of the case could just be painted. And if you REALLY felt like doing something you colud change the Acrylic display to Stained glass looking.

I had planned on doing all that to mine, but I'm impatient and just wanted it to live.

[SpinyNorman]

Yes, but since my casemod is so significant, it is completly un-economic for me to buy something like that just for the gauges. Does anyone know if there is a place I could buy just the front panel/ gauges (I guess this thread is stupid if there was such a store in the first place though  )

I think im going for the fan controll http://www.virtual-hideout.net/guides/temp_controlled_fan/index.shtml
So, if got a voltmeter (need to get a new one btw), I just connect a resistor in parallell with the meter instead of a fan, and the voltage is going to increase as the temperature increases?

[Fortigurn]

Yes, but since my casemod is so significant, it is completly un-economic for me to buy something like that just for the gauges. Does anyone know if there is a place I could buy just the front panel/ gauges (I guess this thread is stupid if there was such a place in the first place though  )

I think im going for the fan controll thing http://www.virtual-hideout.net/guides/temp_controlled_fan/index.shtml

There are plenty of places from which you can buy all kinds of electronically controlled gauges.  I rather like this, but of course you want real gauges.

For real gauges, try this tutorial:

Help w/circuit to move an analog meter with temperature/thermistor input

The result is his case here.  Yes, that's a computer.  Various analog dials display temperature, HDD activity, and other data.

[SpinyNorman]

One thing I could do, that is even simpler given it works, is connect the voltmeter to measure the voltage over the main fan on the case.
In this way, i could make a gauge that monitors the speed of my controllable fan. My main goal is generaly to have a working gauge on the case for the coolnes/aestetics/look.  (got to have gauges  )

[Fortigurn]

It's time for decisions to be made over pipes and cables.  Here is what I ended up with after a little experimentation with steel mesh tubing and metallic spraypaint.

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I decided to go with the brass (naturally).  I was pleased with how these turned out.

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Now to give it a little direction and form.

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That looks very serviceable.  Let's add another pipe.

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[RetroSmith]

Greetings & Salutations!
I do believe that Coolermaster manufactured a device called a Musketeer that matches the description that you have given.  I am uncertain if it is still available.  I do recall there being 3 versions of the device with the second being most suitable for the modification that you describe.  Ah yes, here it is:

http://www.velocityreviews.com/reviews/Cooler-Master-Musketeer-II.php

I hope this was of some service.

Best regards,

Ansel Babbage, Esq., RetroSmith

[Fortigurn]

Good job!  I was looking for the Musketeer.  Oooh look, seems some people are still selling it.  Cheap too.  Hey wow, the Musketeer III looks like it has a lot of potential also!

[SpinyNorman]

This sucks, I cant seem to find any stores that sells the musketeer 2 or 1 that ships to norway.

Did find the musketeer 3 though

[RetroSmith]

Greetings & Salutations,

I am sorry to hear that you are unable to source the Musketeer device in Norway but all is not lost.  Please see the linked tutorial  here: http://www.custompc.co.uk/howtos/601346/make-an-analogue-hard-drive-meter.html#

Best regards,

Ansel Babbage, Esq., Retrosmith

[SpinyNorman]

Great find, when the pages server is up again, il check it out.

And Btw Fortigurn, the pics looks great, if all the visible cables are inside those, its going to look fantastic. I might have to "borrow" that idea

[Fortigurn]

Thanks.  That tubing is intended for the outside, in order to give the case that Steampunk look.  I have smaller silver braided cable sleeving for internal cables.