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Kanister - a total conversion PC mod
Base Material
This is a really old mod. In fact, i dont even remember when I started to build it. I guess i did complete the Kanister in mid 2002. I was first thinking of building a PC into a watering-pot, but a friend warned me about doing such childish stuff...'better do something only men can do... use a gasoline tank'. So i bought a new 20liter fuel tank and started working. The PC components were leftovers of my last computer.
Production
Unfortunately I didnt take any pictures (despite the fact, I owned a digital camera since 09/2000) during production. The manufacturing started with cutting a hole into the metal. I used a Jiggswaw to create a orifice big enough to fit a mainboard in. I also cut a hole into the backside exacly fitting an ATX outbreak-board.After these preperations were done, i started mounting the ATX-board. I used a cartboard template to mark the drills on the inside. After the drills were completed I used the trial&error method to find the correct spacers (fabricated out of ballpens) to fit the mainboard smoothly on the screws. Now i stripped the slot-bracket off the PCI-extension cards and mounted them, used a pen to mark the connectors locations and cut (drilled) them out. I used most off the now obsolete slot-bracket to form some new mounting brackets for the extension cards.
Since the PSU was way to big to fit into the Kanister i stripped the outer case (Warning: Don't do this at home!!). Fortunately the PCB itself was small enough to fit in. I reworked some of the PCBs case parts and remounted them together with the power-fan back into the Kanister. Now the powersupply-PCB couldn't be touched anymore and was well cooled. The power connector was placed at the top orivice of the 'Kanister'
Since this mod was designed as a linux-server, i didnt need to add an optical drive. In order to mount the harddisk I stripped some mounting parts from an old PC-case. These are holding the disk and are mounted with some screws from the outside. So changing the harddisk is quite easy.
Since I wanted to have a real badass case I tryed to form some shotgun-holes into the metal. A nail and a hammer should do the job, but unfortunately this didnt look good. The paint scheme looks a little like NATO camouflage. On the inside a backlight tube was added. To get some nice effects, most of the inner case was painted with uv-active color. Some other uv-active items were also installed. The great hole in the front was closed with a plexi door with an embossed Linux writing.
For even more geekness, I installed a mirror ball, which is driven by a modified servo and illuminated by 4 LEDs. The servo motor generates a lot of acoustic noise, so the Kanister is feared by everyone, sitting next to it.
Pictures
