105 replies to this topic

[TorqueX86]

Just joking Aqua.. I love your work <Grin>

It is with extreme pride that i introduce the long awaited FLUFF PRO

Matching Apple's ergonomicity and looks was a really tough task indeed. The G5 case is a true masterpiece of functionality and sober, pleasing looks. All mods that I have seen, including my previous one, were way too inclined toward the PC world, with cables, cuts, holes, screws where they ought not to be.

But how the hell are we going to fit a motherboard in AND keep the original ports?

Let's see!



Here's a very rough initial setup (the hardware used is listed in the signature)
I used the superb Noctua heatsinks and fans to keep the baby cool and silent, and indeed it is.

The biggest problem was to fit the motherboard and the ports. I had to literally take the web apart to find proper small and tight receptacles in order to accommodate all ports without drilling a hole in the beautiful case.



And so I did, and attached the receptacles to internal or external cables on my motherboard. The Gigabyte mobo is superb, as it has all required internal connectors to do a neat job.



Very messy I'm actually planning to build a film-thin circuit to be placed behind the motherboard with all the wiring paths in order to avoid this ugly wire setup.



Here's an internal shot of one of the ethernet ports: goes straight into the mobo's gigabit LAN.

Let's do some magic now! The case has a FW800 port! Whohoo, we want that!

Basically, the FW800 is retro-compatible to FW400 via bilingual cable. Therefore, the FW800 port can be attached to one of the onboard FW400 ports (with half speed) but I wanted a way to keep the possibility to use the port at full speed. Easypeasy, just slap a connector in the middle of the cable, and eventually connect a true FW800 to an internal board!



Here is the receptacle. It was REALLY difficult to find it, therefore I bought on eBay a cheap second hand Sonnet card and happily vandalised it



And here we go with the infamous connector I was talking about earlier:



This baby fits in the onboard FW connector of the board. The other 2 firewire connectors will be attached internally on the motherbard's internal connectors.

Now, the power supply.

I used a superb Enermax Liberty 630W, able to perform in the most stressful situations without fans. I had to take it apart and place it internally in the power supply bay.



It has a nice modular design that allowed me to easily connect all the current and eventual future peripherals in my Mac.



You can also see the fan board. This stuff is really good. It has several sensors and 4 fan connectors. You will have to program the board, and it will work by itself thereafter, no need of a particular OS or whatever. Basically the fans in the case will blow air when, where and how much is needed. Result? Hey is the Mac on or...

Here's the sensor on the chipset...



Here's the one on the GFX Card



The only impossible thing was to add 2x TOSLink connectors. Way too big, would never fet So what do we do? Well, we can add a Digital In and a Digital Out, of course, they will just be Coaxial instead of Optical. No change at all in the sound quality. The connectors are attached internally in the SPDIF connectors.

Here's a first rough shots of the ports. Still some are missing.



It did pay off though...

All ports managed to fit retaining the full functionality!





Time to clean up and assemble the baby.

Here's a shot with the cable duct I used to gather all the vertical cables in the case:



On top of the duct I will later on place 2x 120mm fans independently controlled by the thermo board.

Now, the front panel! I bought the very latest G5 case, which uses a hell of a complicated front panel, here's a shot and my beautifully handwritten diagram





PLEASE NOTE. The board has a proprietary Firewire bus with a proprietary connector. Hence I had to dissolder the FW connector from the board and connect it to an independent cable. Worked well enough

Now a minor thingy, connect the power cable for the drives to the power supply. Piece of cake, cut up the original cable and attached an enermax connector. Voila'!



Also, the Optical drive power cable is designed for an IDE unit, I just added a cascade SATA style connector, and worked very well.



Very well, time now to clean it up, unwrap it and place the cables in a good way, here's the result!



Here's the Fluff Pro in all its beauty:



Some rear shots:







Here's a shot with the plexiglass deflector:



And here's my Fluff, ready for battle <3



I'd like to say a big THANK YOU to Mr. Yeep for lending me his expertise and great mind to make all this come true.

And of course a big thank you to all of you modders, who inspired me and gave me precious ideas for my big project!

Torque

[zonoskar]

Wow, that's a nice build. How did you attach the mobo and what are you going to do with all that space in the front

[TorqueX86]

zonoskar, on Apr 21 2008, 10:07 PM, said:

Wow, that's a nice build. How did you attach the mobo and what are you going to do with all that space in the front

Thanks

The mobo (and the rest) is attached onto an aluminium plate, and I'm planning to build a neat aluminium HD rack with a nice perforated grill on top in the empty space in the front, as I'm also planning to install an Highpoint PCI-E RAID 5 Card

[teknojunkie]

nice what powersupply did you have and I want to replace mine and use the stock powersupply enclousure and the top part that covers it can post some pics of that thanks

[FabricioGS]

Awsome job. I did the same seach to find a way to use the original rear holes but your solution was very messy creative

[TorqueX86]

Viper.Br, on Apr 22 2008, 03:34 AM, said:

Awsome job. I did the same seach to find a way to use the original rear holes but your solution was very messy creative

There is actually a reason why the cables are so messy. I could have made them the very right size and not have to bend them and cellotape them on the mounting plate... But how about if one day i change motherboard and the wires won't be long enough? In the process is the design and building of a circuit film to place behind the motherboard with little connectors. This way we can make custom cables for each motherboard without having to throw away everything each time

amantheboy08, on Apr 22 2008, 12:18 AM, said:

nice what powersupply did you have and I want to replace mine and use the stock powersupply enclousure and the top part that covers it can post some pics of that thanks

OMGWEDONTUSEPUNCTUATIONUHLOLOL:D :DJust jokin' :PAs I said,the power supply used is an Enermax Liberty 630W, and the plate covering it is the Powermac's original one, without any modification.Of course, the power supply must necessarily be insulated to avoid a terrible death by electrification And so I did by mounting it in between 2 thin plexiglass panels, to avoid any contact with the plate or the bottom of the case. Fits beautifully without other modifications than simply taking it apart. On top of that I also added a molex connector to attach it to the power socket on the case, this way I'll make my life a lot easier the day I will decide to upgrade the power supply

[shaanky98]

Your mod is really looking good, how did you get your audio ports connected at the back?
Keep up the good work.

[sarahbau]

Looks like you did a really good job there.

[TorqueX86]

shaanky98, on Apr 22 2008, 11:03 AM, said:

Your mod is really looking good, how did you get your audio ports connected at the back?
Keep up the good work.

That was fairly simple, there are 4 female jacks in the back of the case, 2 of them are connected to the onboard rear analogue audio in and out, and the other 2 are connected to the internal motherboard SPDIF in and out. The front jack is connected to the frontpanel audio out on the mobo.

[Baudouin]

Pro job at the back panel !! Congratz.
I shut down the all electricity of the house three times before understanding why there was a plastic sheet at the top of the PSU. Which you replace by a plexi panel. . After modding mine I included this sheet.

[CZ*DarkLight]

Yea, that backpanel is pro! I wanted to do someting very similar, but it showed as bit more difficult than I expected... But I was kinda scared about putting ATX psu into Apple psu housing, and it went much smoother than I thought... No probs like Baudouin had ) But I miss that "floor" sheet covering psu.. Anyone got it for sale?

// I even got that black covers on 24pin atx power connector, like Apple psu had... I love it should I post photo of my inside?

[TorqueX86]

CZ*DarkLight, on Apr 22 2008, 12:56 PM, said:

// I even got that black covers on 24pin atx power connector, like Apple psu had... I love it should I post photo of my inside?

I have been looking for that for ages and ages... Any clue on where I can find it?

Please post your pics

[HacOSXuser]

TorqueX86, did you paint your fans?
because i didn't know the Noctua fans came in silver.

[olinboy1]

TorqueX86, on Apr 21 2008, 10:24 PM, said:

OMGWEDONTUSEPUNCTUATIONUHLOLOL

Thank you! I'm so glad I wasn't the only one that was annoyed by that. Slow down, take a breath, use some punctuation! Haha. I imagine amantheboy08 on the verge of peeing his pants every time he's posting. Just as he hits the "Add Reply" button, he takes off sprinting for the bathroom.

Ok, I'll stop being an @sshole now.  

[TorqueX86]

HacOSXuser, on Apr 22 2008, 11:34 PM, said:

TorqueX86, did you paint your fans?
because i didn't know the Noctua fans came in silver.

Hey, I did paint them, but grey, just like the Apple stock ones. I chose a Tamiya primer grey paint, which is very opaque and rather resistant. If you manage to find it, it's a great paint.

[Tried]

very very nice..... wish i had your expertise

[dark4181]

TorqueX86, on Apr 23 2008, 02:08 AM, said:

Hey, I did paint them, but grey, just like the Apple stock ones. I chose a Tamiya primer grey paint, which is very opaque and rather resistant. If you manage to find it, it's a great paint.

they look good, did you have to tape them up and whatnot to keep the bearing from sticking?

good job on the mod, but i think i'll go cyprio's route, personally

don't take it wrong, yours looks spectacular, but that's too much wiring for me

[TorqueX86]

dark4181, on Apr 23 2008, 10:51 AM, said:

they look good, did you have to tape them up and whatnot to keep the bearing from sticking?

I just taped the cables, nothing else. If you wanna do that to go ahead, it's safe, but be sure to use Primer type paint, as the regular (especially the glossy) type tends to be a dust magnet... Primer is ok

[teknojunkie]

olinboy1, on Apr 22 2008, 10:35 PM, said:

Thank you! I'm so glad I wasn't the only one that was annoyed by that. Slow down, take a breath, use some punctuation! Haha. I imagine amantheboy08 on the verge of peeing his pants every time he's posting. Just as he hits the "Add Reply" button, he takes off sprinting for the bathroom.

Ok, I'll stop being an @sshole now.

Yes, Thats exaclty what happens, I never read what I write so it always comes out wrong, I hate when I do that, and thats usually all the time don't worry your not being an "@sshole" I do that all the time.

[aqua-mac]

Congtats Torque86, that is a really clean mod! I would be proud of that myself - it is the best I have seen!!. I am thinking of doing another Mac pro case which will have to be a Micro ATX board, but I want to put in 2 9800 GTX cards as I have done here. Anyone know of a core 2 MICRO-ATX board with 2 16x slots in it (even if 1 runs at 4x)?