Finishing up the GBPVR

Okay, okay, so it's been a few months of either not using my GBPVR system, or resorting to using it in an ugly old half-skeleton case. It was time to fancy it up a little bit.

I bought this box from Target to house the components. It was around $30, and should work well in my room.

Next, I carefully measured and cut the hole for the back panel. Unfortunately, I measured and cut it backwards. I had to hack off some extra material on the side to make the motherboard tray fit.

I decided to just cut off even more material and add a fan.

Next was hacking more holes and more holes. I had to cut an opening for the front LCD screen, as well as an opening in the back for the power supply. I dug out an old 1U PSU from one of my other projects that fit perfectly on the tray for the hard drives. I just needed to drill and tap some holes in it so I could screw it into the same tray. The pictures below are show the new holes I hacked in, as well as some fancy oak trim to go around the outside of the LCD screen.

It's all starting to come together now. Next I sanded the oak trim and carefully stained it a darker stain to provide some contrast in the box, as well as match my TV stand. Looks pretty nice, if I do say so myself. Now all that's left is to mount everything inside and turn it on!

Hey, looks pretty nice, huh? Let's turn her on and test it out!

Nothing.

I was smart enough to remove the covering on my PSU before drilling and tapping the holes in it. Unfortunately, I wasn't smart enough to buy the tiniest screws in the world. I'd screwed the PSU in too hard, squishing some valuable components beyond repair. Crap. Buying another 1U PSU was out of the question, as I was trying to keep this project as cheap as I could. I dug out a standard PSU, and quickly mounted it in (quickly being the word I use for "not done very well", since at this point I had already cut out an unecessary hole where the 1U had stuck out of, as well as messed up the hole for the mobo tray. I just didn't care anymore about the back of the unit and cut as quickly as I could). Here's how the inside looks after mounting the new PSU.

And now, a couple of money shots:

The black button in this photo is the power switch, if you couldn't figure it out.