Kitchen PC II
This project aimed to replace our old Kitchen PC. It has become necessary because old PC was too big for the kitchen of our new apartment.
So new idea came to my mind. As we do not have enough room to place a big PC in the kitchen, why not to place just a small PC in the kitchen with minimum hardware and deploy some bigger storage separately and provide access to it from the new small kitchen PC. But we did not have enough room for CRT monitor and PC case anyway.
At the same time we were just thinking about new kitchen closet, because the old one was hanging too high for Dasha and was too old. So I decided to order new closet from my dad. I planned this closet to keep dishes and the new kitchen PC.
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How Did I Make It |
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As usual I spent some time thinking and measuring space in the kitchen and then made a draft using AutoCAD.
As a result I have got the closet.
As you see, there are cells for PC case itself and accessories. The deepness of the shelves is smaller then the deepness of the rest of the closet — to provide access to the wires behind the PC and to allow air circulation for cooling the PC.
The shelves to the right of the closet are designated to store the PC case. Right before making the draft I found suitable case. It is GMC F11 Silver.
This is pretty compact Micro ATX case with capability to install extension cards, like TV tuner, for example.
But what about display monitor? As we do not have enough room for our old 17 inch CRT display, I decided to buy new 17 inch LCD display and install it on the wall below the closet and PC. I chose Mitsubishi NX76 LCD display to be used in the project. This is qualitative display with characteristics, satisfying all our requirements. It also fits color spectrum of the PC and kitchen: silver and white.
As I planned to put the display at the wall, I bought special wall mount for LCD displays.
This is not a fancy wall mount, but it is extremely reliable — fully metal and allows to rotate, tilt and turn the display in any plane. Almost perfect!
So entirely finished project looks like that:
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Accessories |
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As you see, there is no space for keyboard nearby the PC. Actually the keyboard is rarely used with kitchen PC — mostly mouse. I bought a set of wireless keyboard and mouse by Microsoft — to get rid of the wires. I wish the keyboard would be smaller, but all wireless keyboards I saw in the stores are relatively big, unfortunately.
They use single receiver, connected to the PC. That is why the small bottom shelf below the PC case was made: receiver is placed there.
The speakers remained the same as in previous kitchen PC.
I also added a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) to protect the PC from AC power failure. As usual it is connected to the PC via data-cable to initiate proper shutdown process in case of AC power failure.
Now the PC is fully functional and in conjunction with HomeServer is very useful entertainment center.
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