The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (BEYOND COOL BUT PIC HEAVY)

[ratdude747]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

.....yea, so much fun; all Ratdude's fault! As a matter of fact he'll get to see this in person over the weekend!!

What have I done???

Blame my wife and mom... they discovered the racks at Purdue University Surplus...

And I sure will... but the goodies I'll be hauling have or will (likely) have their own threads

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

The last week or so, I've been toying with some additional display ideas. For some additional functions I'm adding, extra displays would be very helpful versus always having to use the same one through a KVM. I'll still use a K & M functions of the KVM....but what about displays?!? hmmm... I have those 2x 6" displays from the Dolby & sencore units, but here's the problem....the highest resolutions they do are 640x480.... Every utility I would be utilizing requires 800x600....and would be illegible on those....yes I tried.

....so after a lot of looking around at many open-frame & enclosed 4:3 displays 6" or larger but under 10" I stumbled upon some "Earth LCD" fully enclosed 8" industrial displays with a native resolution of 800x600! YAY! New from the maker, they're ~$350, $425 for the touchscreen models. I found some on ebay; only one person had them...and seems to have a bunch...but long story short, I lowballed $25ea for 4 of them and that was that. The current config I have in my head, I'll only need 2, but I grabbed a couple extras just incase. Coincidentally, they are the touchscreen models.

These things are built like tanks. Solid steel frames, not plastic. They can be pedestal mounted oropen-frame / flush mounted. I'll have to play around with which method I'll use.

Anyway.... Here's 3 of the 4:



One lit up. Ignore the poor image, I snapped the pic before pressing the 'auto adjust' button....







They will also display 1024x768, but text isn't very legible....but the Sencore test patters appear nice at that resolution.



Now here's where it gets even better! Here's a view from the back, side, and bottom:







Notice the nifty flange & mounting holes? This would flushmount very nicely to a 4U rack filler panel with minimal fabrication and a stellar clean look!! All the power & interface connectors would be on the inside as well. This is the way I will probably mount them.... Two of them can be side by side and fit comfortably within the 19" rack clearance.

...but here's the other method:

It sports a pattern utilized by a standard pedestal mount.....



The ball mount that came with it, but I don't have the other portion....so I removed it.



Some old cellular phone car mounts from back in the 90's.....How I've kept these all this time is beyond me!





Just a little test....





This could make them mountable in many different ways inside the cabinet.....



.....yea, so much fun; all Ratdude's fault! As a matter of fact he'll get to see this in person over the weekend!!

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

Some more stuff is floating around in my head....so a little tinkering....



THis is the backplane & SBC from the original Secore doodiddle....I stuck my own GPU in it; that PCChips one wasn't worth a shit....not that a Matrox Millennium is anything to brag about, but it's better for sure.





I did kick the RAM up to 256mb from 128mb.....booting from a CF card with an IDE adapter....but that's it for now.



If these changes I have in mind come to fruition, the rack config will be changed around yet again.....but it's only for the better!! Progress!! This is worse than a pre-teen girl 'accessorizing' barbie dolls with new clothes!

Now for some more "can't go back" modifications.....cutting a hole in the floor...what for? A modular power interface.





Masked off and ready to butcher....err, I mean cut!



...and rough cut... I only slipped with the angle grinder twice. It was kind of tricky cutting that in such limited quarters with my pneumatic grinder.....





...but I got it on the first try...



Tape removed.



Now drilled to install the header, which has also been cut down to correct size....that was thin enough I could do it with tin snips.



...and mounted!!





Yea, I could have done a better job with the grinder. I will use the smaller one next time....and with this thing, there will be several 'next times' with cutting holes...





Now if you're wondering what fits these, it's the modular accessory wires from an Antec HE series power supply.... I have gazillions of these. The PSU that donated the interface was a 550W that had weird issues that I couldn't seem to figure out....so I scrapped it for its modular interface connectors.



Clean interface when needed and also when NOT needed!!



Tray reinstalled.



Here's a hint...that's an eATX motherboard with a full length GPU....so nothing else in testing will ever encroach on that interface.



PSU reinstalled.



Yup, all still Ratdude's fault.....but it's getting fun for sure!!!

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

Another day piddling with this....its rainy & crappy, what better way to waste it!

If you remember the "HMMM..." from the last picture in the previous post... The 'HMMM' thing was pondering a mounting tray for various things that needed to be installed inside this. I wasn't overly thrilled with the one I was 'HMMing' about....so I found one better....

Here's where it needs to reside:



...and here's what I found... Ironic enough, it's the original PICMG backplane mount that was in the Secore box. It's now going to be modified for use in the Dolby box, as I needed a raised platform to allow for fasters without having to drill through the entire project and possibly have interference issues on the opposite sides.



Test fit; absolutely perfect fit!! The standoffs on the Dolby box are basically an ATX pattern with the CPU backplates onboard....









Some measurements and then the same tactic as before with the white thermal paste on the standoffs to mark the holes to be drilled.



Perfection!





Now the first things that need to be mounted.....some large shunt resistors for one of the functions of this goofy thing...



Holes marked & drilled.





Shunts fastened down.



This is why I wanted the raised platform, there's ~3/8" of space under this tray for hardware.



Yeah baby! I am leaving the existing standoffs on the tray, handy place to potentially mount things in the future. If I pop them out, they can't be reinstalled....so I'll leave them in place for now... If a standoff needs to be removed later because it's interfering with something, I'll yank it then....



Now this box of crap goes back to my teenage years; remains of an old car audio & car security system.....I wanted to harvest some of the wiring from it....



These are what I was after.



Another HMMMM....



...then the mail came....and the parts for this beast showed up... I haven't lost my touch!!





Now I can get that big sonofabitch off my bench!!

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

Didn't have a lot going on today.....so dialupers, grab your asses and make a wish!! ...along with some new swear words!

If you were wondering what I was going to use that motherboard tray for that was scrapped from a junk case, you're about to find out. It is replacing what once was the SBC backplane....as I needed to be able to mount a multitude of different boards to this....so here we go!!



The standoffs, this is why I didn't pull them when I removed the PICMG tray....



I test fitted, and the standoffs are placed just perfect for this tray....but now I need to figure out how to know where to drill; IE marking the holes.....hmmm...not that bad.

Some white heatsink grease!!



Standoffs gooped up!



Then place the tray carefully over the standoffs:



Now I know where to drill!!



...and done! Tray fastened down.





Motherboard standoffs secured into the tray for minimal mounting points (basically just to keep them from moving around)....Motherboards that will fit:

Small:



Medium:



Large:



...and Extra Large!!



There were some other things I test fitted as well that was a success, but I left it out for a reason. Those details will come out a little later. The next task is fitting the 120MM former midplane fans mentioned earlier in the thread.

The entire midplane disassembled.



Test fitting. I had to remove those cover plates, the screw heads interfered with the fan bracket.



Yea baby, this can work! Holes marked and here we go!!




On the top edge, I had to drill new holes so they lined up with the fan bolts. THis was a tad tricky because the holes were so close to the edge. I had to drill these very carefully....but they came out spot-on.



Along the bottom edge, I reused some of the old rivet holes that the card slot case (now removed) once used. I just widened them out to accommodate the larger screw...and of course drilled corresponding holes in the fan bracket.



Damn, I'm good!! All lined up perfect!!



Yes Momaka; DEBURRED!!!



Fastened in.









I reversed them so they're drawing air in from the rear and blowing forward. These move some serious air @ 12V.



Both of them pulling damn near an amp!!



This task now completed.



Now remounted the original power supply from the Dolby unit back into it's original place.





HMMMM....



More to come!

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

Yay for a recapped power supply...not sure why I wasted time taking pics of this.....but I did it anyway....





Fresh caps...



Back together....



Clean outputs....



I had to slip everything back into the rack, and get it out of the way....





....because of this! Yes, someone wants this fixed at all costs....it fits a custom entertainment center they had built back in the day, nothing modern fits it correctly....or so they tell me....but if they want to pay me to fix it, the customer is always right!

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

Are you building a pirate analog TV station and this is the rack for the equipment?

No. Just another test feature.

[TechGeek]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

Are you building a pirate analog TV station and this is the rack for the equipment?

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

AM Stereo station?

Close...

[TechGeek]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

AM Stereo station?

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

I still haven't gotten around to putting this second system together yet, I have to recap the power supply first....but FWIW, this post was created from the system that this X8SAX was pulled from!





...and just when you think you start to figure this out, there's this!!

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

Rack case # 2 opened up....brand new!



Brand new PSU; Antec SmartPower 450w (SP2-450SXR) brand new never been fired....and bad caps....





...and a motherboard tray from a junk case.....hmmmm

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

At it again....and the first breath of life for this thing....albeit in purely test form.

Antec cases removed....hmmm



The new one set aside.....



The one I had previously used goes first......I blew the dust & mouse poop out of it and washed it down.....now ready to make something out of.



Stubby GTX650....



...and Uranium's 'XANAX'....err, X8SAX board that this beautiful gamer build so graciously donated:



The first thing that had to go was this tall heatsink, it would not clear in the 3U case.



Test fitted with a 'cooljag' LGA1366 cooler I had here from something else...





Yup, like a glove...easy peasy so far.



Recently recapped 450W PSU.



All the bay holders reinstalled. There will be some things filling these in time, it's one of the purposes of this machine (and it's sister system).....those duties will come out later....but for now, here we are!



The SSD that was in the old gamer system stayed with the system....I wanted to use some 15K 2.5" SAS spinners in a mirror for this one. You'll have to excuse the crudity of this for now....nothing is getting tied up until it's in permanent form; and right now it's far from it.



Slid back into the rack and test launched......it cleared the towers! I forgot how loud the fans in this case are. They're 8K RPM @ full speed, even in silent mode, they're running ~4000rpm. I'll wind up replacing them with something a little quieter down the road.



Installed win7; for now.



butt shot....



That's a stopping point for today....



Such a long way to go....and this is a small amount if the goodies & things to be tried....but here's to the first post from this goofy thing!



More later.

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

Again:



And again, kidding!

Seems you're having fun with it. You're tinkering with racks and test gear... meanwhile, I'm tinkering with lawn tractors, small engines, trailers (and the mods to my '84 F150 to handle such), and backyard "buildings". Go figure.

I've gotten to where I absolutely hate working on lawn mowers.....and I've had to do some extensive 're-engineering' on my junky Lowes model Husqvarna LGT2654...Husqvarna should be ashamed for having their name on this piece of shit! I had to work on *again* just last Saturday when a deck belt idler bearing seized up.....a local friend happened to have one in his junk pile...that one was a minor wear part, not really a big deal this time.

The major one was when the flimsy stamped frame failed and the rear wheels & transaxle came out from under it....as pissed as I was, it was a hell of a sight!! For someone less crafty, that would have spelled the end for this mower, but this is me we're talking about!!

https://www.zmods.org/z_builds/thumbnails.php?album=362
https://www.zmods.org/z_builds/thumbnails.php?album=363
https://www.zmods.org/z_builds/thumbnails.php?album=364

Then after all that, I had to modify it again to fix some weird alignment issues....imagine a mower with the toe so far out of whack (each front wheel was toed out badly) that it was eating a set of front tires in a season...and of course wouldn't steer worth a crap.

Yea, I hijacked my own thread! HAH

[ratdude747]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

I'm having way too much fun with this thing....but it's also making me think way too much....or perhaps overthink way too much!! Ratdude's fault....but anyway...

Again:

Oh, the old "blame it on Ratdude" routine...

And again, kidding!

Seems you're having fun with it. You're tinkering with racks and test gear... meanwhile, I'm tinkering with lawn tractors, small engines, trailers (and the mods to my '84 F150 to handle such), and backyard "buildings". Go figure.

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

I'm having way too much fun with this thing....but it's also making me think way too much....or perhaps overthink way too much!! Ratdude's fault....but anyway...

Starting the rack config from scratch again....

Empty and all side panels removed.







Now for the reason why....well one of the reasons why. First thing, there's a ~2" gap between the front of the mounting rails and the tie panel. I wanted to close that gap but not remove the tie panel.....as removing it would yield a lot of the aftermarket shelves/rails too short....but I did want to bring the faces of installed devices closer to the front.....so here we go!





and done!



By the time I brought it all forward, it was a little more than 2". The tiedown panel also came forward a good 3/4" as well.



Now to play around with some configs.... Dispplay in the same location, but the 2x Antec cases relocated and the 5U 'box' installed where the Antec cases were with a 1U gigabit switch above it, consuming the empty 6U space the Antec cases left.





The Antec cases were moved 8U's below the display, leaving a space for the 7U 'creation' and a 1U for a keyboard/mouse drawer.



FWIW, that 5U 'box' didn't fit worth a shit. The front mounting bolt holes didn't line up with the rails worth a hoot. When the permanent install comes, I'll have to modify that a little.....made in china quality I suppose.



Theres 13U remaining between the bottom of the Antec cases and the bottom of the rails.....don't worry, I have some things in mind!!



Not a bad profile!



...and a butt shot...



To be continued.....

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

7U enclosure = massive multi-supply load tester?

Good guess for sure...but no. There will be a PSU load tester in this 42u cabinet, but not in this 7u unit.

[TechGeek]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

7U enclosure = massive multi-supply load tester?

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

Mad scientist at work day?
This thing is HUGE!

I left out quite a few pics that probably would have given away the function this particular 7U contraption; albeit the entire 42U cabinet will be quite multi-functional...but with the next few steps of progress on the 7U enclosure, its function will probably start to come into focus...

Story of my work / hobby bench every day.

Same here. I've always said, if your bench is clean you're not working it hard enough!

[momaka]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

Mad scientist at work day?
This thing is HUGE!

If nothing else, I made a mess and had some fun!

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1620616914

Story of my work / hobby bench every day.