Laying out the parts
I have a really old test bench that came with a motherboard I bought years ago but I wanted to some more modular and more sturdy that could work for both modern and vintage setups. It wasn’t until I came across this video from Tech Tangents that I finally figured out what I wanted to do.
Putting it all together
I found a local place that was selling up some offcuts of 2020 Aluminium extrusions for cheap and ordered some fittings on AliExpress to match. Once I had these I laid out all the things I could want to have. It needed:
- AT and ATX support
- expansion card holder bit
- IDE and SATA DVD drives
- IDE and SATA HDD’s
- Windows 10, Windows XP, Windows 98, Linux and DOS installs
- Floppy or Gotek
- An physical Power button
I chopped up the old test bench and stole a couple of mounts and parts from it ( the rest will go into another project ) and bolted it all together which was suprisingly easy. The only part I had to 3D print was the T-Slot to Motherboard Standoff adapters that would slide around to suit any motherboard type. I opted for a modern ATX power Supply with dual 8pin GPU plugs and an AT adapter for older motherboards.
Current State
I think the final / current state of the test rig ended up pretty well, there will be adjustments for sure in the future. I would like to swap all the drives over to SSD and Make a better screwed in expansion slot bar and the current one is using bull clips to keep the cards in place.
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