Thread: Drill holes to affix the big spacers

Getting your hands dirty

Align the edges with utmost precision. Remember the marks made at the top left and bottom right corners. Drill holes to affix the big spacers between the sheets.

work on the acrylic blocks into a secondary chassis. Make a hole in the center of one of the blocks to accommodate a small spacer. Let the bit go all the way through the block. Do the same for all the blocks. Now, prepare the adhesive paste (Araldite is the best option).

TIP

Make rough patches with sandpaper on all the surfaces which are to be glued, including each acrylic block.

Apply adhesive to the hole in each block and place a spacer inside such that its outer threading faces the roughened side of the block to be glued. Let them dry for at least six hours.

Line up a dried block under the motherboard with any of the holes and secure it with a screw. Repeat the process for the remaining blocks. Flip the motherboard upside down to ensure the blocks are neatly fitted. Apply adhesive to the roughened surface of each block under the motherboard. Place the motherboard are aligned with the marks made earlier. Use your thumb to apply a little pressure and press down on the screws on the board. Let the blocks dry for at least six hours. Your chassis is now completely ready.



Now, dismantle the setup to seal the enclosure completely. Make acrylic strips at least 40 mm thick; these will be the edges of your new panel PC's enclosure. Paste them perpendicular to the edges and let them dry. The acrylic sheets must be designed to allow adequate ventilation and to enable easy access to all the ports and the optical drive. You can even make a simple stand: cut two 40 x 200 mm strips and one more 200 x 220 mm strip. With the latter as the base, fix the first two strips perpendicularly at the edges to make a bracket in which the final assembled panel can stand upright.

For the power switch, solder two wires to the points on the motherboard where the original power switch made contact, with the other ends attached to a simple contact button. You can attach this to one of the acrylic side panel strips.

Finally, let's mount the screen. The easiest way is to keep the screen's frame intact and affix it using Velcro. However, we removed the screen and mounted it using metal angles. Route the data and power cables through the larger holes drilled which are now concealed behind the screen.