The LEGO BlackBox project was inspired by in part by the various Lego Mindstorms
projects around the web, and an old friend and former collegaue's desires to build a small server.
VIA C3™ EBGA Processor
VIA PLE133 North Bridge
VT8231 South Bridge
January, 5th, 2003 - OS testing
A few OS'es are now installed for evaluation purposes:
Mandrake 9.2
Windows XP
QNX 6.2.1
Windows 98SE
BeOS 5.03 Personal Edition / BeOS 5 PE MAX 3
September, 27th, 2003 - 3rd Prototype
I've rebuild the BlackBox completely. This time I have replaced the holed Lego Technic bricks,
with ordinary 2x4 (and larger) bricks, thereby doubling the thickness of the case (it's now 16 mm thick).
The BalckBox's dimensions are 208mm wide, 224mm deep, and 169mm high.
The next challenge will be to incorporate both the 2.5" HDD, and the PSU into the BlackBox.
[click here]
September, 21th, 2003 - Subassemblies
I've drawn up a few of my lego subassemblies in preparations of the construction of a new Prototype. [click here]September, 19th, 2003 - Ceremonies of Light and Dark
This is not a hidden reference to Babylon 5 - well almost not ...
The fan and the glowwire, has been mounted in the "Prototype v. 0.2" case.
First install of an OS, will be the next step - but what OS shall I choose ?
QNX ? SkyOS ? Linux ? Windows something?
[click here]
September, 18th, 2003 - Blue Lights
Today my internal blue lights arrived - I'll be mounting them shortly, while remembering
to take lots of pictures! September, 17th, 2003 - Redesign: Prototype 0.2 is born
There is definately not enought space for a standard sized PSU in the LEGO BlackBox
- either the case must be enlarged by as much as 50%, or a smaller PSU must be scrounged!
The 80mm fan is workable, but it needs to be silenced, maybe lowering the voltage from 12v to
9v would do the trick ? ... An internal light source would make a nice effect ... September, 16th, 2003 - First Boot
Time for the first hardware test - only mainboard, RAM, PSU, and keyboard is connected
[click here]
September, 14th, 2003 - Prototype 0.1
My first LEGO case prototype is build, a size of 24x26 lego units is established as the target size.
Can airflow be controlled or will Lego technic beams be a problem?
Several other problems reared their ugly heads: "Is the standard 80mm fan too big
for this tiny PC?", "the PSU from a HP Vectra PC - is huge compared to the PC - do I dare
to include the PSU without any casing, or should I purchase a small PSU?".
Work so far: September, 13th, 2003 - Project Start
My EPIA mainboard arrived today. I am planning to build a LEGO technic-based micro-PC,
primarily to use as a low-cost, low-power, low-noise server. I'll try to document my progress on this page.
Components
EPIA V Mini ITX 'board (VIA)
256 MB SDRAM (Kingston)
20 GB 2.5" HDD (Travelstar)
Lots O' Lego Technics Bricks
3.5" -> 2.5" Converter (Lian-Li)
PSU from old HP Vectra VE6
Blue Glowire (Sharkoon)
Blue LED 80mm fan (Rainbow)
Server Info:
PHP: 5.2.17
Zend: 2.2.0
BlackBox Statistics:
Ports in back: 2x USB, Parallel, Seriel, VGA, 2x PS/2, 3x Audio, LAN, S-VHS
Ports in front: 2x USB
