As I see it the only thing standing in the way of your using a 5.25" box for the EFIKA is finding one with a removable back panel. We had to cut and shut ours (carefully ;) ) but I know other cases, like the Icy-Box, use formed metal plate back panels. If you can get a custom fabrication & paint run off a few hundred back panels, in the same finish as the existing Open Client casings, then buy in the 5.25" cases to match, all you need for assembly would be a screw driver and a soldering iron to redo the ends of the LED wires. The switches can be mounted in the custom back panel, along with a PSU hookup for the PICOATX.

If you can find a well priced one with a removable back panel that can easily be replaced with a custom steel fabrication then yes it's totally feasible.

In the spirit of KISS I'd recommend looking at a simple, no frills design case. The IcyBox is nice but the front button arrangement that people have customised to provide a power switch will entail extra customisation - looking at the example posted in the previous post this is not a huge job but it looks like it could be fiddly to work out.

At the end of the day the final decision on how much/little work you want to do is yours, I just thought I'd chuck in my 2p worth from the experience we had.

Hi Mark,

what brand keyboard and mouse do you use with your USB-to-PS2 converter?

See my post here:

http://www.powerdeveloper.org/forums/vi ... php?t=1265

..

@ironfist:

Using a 5.25; with a custom back panel would save a lot of money of the bespoke design they have at the moment as it would vastly reduce fabrication costs, without making assembly all that much harder.

As I understand it, one of Genesi's aims is to cut the cost of the units as much as ,possible while maintaining quality. They'd never be able to do that on the current case IMHO as it has a semi-high production cost as it's a custom design and requires all the parts to be fabricated.

I also don't personally find the Open Client case particularly nice to look at. I know it wasn't intended as a design masterpiece, but in order to have wide appeal I believe a product has to look good as well as work well.

If anyone else is interested in modding up a drive case like mine, I found areally nice one here:

http://www.eye-t.com.tw/giant/accessori ... sories.htm

The H-5252 is the one - It has blue LED front and side tubes (which personally I don't like, but they are easy to remove) and the back plate slots into the case rather than being moulded into the plastic.

Gaz and I found one in a PC store we go into from time to time - ironic as it was only 2 days after we finished version 1 of the EFIKA. We have another one to house so this will probably be the solution for the next one!

http://homepage.mac.com/markbenson/.Pic ... ye-t-0.jpg
http://homepage.mac.com/markbenson/.Pic ... ye-t-1.jpg
http://homepage.mac.com/markbenson/.Pic ... kpanel.jpg

The brass stand-offs are removable - they are attached using counter-sunk screws on the underneath.

Hi Mark, Gaz,

Well, I've contacted the company to see if they are interested.

The HP-5252 actually looks a better option for homebrew mods, although it doesn't come in blue, it lacks the lights and the fan (the P stands for passive, I'd guess) which will make it cheaper and there is less junk to throw away.

I wonder if it is that widely available. In any case, it does seem to fit a lot of needs and be very flexible :)

Aha! It's good you found one without the LED tubes - they are fairly useless and, at least in my opinion, don't look that great. Plus I cut my thumb on one of the metal reflectors taking them out of ours so it's probably best to find a case without them! :)

Looks good - I hope they can help out.

Hi guys!

After some difficulties I finally managed to register an account here (thanks to Matt Sealey).

So I'd like to use this opportunity to show off my homebrew case :)
You can see it here: http://reparts.org/efika/

It is quite simple, but fun :)

I bought that EFIKA for the University where I work. Perhaps I'll get an EFIKA for myself now. It is one of those things you don't really need or have time for, but you REALLY NEED to have...

That's a fairly quirky but non-the-less very cool mod :) I especially like the 'glass roof' that lets you look down on the board when you life the lid.

You are right about not needing it, but I *do* have a lot of time for EFIKA projects. Gary and I are now into building our second casing for his EFIKA board and TBH we keep doing this because it's great fun.

Hi there!

I've updated my blog with some new pictures. I followed the trend of the CDROM case: http://www.gautherot.net/efika .

Thanks for the idea.
Cheers
Olivier