MythBox

The goal of this project is to create a rack-mount MythBox. A MythBox is any machine running Linux and MythTV. It’s used to watch and record TV just like a DVR. Of course since this is a fully functional system, you can also store all you images, music, and other files as well as browse the web on it. I’ve been playing around with myth for some time now and really enjoy it. If you have ever used/seen Windows Media Center, it’s exactly like that except free!

The goal of this project is to create a rack-mount MythBox. A MythBox is any machine running Linux and MythTV. It’s used to watch and record TV just like a DVR. Of course since this is a fully functional system, you can also store all you images, music, and other files as well as browse the web on it. I’ve been playing around with myth for some time now and really enjoy it. If you have ever used/seen Windows Media Center, it’s exactly like that except free!

Construction

To start off… A while back Nathan brought me a crazy piece of rack-mount equipment that came from the hospital.(Didn’t steal it, they were throwing it away) We didn’t really know what it was, but it was composed of an aluminum case filled with circuit boards with bnc connectors all over the front and a scsi drive. It looked like you could connect a bunch of video equipment, keyboard and monitor up to it. After googling some of the serial numbers we came to the conclusion that this is what they connect the colonoscopy scopes up to. It’s basically an ass-camera box!

After it sat around my shop for a few months, it was finally time to do something with this thing. I tore out all the insides and trashed them. This left me with a nice open case. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on components for something as simple as a MythBox, so my sights turned towards my stockpile of Dell GX60s in the corner. These aren’t bad machines. In fact, they make excellent Linux boxes.

I’ve had a lot of experience going into these things, Dell really does a good job of making repair jobs tool-less. You can replace anything in the case without any tools at all. This was really good since the motherboard sits on a special plate that slides out easily. I was able to just take the motherboard out, drill a few holes and presto it fits right into the ass-camera box.

The power supply is basically the same way; just push a button and slide it out. The dimensions made the main section of the power supply fit perfectly, only the little plastic tab was in my way. I had to take the supply completely apart to get rid of that thing, but it wasn’t too hard to get back together. Another problem was the little hole for the power cord wasn’t quite big enough for this power supply, so I had to get out the big Dewalt cut-out tool and hack away at it.

I’ve become pretty good at fabricating simple drive bays out of old packing material that gets discarded. The straps on either side of the hard drive are steel straps used to wrap material onto pallets for shipping. It’s readily available at almost any factory, they just throw it away. I used a pneumatic rotary tool to cut the straps to size, then bent them at the appropriate spots. Put a few holes to mount the drive, bolt it inside the case and we’re done.

Even though Dell computers are really friendly to work with, they’re always using some kind of proprietary equipment. In this case, pretty much everything. The motherboard has funny connections on it for the front USB/Audio and the power switch with Power and HD LEDs. I could have probably just soldered everything to the main board, but just adding a few leads off of the little CP chip was just as easy. The power LED was a three-way, it would turn from green to amber if there was a problem, so I split it off and used two seperate LEDs for power and warning.

The front panel was pretty simple to work with. After I disassembled the original components, there were several screw holes in the front that I drilled out and stuck my LEDs and power switch in. I also cut out a place for an optical drive. I used somemore of the steel packing strips to make a bay for the CD-ROM. I made them in a similar fasion as the hard drive bay, except I bent the bracket the oposite direction and only attached it to the front of the case.

The final product is a functional MythBox! To be honest, it doesn’t look all the pretty, but it works. I have noticed that the machine is probably a little too sluggish because watching live TV is a little stop and go. Of course, this isn’t why I built it. This is just a backend server, I’m not going to be standing in front of my rack watching tv very often. I’ve tested out the recording capabilities and it seems to do just fine. Over all I would rate the performance a 7 out of 10. It is an old run down machine on the inside you know.