Steam Punk Computer

[Diana_Woods]

HI there. There are a number of things that I would like help with and have turned to these forums because of the talented and self-possessed demographic.

First of all... I have an Acer Aspire 3000 that I recently installed Ubuntu on (deleted Windows without regrets)... now I have aspirations to mess with and revamp the external appearance of my laptop. Does anyone have any suggestions (literature, websites, etc.) to help me get started on this project?

Q#2) (unrelated to Ubunutu but perhaps someone can help) I broke the display panel on a Mac Ibook g4 that my boss leant me... I need to install a whole new display panel so he doesn't find out. Suggestions?

[Diana_Woods]

http://thehottestgadgets.com/2008/07/the-17-hottest-steampunk-computer-creations-001127

found a site... cool eh?

[gali98]

It would be best if you took off question 3. You will not get help here for that, and you can (and probably will) be banned.
As far as actually helping you with the rest I'm afraid I have no experience....
Kory

[sloggerkhan]

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=877499
If you look at above post, I did something similar.

Several points here.
First, it's pretty hard to work with laptops. To mount mine I had to remove the entire case, get some 1" long nuts and bolts, nylon sleeves, and washers, drill holes in a backing board/plate/tray. to match the various holes in the various pieces of circuit board, reverse mount the bolts in backing board, then add extr nuts at a hight to make the boards align when lowered onto the bolts. I do not think this can be done without access to a drill press because if the holes don't match near perfect you're screwed.Once you've done that, you can place the thing in any sort of box that has the same interior dimensions as the exterior dimensions of the laptop or bigger. I recommend mounting the board to the tray, then figuring out what blocks and such you need to add to support things like HD and optical drive, and also what size of external container/case/box/chest to buy/build. In my case, I got a container first because it looks decent and was cheap, but because it was about 3" too wide, I had to install it in a way that I don't have access to the CD drive or DVI ports without a lot of monkey business. Also, if you build the box you can cut out the port holes correctly with much more ease, it can be pretty hard to get them precise in a box that's already assembled. Lastly, mounting the monitor might be a pain. I had to break off the metal mount hinges from the original laptop case to use for mounting the monitor, but there are ways to mount it without using original hinges.

Any case, my job isn't the most aesthetic top quality, but it does work. Oh, one other thing, you will probably need to either short or replace the backlight switch.