Introduction

From the first time I saw the projects here on this site back in summer 2002 I’ve wanted to do one myself. I made a MediaBox based upon an old CD player and a Epia 800Mhz. A very funny project to do, but not that original. A year later I stumbled upon my next project at a flea market, and this project should be something that you never had seen before!

The RadioSphere

This is the lamp shade I found at the flea marked. It just screamed at me and told me to convert it into to a Mini-ITX project!

I stared by making a little sketch of my intention with the project, it should be "wireless"!

I wrote down my ideas and thoughts around the system:
• As silent as possible
• As few cables as possible
• A "nice" design that can fit into my living room as well as in my office
• Small
• Cheap! (I will mostly use old parts)

Then I decided what hardware to use (this has changed a bit in the final project):

• Lamp shade!
• EPIA 800 Mini-ITX (800Mhz)
• 128Mb RAM
• 1,2Gb Laptop HD
• "Slimline" CD/DVD (Not used)
• 55w ext. "silent" PSU
• W-lan PCI card (Changed to USB version)
• Audio card PCI (The onboard soundcard is broken!)
• FM Transmitter
• Antenna
• Cold cathode light (Blue)
• Wireless keyboard & mouse

The next step was to do a couple of CAD drawings of the case and decide how to fit the parts into it. This was how I first intended it to look like, but in the end I had to do some adjustments.

This is a side view of the case, I’ve moved the HD and taken out the DVD in the final case.

Top view of the case, I’ve also skipped the PCI riser card and changed the W-Lan card to an USB type.

I ordered an FM-Transmitter kit from CanaKit. I soldered it together and ended up with this. It has an transmitter radius of about 20 metres.