Build a NAScar in 10 simple steps

Why be content with connecting a dull aluminium box to your network when it could look a 350 Z(illion) bucks?

One of the quiet but exciting evolutions of the last few years has been in the area of affordable electronic storage, from sub-$199 750GB hard drives right through to 8GB thumb drives. To many, this might not be an area of great rejoicing, but for those of us who remember the 4GB hardware limit for system hard drives, and prices of around $50 per GB of storage, the seemingly infinite space available on modern hard drives is a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

One of the best options available to augment the data capacity of early machines, especially if you had run out of internal IDE ports, was the humble external drive enclosure. FireWire 400, and eventually USB 2.0, gave transfer speeds that made this option more viable, with the added advantage of shared connectivity over multiple computers if required. It worked, as long as the host computer was turned on, but it wasn’t really the hardcore answer that we wanted – true network access storage, or NAS, at home.

NAS servers have the flexibility of being available to all of the computers on the home network all of the time, making them the perfect answer for storing and sharing music, videos and other cool stuff. The only drawback in 1999 was that the price tag put them out of most people’s budget – a 240GB Unibrain Soho NAS (2x 120GB) had a $2000+ RRP.

Fast forward five years, and the humble external drive box has evolved into a hybrid creature that can transfer any old IDE hard drive into versatile network-based storage device. Install your hard drive into this enclosure, and simply connect to your network via the RJ45 LAN connections on the back. Match it up with a 750GB hard drive, and you have a total network storage solution for about 45c per GB.

1.
There is only one problem. External hard drive cases are really, really boring to look at. Thankfully, with a little bit of imagination, and a few basic tools, you can shake things up a bit and create a NAS server that will put a smile on everyone’s face.

The starting point for our project was a 1/10th-scale plastic car body – a RacingWorks 350Z Nismo drift car to be precise – the type usually used for remote control cars.

A quick Google under ‘RC model supplies’ should find you something local. The choice of vehicle is a personal thing, and there are plenty of options that will reflect the personality of your own build – tanks, boats, planes or EBE transports will all work in a similar manner.

The body we used came equipped with an H-shaped plastic chassis, which was really just designed to locate the wheels in place during transport, however it was sturdy enough to use as the starting point for our own custom aluminium chassis plate.

2.
The next step was to make up the front and rear aluminium mounting plates that would be used to locate and secure the body. The first issue to overcome was that there was so much flex in the 0.5mm thick plastic body that it was impossible to trace around the outer shape with any precision. The answer was to photocopy the body along the contour, and then transfer the shape on the paper over to the 1mm gauge aluminium sheet. The plates were then cut out with a jigsaw, filed to exact shape and sanded smooth with the edges rounded over. The 3mm mounting holes were drilled in-line with the plastic chassis, countersunk to give a flush fit and the screws cut to the correct length with a Dremel.



3.
The front and rear plates were fitted to the chassis several times, as the exact bend was ascertained to follow the correct line of the body. The rear plate has had the more obvious bend, as it needed to follow the cut-away of the rear bumper bar.

Once the lower plates were fitted, the chassis could be modified to fit the most important section – the hardware mounting platform. The original chassis had support gusseting around the inside of the semi-circular ‘inner guard’ sections, and they were first removed with a sharp chisel. The aluminium mounting platform was then measured and fabricated, and screwed through the plastic chassis and into the front and rear plates. This method created an aluminium/ plastic/aluminium sandwich that is extremely rigid, and extends right out to the body sill panels. The dimensions are as follows – overall length: 430mm; overall width: 190mm; across the pseudo-wheel arches: 130mm; and lengthways between them: 190mm.

Just out of interest, these dimensions would allow for a VIA EPIA board to be mounted comfortably in the centre section, so squeezing a fully-functional mini-PC into this body size would not require much additional work.



4.
The next task was to drill out a hole in the rear of the chassis for the cabling to pass through, remembering to allow plenty of room for the connectors. Using a 20mm hole-saw through the curve of the rear section resulted in an elliptical-shape that allowed for the wires to pass out in a gentle S-bend rather a than tight 90° angle that would potentially lift the back wheels off of the ground.

To finish off, two 3mm holes were drilled and countersunk so that a zip-tie could be used to hold the cables in position.



5.
The chassis plates had been shaped right out to the edges of the body shell, so that shell could be secured on all four corners in an unobtrusive manner. Using a soldering iron with a 3mm tip, the positions for the holes were marked and then melted through from the inside. Melting plastic this thin has an advantage over drilling, as the excess plastic forms a thick ridge around the perimeter of the hole and acts as reinforcement against tearing.




6.
With the body positioned onto the chassis the hole locations were marked and 2.5mm holes drilled through the aluminium. The holes were threaded with a 3mm tap, and short screws used to fasten the two components together.

With the chassis and body sorted out, we can actually start bolting in PC components! The network drive rack was fitted as the first level, with two 20mm cut-outs drilled in its base to coincide with the protruding chassis screws – the idea is to have the drive rack sitting flat on the floor, and then secure it in place with two 1/8” rivets, as they have a very low profile and unlikely to interfere with the fitting of the hard drive.



7.
Fabrication of the second storey platform for the top drive involved using an engineer’s vice and flat steel bars to fold a 70mm wide by 230mm long section of 1mm thick aluminium sheet into an upside-down U shape, with the tips bent outwards. The perpendicular uprights are designed to place the upper drive just 3mm above the top of the lower one. This will allow for some ventilation, while keeping the hardware profile low enough to fit under the car body. The upper drive rack was drilled and then riveted to the platform, using three 1/8” rivets in a triangular pattern for rigidity. The 12V power rail was split at the molex connector, and two additional power leads run out through 6mm holes drilled on either side of the HDD. These will power the cathode tubes under the chassis – yes, there has to be some bling!

The upper level can now be attached, riveted to the lower level down each side of the centre chassis. A 70mm length of self-adhesive velcro was stuck on each side if the bracket and a 12mm hole drilled in the front section of the floor pan on each side.



8.
Next came two power invertors and blue 100mm cathodes, mounted under the centre of the chassis (Jaycar Cat# SL2868, $5.95 and SL2862, $6.95 respectively). The leads on these cathodes form a circuit loop from each end of the tube, so one side needs to be retained along the length of the glass cylinder. This was achieved using clear heat shrink, and the wires were cut and soldered to a common length. The cathodes and wiring were then glued into place using a hot glue gun. As the inset shows, with the body in place there is quite a wash of light flowing out from under the car – however this was an always-on situation. You might want to add a miniature toggle switch (Jaycar Cat# ST0355, $2.90) into the circuit, and mount it underneath the chassis.



9.
With the drives loaded and the cables plugged in and zip-tied in place, the chassis was ready to go. One question that has been asked is: Do the headlights also flash with disk access? The answer is no! Although this would be a simple addition to the project, using a pair of 3mm LEDs in parallel, utilising the existing wiring, our decision was to not go overboard with the bling and to keep the car looking as much like a model as possible. As mentioned, care was taken to make sure that the cabling path was kept as smooth as possible. Sorry about the green USB lead!

10.
The original project concept was to make use of a network drive that would accept an additional USB drive being connected, allowing for a fast RAID or JBOD enclosure that would add 500GB of network space. Sadly, the enclosures that we received weren’t compatible.

What we now have is a 250GB network drive and a 250GB USB external drive in the one, unique enclosure, which nevertheless makes it a useful solution for external file storage. And it still looks like a car!



Suppliers:
PC Case Gear: www.pccasegear.com
1x NS-347 NAS network hard drive enclosure, $148
1x Macpower USB 2.0 Ice Cube II hard drive enclosure, $89
2x Samsung Spinpoint 250GB SP2514N IDE HDD, $102

Disclaimer:
Power-tools, sharp objects and electrical energy can all be dangerous to your current state of wellbeing, so take care and follow all relevant safety precautions. Especially eye protection. If you are unsure of such precautions, seek professional advice. Any omission regarding possible hazards is not the responsibility of Atomic magazine or the writer.