The Man Cave

The Wall-PC no longer lives in my office, as I have found it better suited for other tasks in our new house. I run a network of software Squeezeboxes (home music servers) in my house and the Wall-PC made a perfect wifi Squeezeplayer in our new finished basement. The Wall-PC displays the current album art, title, etc. that’s playing via Pandora or my MP3 library while also having the ability to control the playback and volume in the basement and throughout the house. The Wall-PC is also frequently used to display live sports scores and Fantasy Football scoreboards during a game of 9 ball or cut-throat.

Wall-PC

I cut out a small square hole out of the drywall and ran the power  and composite audio cables up the wall and across the ceiling to my audio receiver’s inputs. I had to use a wire hanger and a bit of patience to run the cables due to the fiberglass insulation behind the drywall. The power brick is now hidden flush inside the back of the frame. This was possible due to the extremely thin Sony Vaio AC adapter. The Wall-PC is controlled via a ATI Remote Wonder RF remote and a Logitech MX Revolution wireless mouse.

Although it can be a bit buggy at times, I highly recommend the Logitech Squeezebox software and hardware. It is compatible with almost every online music provider as well as your own libraries and allows you to sync your music throughout your entire house. It is also actively updated and continually supported, in fact there was just a major update that overhauled the whole UI on the software player, server and remote which made it even better! I will post additional details on my home wifi music setup in future posts.

The Wall-PC hanging in my office

I had an old Sony Vaio laptop lying around collecting dust and my choice was either to sell it on Ebay or think of something creative to do with it. I chose the creative route because that’s certainly more enjoyable than putting together an Ebay listing, for me at least.

The idea was to dismantle the laptop and put the guts of it into a new enclosure. I wanted the laptop to act like a flat panel and cleanly hang on the wall. I decided a shadow box frame would be a perfect solution. The challenge was finding an appropriate frame with the correct dimensions, both width/length and most importantly depth. I spent a couple months browsing shadow box frames here and there. At craft stores, online, frame shops, etc. I was not finding anything the correct size, shape, and color. Finally, I stumbled on a suitable frame at Marshalls Home Goods store. It had an ugly sea-shell display inside of it but I figured I could just tear it out and apply a new matte myself.

Side view, off the wall

Why hang a computer from the wall….?

• Takes up almost zero space
• It’s cheap, only need an old unused laptop + cheap frame
• Digital picture frame w/ online syncing
• Dedicated video game emulation with wireless controller (NES, SNES, Genesis, Playstation)
• Control music, watch movies, watch TV
• Browser testing w/o a separate tower + monitor, or KVM switch
• Security web cam or video conferencing
• File server, backup, etc.
• Extend your main PC desktop to this extra display
• Looks cool, good conversation piece

I learned fashioning your own matte for the frame is challenging for a novice and it is nearly impossible to find a pre-made matte to fit the non-standard (in the printing realm) dimensions of a laptop LCD screen. I got lucky and found a matte made specifically for certificates at Michaels, that fit it nearly perfectly. I had previously attempted to measure and cut my own with sloppy results, I would recommend getting it cut at a frame shop.

The laptop before it was torn apart

The guts of the Wall-PC:

• Sony Vaio Z1 laptop – 13″ screen, very thin and light laptop
• Pentium M 1.6ghz, 1GB RAM, 60GB HDD
• Windows XP, 1400 x 900 screen resolution
• Built in Bluetooth & Wireless B
• Xbox 360 PC wireless adapter
• USB hub, Staples snake style 5 port
• ATI Remote Wonder Plus adapter
• Pinnacle PCTV USB TV tuner
• Linksys PCMCIA Wireless N adapter
• Extra USB fan (later removed, started making noise)

Dismantling the laptop was relatively easy. It’s just a matter of finding the many tiny screws and taking away each piece in the correct order. With a little patience and a careful hand, it’s hard to screw this part up. I took away all pieces I didn’t need and removed the frame and backing of the screen. Be careful with the screen dissection because laptops often have the wireless antennas placed inside the top lid on either side of the LCD screen. I made sure to preserve those antennas and wire connections. After this, I was left with the bottom of the laptop with no keyboard and the naked LCD screen.

The guts behind the frame

How do you control it?

• Remote (logmein, remote desktop, VNC)
• AirMouse iPhone app (full emulated keyboard, trackpad, mouse buttons)
• Wireless keyboard/mouse
• Xbox 360 controller
• ATI Remote wonder RF remote
• Touch panel (maybe in the future… there are kits on eBay)

This is not a step by step tutorial, as every project and laptop/frame will vary somewhat… but basically I took the screen flipped it around and put it behind the laptop while making sure it wasn’t upside down. Everything seemed to fit, so the next step was to attach the screen to the matte and attach and fit everything inside the frame, so it hangs flush on the wall. I chose to use double-sided tape for most of the securing, which doesn’t look too pretty but it worked out fine.

Once everything was together, time to plug in, hang on drywall screw and enjoy my new Wall-PC!

View details about my home office and Wall-PC on Flickr.

Additional photos:

Tekken 3 (PS1) on Wall-PC

My desk

LCD attached to back of matte

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