TITLE
High Voltage

INTRODUCTION
A 1950's Oscilloscope, converted into a gaming PC

DESIGN CONCEPT & INSPARATION
I've always had a soft spot for vintage tech, especially the type of things you would see in old sci-fi/spy films. About 11 years before I started this project, I saw a vintage Oscilloscope in a flea market and I immediately fell in love with the design.

I purchased one soon after, with the intent to convert it into a PC, and then it sat in my garage for over a decade until I finally decided it was time, and worked on this for the following year. This is the worklog of that year.

HARDWARE
Asus H270M-Plus Motherboard
Intel i7 7700k
Corsair Vengeance RGB 32GB DDR4
NVIDIA GeForce Titan Xp - Jedi Order Edition
Toshiba/OCZ 500 GB M.2 NVMe (OS Drive)
Crucial MX500 1TB M.2 SATA (Games Drive)
EVGA SFX 650W Power Supply

THE ORIGINAL OSCILLOSCOPE
This is the original Oscilloscope, before it was altered.

THE BASE
As I started to plan the mod, I decided that I wanted to have a wood base for the main housing. After spending some time at a home building store, I found the wood that would eventually be made into the base for the mod. The plan was to eventually make the box look weathered and old, which I achieved by using 2 different colors of Wood Stain and sanding in between coats.

USB 3.0 Front Ports

VR Front Ports

CASE BADGE
This item is a little bit out of order, but I placed it here because it relates to the wood base. I wanted to add some sort of metal badge/plaque to the wood base, and as I was opening up a drink with my NVIDIA Bottle Opener, I had the idea to cut it and mount it on the base. So I bid farewell to it, thanked it for its service, and got out the rotary cutter.

REAR I/O PANEL
A custom I/O Panel was fabricated for the rear of the wood base, which included ports for AC Power, Ethernet, Video, and 3 sets of dual USB Ports (6 total).

THE POWER SUPPLY SHROUD
The power supply housing is by far one of my favorite parts of this mod. I purchased an old residential power switch housing at an estate sale with the intent of using it as the power supply shroud for my mod. Inside it will house an SFX 650W Power Supply. The holes were cut for the vent, power switch, and the fan intake. Rubber u-channel molding was used to make the edges look cleaner and more professional.

THE HOUSING
To cut the panels out of the metal housing, I first made paper stencils to make sure it all lined up correctly, measured multiple times and got to work. The top of the case was cut for the Motherboard Rear I/O, the rear of the case for the exhaust fan, and the side of the case for the main window and large power gauge.

PAINTING THE INTERIOR OF THE HOUSING
The inside of the main case was painted with Glow-In-The-Dark paint, so that the lighting inside the case would charge up the glow particles in the paint, and when you turn off the lights or the PC, the inside of the case remains glowing.

The Glow-In-The-Dark paint was made by mixing Matte Medium with Glow Pigment Powder. About twice as much glow powder was used VS what is recommended, so that it would have an extra bright glow effect.

GAUGES, SWITCHES, AND BUTTONS
The Gauge below was mounted on the side of the main box, and a white LED was wired to illuminate the gauge when the PC is on. The LED was wired through an industrial toggle switch that allows it to be turned on and off. A second toggle switch was installed to control the interior UV lighting, and the All Stop Red Button was installed to be used as the PC's power button.

CUSTOM WIRES
For the custom wiring, this vintage looking Green/Yellow 16 AWG striped wire was used, which looked great against the gray base and the case. It also seemed to fit the time period of the mod perfectly. I used this wire for the entire mod; 24 Pin ATX, 8 Pin EPS (CPU), 2 x 8 Pin PCIe (VGA), and a SATA Power Connector for the Fans and Lightning. A total of 250 Feet of wire was used throughout the entire mod.

GPU MOUNT
The GPU was mounted between the base and the case using the MNPCTECH Vertical GPU Mount. The Vertical GPU Mount was ionized black, so I painted it chalk-gray, then smudged it with chalk-black.

INTAKE AND EXHAUST
CaseLabs FlexBay Fan/Radiator Mounts were used for both the air intake and the exhaust. On the intake side, a green chopper LED fan was used to mimic the graphical function of the Oscilloscope's CRT screen (which was removed). For the exhaust, a hole was cut in the Oscilloscope to fit the CaseLabs FlexBay, where the radiator and exhaust fan were installed.

INTAKE

EXHAUST

COMPLETED PROJECT

Ⓒ 2023 retro PC mods