The Dragon, a Desktop Computer

This is the instructable that guides me to SteamPunk. :-)

I found in a Gothic shop a dragon head made of bronze. I bought it (just for further projects), put it elsewhere and forgot it.
A couple of month later I planed to build a NAS - System as a central storage for my home. I searched around for some material to build a case and then I found the dragon back.
An idea came in mind to build a desktop computer for my younger daughter (She loves dragons).
As the material for the case I decided to use copper pipes and for the case body I used beech.

Step 1: The Parts

You need:

• A dragon head or something similar
• A mini ITX mainboard
• A hard disk
• A mini ITX power supply
• A push button made of brass (may be for door bells)
• Some brass screws and nuts
• 4 red and one white ultra bright LED´s
• Copper pipes and fittings
• Three pieces of beech
• Material to mount the main board, the power supply and the hard disk
• Connector cables from the main board to the front panel
• A 44 pin to 40 pin HDD adapter (if you use a 2,5 HDD)
• 2 component glue for metal

Step 2: The Dragon Head and the Front Panel

First I drilled two 5mm holes for the HDD LED´s as the eyes and three holes for mounting the head onto the front panel
In the mounting holes I cut windings for 3mm bolts.
Then I drilled holes for the back light LED´s for the cables and for the mounting of the head.

On a small PCB I soldered two red LED´s for the eyes. These LED´s connects to the HDD connector of the main board.
The driver on the main board is powerful enough to drive two LED´s.
Then I glued the PCB on.

I decided to have the "power on light" as a back light under need the dragon head.
I soldered three LED´s (2 red, 1 white) on an other PCB and attached this to the + 5V outlet of the power supply.
So I have a nice "corona" effect around the dragon head.

Then its mounted together and you can see the how the front panel look like on picture 7 - 9.

Bright eyes :-)

Step 3: The Inner Case

The inner case was made of beech as well.
First I mounted the main board as shown on picture 1. I used screws, washers and nuts for the mounting.
Then I mounted the HDD and the power supply, picture 2 - 4. The PS is driven by external 12V.
I used the DVD - drive only for installing the operating system, so I mounted it to the back of the computer, picture 5.

Step 4: Building the External Case From Copper Pipes and Fittings

First, I cut the tubes into the right length.
I used the inner case as a template. (Picture 4)
I used fittings for the "feet" of the case as shown on picture 5 and 6
With two component glue for metal I glued the tubes and the fitting together.
Than I glued the different parts of the top and the bottom of he case together.
As a last step I glued the tubes for the right and left "walls" of the case into the fittings.
I used tape to fasten it for the time the glue needs to become hard.

Step 5: Mounting the Computer

With "stretch metal" I build the backplane of the computer.

Up and running. :-)


With kind regards,


Horatius Steam