Introduction

Racing The Light (RTL) is a project born from the desire for PC's to be small, interesting, fun and a competition to achieve this between work colleagues. Other projects are underway and some have been completed like The "Windows XP Box" by Andy France.

The RTL project focusses around five major items: Blue Lighting, Perspex, Mini-ITX, a Heatsink Modification, and Viewable Components.

The in the future I plan to build a thicker (10mm thick Perspex) version. The current thickness of the Perspex is 5mm - and I will make a Perspex window in the HDD.

Current Specifications are: VIA EPIA 800, 2 x 256MB PC133 SDRAM, 7.5GB Hitatchi 2.5" HDD, Morex 55W PSU and DC-DC Converter Kit, Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-C2502, DLink DWL-520+ Wireless PCI Adapter, Zalman ZM-NB47 Northbridge heatsink, Pyramid Smart Fan Controller, 80mm Fan with Blue LEDs, Dimensions 240mm x 80mm x 200mm.

My initial design was growing in my mind so I drew a rough sketch of the idea being hatched.

From this sketch it was realised that the project would be relatively simple to build with Perspex panels.

A mockup of the final box was drawn in CAD to get a feeling for the overall design.