Check this fella's case that he built from scratch:

http://www.applefritter.com/node/view/2241

Very cool! I've been wanting to re-house my little iMac for some time (probably just in a small ATX case), although I don't think I could ever go as far as this bloke.

Anyone else managed done a case-swap on an iMac before?

Looks like a hell of alot of effort went into making that box.

I would not even contemplate starting a project like that. Not with the large amounts of -time. Yes, that's Negative Time.

Steve

> Moved to Apple Hardware

Fantastic job on that case mod - obviously lots of effort - and much better than most PC mods I've seen.

First generation iMac mobos are pretty small, not much bigger than a VIA EPIA mobo, but they're awkwardly sized and lining up the external ports is difficult, due to their angle. That said, a micro-ATX case would be ideal, but you'd likely have to hack up the backplane to make everything fit. Good soldering skills are also required to mod a standard ATX PSU to the iMac, due to their non-standard connector.

JB

Yeah, that's pretty much the biggest thing deterring me from trying to migrate my iMac to something else.

For $20 you can get a mac to pc monitor converter from Jaycar, which would mean being able to plug in any standard VGA monitor or flat panel. Beats the $100+ Apple charge for them, although the Jaycar ones are dip-switch driven, and not automagic. Still, at 1/5 the price I ain't bitching.

The drives are all IDE, so no problems there. And with all that extra space I'll definitely be tempting some more adventurous overclocking of that little fella.

pretty cool i can't imagine myself doing anything close :P but the thing is you will still have a pretty slow comp :P

If you can read Japanese, good for you. But the pics do most of the talking.
http://www.conf.co.jp/new_folder/making/cube_1.html

Now that is what I am talking about.

Its actually the same outside size as the Cube but has more internal space.

I would love that over a Cube itself. Even got the glowing power button.

Nice work.

Steve

Very tasty!

Apple might do good to pinch/buy a few of these sorts of ideas.

It really makes me wonder what sort of team run the design for the Apple cases. I'd bet they'd have a tonne of extremely cool concept cases sitting in their little lab that we'll never get to see.

All these Mac look-alike cases look crap to me :P
No-one pulls off a Jonathan Ive design like the man himself I guess..
Still, I can appreciate the effort gone into those projects.