Tonight (about an hour ago, actually, as I begin to type this at 4:30am, lol, so maybe not, depending on your definition of "night" etc), I finished cutting the slots in the pill bottle for the HDMI port and the vent on that end. I also marked the spots for the USB port cutouts and the power-button hole that I need to drill.

Pix!

So uhm notice anything different...? ;)

New system unit! I had picked it up for a different build, but that has been definitively canceled for reasons that are rather personal and absolutely will not be publicly discussed here. This is not, in my opinion, the appropriate time or the appropriate place for such a discussion... I'll let you know if I change my mind at some point.

*ahem*

The new unit is a MinisForum S40 stick PC. (Lordy, who comes _up_ with these brand names...?!) It's the usual 2gb RAM / 32gb EMMC (UGH! [puking smiley icon here plz] ) but this time the Intel SoC of choice is a Celeron N4000. I'm pretty sure it thoroughly outstrips everything I've generally worked with in the past -- and by quite a margin -- although I've not yet confirmed that.

I will be putting some sort of cover-stuff over the underside, and a cowl over the heatsink. Speaking of which, the design of this wee beastie reverses the airflow direction entirely. The cap-grill is now the intake, and the slot over the HDMI port is the exhaust. It was the other way 'round with the Compute Stick.

I'm also swapping the USB hub I'd planned to use with a 4-port IOGear USB3.0 job -- a GUH304 with the housing, LED, and barrel-jack removed and wires soldered to the jack pads. The previously-intended hub was a Targus job that was uhm not impressive in a rather disconcertingly large number of ways, all of them significant.

I haven't worked out the WiFi antenna arrangement yet, but it will almost certainly involve a similar construction to the one previously seen in use with the Compute Stick.

More work tomorrow, if I can manage.