Living Room / Mid Century-ish Minilab Build
I found 2 older M73’s selling for a song on Marketplace, and thought to put them in the living room since they were small enough, but didn’t want it to scream server gear. Took inspiration from old component hi-fi systems and the classic Atari 2600. 3D printed some new faceplates that and used Oak veneer, and made matching HDD/SSD/monitor enclosures to match. The monitor is a 7-inch IPS display I scavenged from an alarm clock and used an AliExpress controller. I put in a 3 way HDMI switch in the box so I can swap between the machines. The big box is the smallest 4-bay 3.5” hard drive dock I could find, and the small box is a 2x 2-bay 2.5” hard drive dock. Minus the drives that I already, I’m in at roughly CA$250 for the build including the machines. The big cost was for the drive docks.
Everything can disappear when I slide the door closed on my TV console, but easily accessible.