The "Bootiful" mod

Final Assembly and Testing

For my second attempt at filling the ball, I used masking tape across the opening to restrain the boxes from moving. The masking tape can just be seen here after most of the excess foam had been removed.



The foam was cut away and trimmed, leaving a hole for ventilation and the connectors. The wires hanging out are for connecting to the LEDs. These wires were cut to length, soldered together and the joints insulated. They were then tucked away under the mainboard.



Time to attach the ball to the base. The wires you can see are the 12V power cable and the wires for the power switch.



Underneath the base, the wires were connected and the joints insulated with heat shrink sleeving. Once the system was fully tested these wires would be neatly looped and held in place using self adhesive cable ties.



Now comes the moment of truth. With everything plugged in the system was powered up……..Phew! Everything worked perfectly. I had not fancied having to strip and rebuild the ball again!

The unit was then soak tested with 3DMark 2001 for 48 hours to prove that the system was stable.