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03/04/2006: "Part 1: Gathering parts & Making it "Mod"ular"
Gathering Parts
The fist step is collecting everything you need. Of course after you do this you will, according to Murphy, need something else as you progress so be ready to run back to the parts store in the middle of your build.
Here are the parts I started with:
Set of cold cathode florescent tubes
Molex connector
1/8 stereo jacks (2)
1/8 stereo plugs (4)
SPST Mini switch (2)
DPDT Mini switch
12v Power jack
12v Power plugs (2)
Cell phone car charger
NiHm car charger cord
and of course the bay cover.
Your parts list might be different!!!
Now let's not forget our tools list:
Wire
Solder
Soldering iron
Small side cutters
Small needle nose pliers
Exato knife
Mini drills
Jewelers files
Epoxy
Clamps
Saw (I used my scroll saw and a broken blade from same saw)
Make it "MOD"ular!
My first thoughts were to hard wire all this in. After giving this some thought I changed my mind and decided to make the whole thing modular. That way I could move it from case to case. This brought up my next problem, how do I mount all of this to the back of this bay cover? I needed a box to hold more, what else, jacks! 
I just happen to have some old CD-ROM’s laying around so I did what anyone would do and tore it apart. Sorry about the pics they were taken after I started mounting stuff in but it should give you an idea of where this part came from.
Removed from case… 
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After cutting the back end off and trimming to height…
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This would actually work out better than I thought.
The plastic was easy to work yet turned out to be very strong. The epoxy stuck well and with a little cutting on the scroll saw it fit perfectly! Not only that but there was a spot to put a molex connector that seemed to be made for just that part.
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PERFECT FIT! 
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The next step was to install two fan connectors to use as a place to plug in the lights and two stereo jacks for the speaker input and output. I used a small drill and jewelers files to cut the holes for the fan connectors and secured them with 5 minute epoxy. 
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Since I was removing the lighter plugs that contained the fuse for the charging circuits I installed a fuse holder for the two amp fuse that the adapters originally used. 
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The finished box. 
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In the next post we will design and build the front panel.
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