The New Propane Hose

Yayyy.. The new propane hose showed up for my Mr. Heater MH18b propane heater!

There it is in all of it's glory! Now I don't have to refill the one pound containers. yayyy!

The Messy Audio Wiring

 Now that most of the studio equipment is installed I could focus on getting the underside wiring looking neat and clean.

Here are some pictures of that process.

The underside wiring was unsightly and hanging on the floor. I wanted to get the bulk of the wiring off the floor and up under the console where it would be more difficult to damage from wear.

 

Look at the mess! I need to get that mess looking clean and neat!

You never know when you're going to need a few feet of extra eight pair audio snake cable, so instead of cutting it to an exact measurement, I left a few feet neatly under the console just in case!

Wall Mounting the Monitors

When I purchased the new monitor I mentioned that I wanted to mount all of the monitors using wall mount fixtures when I had the money to buy them.  I have decided that the time has come to do just that.

I purchased one central wall mount fixture for the 27 inch wide screen monitor and two extended arm style wall mounts for the two 19 inch 4:3 monitors.

There are some pictures of the installation of the monitors to the wall mount fixtures.

The lower left picture shows the monitors on some makeshift stands that I fabricated quickly to use to determine a good mounting height for the monitors.

You can see that I am removing the stand for the 27" monitor to get it out of the way.

I have attached the monitor hanging brackets and begun leveling the back plate on the front facing wall.

I have now mounted the center monitor. The two side monitors will be fitted to match the top edge of the center monitor.

You can see that I have laid out the arm style mount and removed the stand from one of the 19" monitors.

Leveling is always important when installing any piece of equipment.

I have now mounted the left monitor and have transcribed the measurements to the right monitor to make that installation much easier.

I want to keep the monitor cabling looking neat and professional. This is a part of what I used to do for a living as a union sound electrician in the motion picture industry.

Here are two shots of the console area with the monitors all wired up and ready for use.

The New PC

Well the time has come where the laptop that I have been using is not really cutting it regarding the making of electronic dance music and editing high quality videos.  I bought the laptop from my friend Jerry for around $200 right after my previous living situation took a turn for the worse.  I'm the kind of person that requires Internet access 24/7 and I knew at that time that I could get by with a laptop until my situation changed for the better.

The new computer that I built starts out with a Lianli  aluminum PC case and is armed with a hexacore AMD Phenom x6 3.3 GHz processor (6 cores) and 16 Gigs of Corsair DDR3 RAM memory. The power supply is a 550 watt Kingwin Laser Platinum LZP-550. The PC also has an Asus 12x Blu-ray writer which is also a DVD and CD writer / player. I'm using an Asus M4A88TD-EVO USB3 Motherboard and a Scythe SCMG-2100RT aftermarket processor cooler. The internal hard drive is a Hitachi 2 Terabyte 7200 RPM SATA drive divided into two separate 1 gigabyte partitions. It runs Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64 bit version.

The grand total for the all of the computer parts was $1,155.27 which is phenomenal when compared to the approximate $7200.00 I spent 5 years ago on my last Studio PC. Since I'm currently a full time college student, I used that status to purchase a student discounted version of MS Windows 7 64 bit Upgrade and MS Office Professional for around $150. I added my M-Audio Delta 1010LT sound card from my prior Studio PC to create one extremely amazing A/V Workstation.

Here are some pictures of the new computer and the area that I created to securely mount and wire my new Studio Work Station PC.

You can see the stack of new parts in the left picture and the new case in the right picture.

 I tried to lay out the parts so that you can see them all clearly.

Inside the syringe is thermal paste for connecting the processor to the fan assembly.

Here is the area under the console where I am installing the PC shelf.

I secured the metal shelf brackets to the wood with additional zip ties for added stability.

You can see the new computer under the console on the shelf.

Here are a few pictures of the inside and back panel of the New PC.

The top picture shows the added M-Audio Delta 1010LT sound card and the bottom picture shows a closer look at some of the connectors on the back of the computer.

Console Shelving

The console area is very spacious but is lacking places to put additional pieces of equipment.  I decided I would fix that problem by installing some shelving above the monitors and to my immediate left and right. 

I purchased some adjustable shelf rails and additional hardware from the local home improvement store.  It is important that the shelving rail be level and secure.  I intend to mount the front right and left monitor speakers on the top right and left shelves.  I want the shelves to be adjustable so that in the future if the equipment I own changes I won't have to redo the shelving situation.

Here are some pictures of the installation of my new shelves.

A New Monitor

The two 19" Princeton Synergy LCD monitors that I have are nice, but I needed something newer. Movies made for widescreen viewing don't look right on 4:3 monitors. I decided to get a brand new ASUS VE278Q 27 Inch widescreen 16:9 LED monitor.  It cost around $400 with tax and shipping and it uses very little power because it is back lit with LED's instead of the more traditional LCD back lighting.

Here are some pictures of my new monitor.

I intend to mount the monitors on arm mounts from the wall when I have the money to buy the mounting brackets. I figured that I better mount the power supplies for the two 19" Princeton Synergy LCD monitors to their respective stands for the time being to keep the wiring off of the console surface to the best of my ability.

Here is the outcome of how I accomplished that task.

Back To School

My third semester as a full time college student has begun.  I have lived inside this cargo trailer for almost a year and a half.  I have everything I need except that I still have to shower at friends' houses and I still do my laundry at the Laundromat.  I finally broke down and joined a fitness center a few days ago.  I laugh when I tell people that I was working on getting fat, but now that I am fat, it's important that I lose all that weight so I can start over.  It's my weird sense of humor.

I have at least 12 more posts to make before I get close to being caught up to my current situation.  I have tried to document every important step in the process of turning the inside of this cargo trailer into a home.  When it's all done I'm going to have thousands of pictures depicting practically every facet of the build from start to finish.

My studio area in the cargo trailer has evolved into a magnificent studio / office / workspace.  I designed the area to function as an Internet Radio Station, a Live DJ Console, a Workspace to do homework, and an Office complete with a Computer, Color Laser Printer, and Flatbed Scanner.  My friends who live in houses are very impressed with my compact and efficient studio area.

The Progress Made So Far

You're probably wondering at this point what the inside of the cargo trailer looked like after all of the many changes.  Here are some pictures of my progress.

 

The picture on the left shows my electric ceramic heater tilted down at an angle so I can warm up when needed. Just above the heater is the Center Channel speaker that I mounted in an earlier post. Just below the heater are a pair of Logitech powered PC speakers and a Philips webcam.

The pictures on the right show the progress on the studio console area before and after I surfaced the counter top with the fake green marble adhesive tiling and the addition of wall mounting my two 19" Princeton Synergy LCD Monitors.

 

The top left picture shows my laptop setup with an external keyboard and Logitech trackball. You can also see a better view of the pair of wall mounted 19" Princeton Synergy LCD Monitors. My Saturn SL1 car and My GMC Sierra Pickup truck are  in the bottom left picture. The picture on the right shows the kitchen shelving being used and some of my clothes hanging up in the closet area.

The Revamped Shower Installation

On Tuesday, August 31, 2010 I posted the framing of the bathroom walls.  At that time I installed the walls without knowing exactly how I was going to build a shower/bathroom.  When I tackled the process again I knew some changes had to be made which included modifying the furthest wall to measurements of 3' x 3' and installing a shower dam.

I made new lines on the wall, reconnected the furthest wall to the floor and cargo trailer wall, and then connected the showered dam to the floor and both shower walls.  The exact inside dimensions are 3' x 3' which should definitely be large enough for myself and possibly someone else to both take a shower at the same time... :D

Here are some pictures of the revamped shower installation.

Additional LED Lighting

Back on October 15, 2010 I created a metallized burner area for a Kings Kooker brand propane burner that my friend Jerry gave me.  Jerry found the burner at a yard sale and paid $15 for it.  The area where the Burner is located is very dark at night so I thought I would spruce it up a bit by adding some switched 12 volt LED rope lighting to that area.

Here are some pictures of that installation.