Mounting bracket for PCs?

Projects General Guidance
1

I want to mount an Arduino inside a PC but I'm not seeing any solutions out there that make it really easy.

Yes, I know I can buy a small project box and find some place inside the PC to put the box. I've done that before and mounted the project box to a spare HDD tray. That required some minor modding - drilling and cutting of the box.

What would be great would be a bracket that mounts in the standard rear bracket slots of a standard PC case that would hold the Arduino and pass-through the USB and power connector.

Or, some kind of mount that would go into in a PCI slot, but there would be no electrical contacts - i.e., the PCI slot would just serve as a holder for the mount.

Surely there must be something out there like this or something that would be simple.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

2
3

Thanks. I saw that one earlier. I don't have a 3D printer.

Given the popularity of the Arduino, one would think that there would a variety of turnkey solutions for mounting these easily inside a PC. Even a ready-made 5.25" bay mount would work. I'm not seeing that, either.

4

You can find PCI protoboards, with fingers that fit into the slots. Use one of those and some screws/nuts to mount your arduino to it.
Example, scroll down to the bottom.
https://www.futurlec.com/ProtoBoards.shtml

5

Thanks. I saw that one earlier. I don't have a 3D printer.

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There are services online now that you can send 3D-printer files to and get prints made and shipped to you. I have not used them myself.

MossyRock:
Given the popularity of the Arduino, one would think that there would a variety of turnkey solutions for mounting these easily inside a PC. Even a ready-made 5.25" bay mount would work. I'm not seeing that, either.

Sure, Arduino is popular, but putting them inside a PC isn't so much - particularly the bulky and expensive full-sized boards as opposed to the smaller and less expensive (particularly for clones) nano/pro mini's - which are more appropriate for leaving in a project longterm and easier to find space for. I'm not sure I understand the use case for an Arduino inside the PC, unless you're doing some arduino-controlled cooling+lighting thing...

6

CrossRoads, that will work. Thanks.

DrAzzy, what you said explains the lack of available options. Thank you for explaining that to me.

My Arduino will communicate with the computer via USB to control LEDs on a remote console.

7

An old floppy, CD-ROM, or even a hard drive shell would give you a platform to mount the Arduino on and then you could mount it in a disk bay.

8

Chagrin,

Thanks. Your post reminded me that I do have a hot-swap iStarUSA T-7M1-SATA Drive Enclosure (with removable tray) that I'm no longer using and is just gathering dust. The Arduino would be very easy to access.

9

Double sided foam tape.

10

Nasa,

Thanks... that gave me an idea - velcro!

Anyway, I found nearly exactly what I'm looking for, although there would be no pass-thru of the USB and power connectors, and I'm ok with that:

http://www.amazon.com/Funtin-Adapter-Internal-Drive-Mounting/dp/B0158YMSJI/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&qid=1461507493&sr=8-18-spons&keywords=pci+slot+cover+plate&psc=1

These will also work:

http://www.idotpc.com/thestore/pc/BR-3-IN-1B-PCI-Mounting-Bracket-with-CF-USB-Card-Reader-p1230.htm

Thanks for everybody's help.