Famed modder Benjamin Heckendorn (aka Ben Heck) has crammed Sony's PlayStation 3 console into a rugged Storm iM2600 case at the request of a soldier stationed in Afghanistan.
In a recent episode of Ben Heck's show, the soldier and his wife wanted something portable and rugged as they transfer the Sony console from station to station. In addition to the console, they also wanted to incorporate a Samsung B2230HD 21.5-inch widescreen LCD monitor which was eventually dismantled and mounted into the lid, allowing the soldier to simply open the case and play.
As seen in the show, the bottom half of the case held a dismantled PlayStation 3 Slim console, a power strip, a Netgear network switch, and the console's power supply plugged into the strip. The network Ethernet switch was actually installed for other soldiers with PlayStation 3 consoles so that they could plug right in and play together.
Naturally everything wasn't just dumped into the belly of the case-- Ben Heck fed a schematic into a CNC router to cut aluminum frames for both the bottom portion and the lid. The bottom itself comprised of three components: the base frame (where the Netgear switch and power switch resided), the PlayStation 3 mounting frame which held the exposed console components, and the main plate which held the power switch, filters, Ethernet ports and USB ports. It also featured a sliding door so that the soldier could insert a disk into the console's Blu-ray player underneath.
As for the top half, the dismantled LCD screen was mounted directly to the lid and covered with an aluminum frame which also held its extracted speakers and touch controls. The monitor also plugged into the power strip, requiring the user to turn on the PlayStation 3 on the "dash" and turn on the display separately via its touch control pad.
Ultimately the resulting Storm iM2600 PlayStation 3 mod weighed almost 30 lbs. To see how Ben Heck put the mod together, watch the show right here. Additional images from Ben Heck's blog can be accessed here.
