Charmander, the C6005 node, runs outside of its chassis!  A few pictures of what I’ve done.

I couldn’t find my pin extractor, so I used two staples. It took me a long time, but I only had to solder one wire.

Down the middle are the two “No Connection” pins, and the one in the outer corner is the brown line that I haven’t analyzed yet. The system runs fine without it for now.

All connected up

We have post!

Ubuntu LiveCD with ServeTheHome.com up to test connectivity 🙂

This first node is going in a custom Backblaze-inspired chassis build.  I ordered a bunch of parts from FrozenCPU for it and have laid out what I can in the chassis.  Once I plan out how the hard drive cradles will work it’ll be time for playing with metal.  So far though everything is fitting together even better than I could have hoped!

This will be the first part of my 1980’s inspired rack build.  Hopefully it goes well since the others are counting on it.

I picked up a 3 node C6005 off of ebay awhile ago, and while I love the systems for their cost and ability, the chassis they are in leaves a lot to be desired for the home lab.  So I’ve been attempting to figure out how to run the nodes outside their nurturing cocoon.  Tyan lists on their datasheet that it uses a “Proprietary 20-pin (12V single input) power connector” so I pulled the server out of the rack and started taking some notes.
Once I had an idea of what the connector looked like I could measure the voltage at each pin.  First odd thing is that when each node is ‘off’ pins 1 through 8 are all at 1V.  Once powered they are all 12V.  The other Yellow wire (pin 18) is the only 5V line.  All of the black lines (11 – 17 & 19) are Ground.  Pin 20, the Brown line, I’m not quite sure what it is.  It goes to a 2 pin header on top of the power distribution board.  My current thoughts are either a fan speed indicator or a “PSU on” control.

Also!  Header “U15”  by the USB port on the board are the power switch pins.