Well, I was really hoping that I could figure out a reasonable way to mount the Vent Mech to the motherboard, but after doing some research and testing, I came to the conclusion that, in my case, it made the most sense to mount it to the shell. It really came down to my use of the GBfans shell built-in fiberglass N-Filter and perf-board mounted Cyclotron lights. I think I could have pulled it off if I was using an aluminum N-Filter and reflectors for the lights. But, no worries... the Vent Mech installs quite nicely into my GBfans shell fiberglass N-Filter...
The fan/light assembly fits pretty snuggly into the N-filter cavity, but was a little wobbly just by itself. I was able to make it rock solid by cutting up some pieces of this "craft" foam...
And pushing it in around the edges using needle-nose pliers...
I also had to secure the air-pump to the inside of the cyclotron. As you can see here, this was done using a 20mm zip-tie mount and a narrow piece of velcro ribbon...
With the Vent Mech installed in the shell, I had to make room for it by modifying the perf-board. I was a little bummed the I had to cut up my nicely symmetric board, but I like its look even more now...
Of course, with the shell mount, I needed a power connection cable. Luckily, the Vent Mech uses JST terminals for modular connections, so I was able to make a quick-connect JST terminal cable to supply power...
But... avoiding an annoying cable like this was the main reason I wanted to mount all of this to the motherboard. So in an effort to still avoid that, I've been thinking about making a "pressure connection plate." Basically, it would work by completing the circuit when the motherboard and shell are pressed together. Here is a little sketch I made...
The plates would be made out of ABS and some AAA battery connection terminals...
The top plate would be attached to the shell and the bottom plate attached to the motherboard. As far as location goes, I was thinking about this area circled in red...
I'm going to give it a shot, but if it doesn't work out, I still have my quick-connect cable.
Even though I wasn't able to mount the Vent Mech as I originally wanted, I still feel like I ended up with a clean and completely removable installation solution. That's it for now!
EDIT: Wow... my 500th post