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Atech Fabrication Company, located in southern California, was established in 1989.
During the 80's and 90's, we
specialized in designing and building state-of-the-art suspension systems
and shock absorbers for high performance off-road racing vehicles. Our
forward looking designs continually set new standards in suspension
technology. We have
taken the same high quality design and manufacturing philosophies
required to survive the punishment of off-road racing and applied them to
our Home Theater Computer products. The result is a product that is built to
last and does not cut
corners when it comes to quality and performance. The high-end look of our
products fit in well with the finest audio and video components making them
a fine addition to any media room. In 2001, Atech Fabrication
released the revolutionary
Heatsink 3000 case. The Heatsink 3000 was the first case ever
designed specifically for the home theater. No other
home theater case was available anywhere at the time. Carved out of thick
aluminum plate, this innovative new case featured a
host of options that we originated including the built-in Touch-Screen Display, the VFD
Display, the Infrared Receiver, DVD Control Buttons, and the PowerMate
volume/control knob. The very compact size made this case perfect for any
media cabinet. Our Heatsink 3000 case broke new ground on what would soon
be a popular form of computer chassis. The Heatsink 3000 case has since been
replaced by the new Heatsink 3500
case.
Recording and playing back media has always been the primary goal
for many Home Theater Systems built. And with that need, there was never
enough storage. In 2002, A-Tech Fabrication released the
Mass-Storage 4x.
This case was designed to hold four 3.5" HDD's that could be easily attached
to your main system greatly increasing it's storage capacity. The Mass
Storage 4x created a totally silent enclosure by utilizing a proprietary
system for isolating the vibration of the drives. The case would also absorb
the heat from the drives and transfer the into it massive heatsink case. The
Mass-Storage 8x soon followed which held eight 3.5" HDD's.
In the years to follow, Home Theater Computers became very
popular, so much so that Microsoft introduced their Media Center
Edition (MCE) operating system which was designed specifically for the home theater computer.
With the added features of MCE, Microsoft made the OS simpler and easier to
integrate with media playback and recording.
In a move toward saving power and building smaller systems, Intel designed low-power processor chips and chipsets to allow
systems to run cooler and more quietly. Soon motherboards and video cards
began to include features that made setting up the systems easier like
supporting HDTV resolutions and digital audio output -in the early years,
users
had to hack methods to achieve these tasks and it was not always simple even
for advanced users. In 2004, Atech Fabrication released the HeatSync 6000 case. The
HeatSync 6000 was the first case designed for solid state passive cooling.
By utilizing heatpipes and massive heatsinks integrated into the chassis,
the heat produced by the system was transferred into the case and cooled
using only natural convection. The HeatSync cooling systems allowed systems
to run cooler and quieter with no fans. The HeatSync 6000 was also a very
compact case yet could fit a full-sized ATX MB, seven expansion cards, ATX
power supply, and a wide selection of full-size DVD drives. The HeatSync
6000 has since been replaced by the new
HeatSync 7000 case which has
almost twice the thermal capacity of the 6000. As
components developed with more integrated features, running seven expansion
cards and full-size motherboards was no longer required when building a Home
Theater Computer. Now many of the features that required add-on cards were
included in the motherboards and video cards. And as motherboards shrank in
size going from ATX, to micro-ATX, and now mini-ITX, we could also shrink
down our cases. In 2006, A-Tech Fabrication developed the
low-profile, high-performance HeatSync 2500 Mini-Client. This case
was designed around a low-power mini-ITX motherboard. At that time, mini-ITX
MB's did not include advanced built-in video, so the system still relied on
a add-on video card. The 2500 Mini-Client featured HeatSync cooling for both
the motherboard's CPU and chipset, as well as the video cards GPU. And with
a integrated fanless DC power supply, the entire system was completely
fanless. With network speeds increasing and the demand for added
storage even greater, we developed the first silent network attached storage
system - the Mass Storage NAS4x.
The NAS4x utilized the same proprietary system for isolating the vibration
of the drives as the Mass Storage 4x but with a mini-ITX MB added for
network connectivity. Now you could add clients into any room and still have
access to a single large library of media files located on the NAS4x. In 2008, we developed
HeatSync 2500 Mini-Client
Blu-ray Player. This special version of our 2500 case was designed
around the new Intel DG45FC motherboard. The Intel DG45FC mini-ITX
motherboard integrated high performance video and audio into the MB chipset.
Capable of outputting high-definition video for Blu-ray playback, there was
no longer a need for a separate video card. This allowed the use of other add-on cards
for increased functionality such as TV tuners for recording TV programs or RAID
cards for adding more storage capacity.
With 2.5" hard drives getting faster, larger, and more cost
effective, we developed the
HeatSync NAS-8x 2.5
Series case. Totally fanless and supporting up to nine HDD's, it was
now possible to create large low-powered network attached storage systems.
The small 2.5" drives use a fraction of the power as a 3.5" HDD which keeps
the system running cool for better reliability and runs practically silent
allowing this NAS to be placed in any room. In 2009, with mini-ITX MB's now capable of delivering high-definition video
and audio, we added the ultra-compact
HeatSync 300 Micro-Client and
low cost BD-2000
Blu-ray Player cases.
These small cases were built around the mini-ITX form factor and utilize low
power
2.5" hard drives and slim-line DVD/Blu-ray drives. The
HeatSync 300 Micro-Client is
the smallest passively cooled HeatSync case capable of running powerful
high-performance processors. Although the move to smaller systems
is now possible, full feature components are still needed when building demanding
systems. With the release of high powered processors such as the Intel
quad-core i7 and high-powered video cards, the need for high capacity
cooling was required. The HeatSync 7000 case was designed to fill
this need. With it's massive heatsink fins, this case can output the heat of
even the most demanding gaming system. The integrated HeatSync cooling
system is specifically designed around each motherboard and processor to
evenly distribute the heat into the chassis for silent convection cooling.
In the future, you can be sure A-Tech Fabrication will be leading the way.
Our products continually evolve to be the best by utilizing the latest in
cutting edge technology. We take pride in producing products that are 100%
made in the USA. |
