New Desk Mod
 

Due to a recent move, my bedroom is currently doubling as a office, so I need to design a desk that will hold my LCD, possibly my 24" CRT, have a built in GP/HTPC and of course a benching station.

(This process is going to take a few months to get exactly as I want, but needs to be usable within a week :) As well as being built for less than $100 hopefully)

Design is going to be completely modular for easy break down and transport (albeit heavy, since I am using wood and the right pedestal will conceivably be supporting a 100 pound monitor). Thinking, two separate pedestals, a framework to lay across the top, that holds them together, and double as support for the counter top, that will also "drop into place."

So far the design is as follows.

6' piece of counter top
2 Pedestals for support.

Left side pedestal will include internalized PSUs, Storage Optical / HDD and the HTPC motherboard. Counter above pedestal will include frame work for mounting a motherboard for benching. Looking at a nominal 12" effective internal width (with 2x4 legs making it 15" wide)

Still working out the layout. Originally was planning on having the benchstation mounted towards the back of the counter over the pedestal, and a piece of glass looking down on the HTPC motherboard mounted internally. Decided to forgo this option because I do not have a router for making a nice ledge for the glass to sit on, and protecting against leaks might prove a little difficult. Still the design will leave this as an option for future upgrades.

Right side pedestal will have a 20" effective width. This is large enough to insert a receiver and amp if I choose. Optionally, the Right side pedestal may end up becoming a ~16U (28" which I have not measured but sounds about right for desktop height) server chassis. This would definitely make internalizing the HTPC much simpler, but not something I can do right now. (Still I can build one fairly cheap, but making them aesthetically pleasing....

I will be fashioning a heavy duty keyboard tray that reaches both pedestals. This is tentatively only 34" minus the width of the drawer rails I intend to use, will be a little tight, but ALOT better most KB trays. And it is a lot smaller than the 5' I want, but making knockouts on the pedestals would be too much work.

All shelves will be removable. 1x1 wood rails, for simple placement.

I have been racking my brain trying to come up with a metal open shelving design that would allow greater airflow and cable management than simple wood shelves or those ugly white flimsy storage racks that everyone has. I think I may have come up with something. Home depot has paint trays that fit into a 5 gallon bucket for commercial/industrial paint jobs Click this for an image. I will probably have to reinforce it with strap steel or more simply, 1x1's to be able to support a receiver on the right pedestal but it might work really well for the motherboard tray.


Left pedestal is still up in the air for design. I have 3-pin fan extensions of 1' length and I have a half dozen 3' SATA cables. Unfortunately PSUs are not so easy to change the lengths of, since 24 pin 8 pin CPU and PCIE plugs are very important and should not be extended probably, The design will probably HAVE to be in this layout.

Bench board
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Countertop
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5" PSU shelf
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GP/HTPC motherboard
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HDD/ODD shelf
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Storage space for extra optical disks and my CD binder.




Now I originally wanted the GP/HTPC motherboard directly under the counter top, built on a vented shelf, so that the HDD/ODD shelf would have 3x120mm fans filtered sucking air in from the right side, going up through the shelves, and out at the top of the pedestal on the left side. It is probably going to be built first and then played with I suppose.

Was wondering if anyone had any suggestions, specifically with the wood working.

I am probably going to build 2x4 "boxes" which is a weak design laterally, but hopefully will have enough 1x1 rails to stiffen it up.

Also looking for advice on how to make it modular, simply. I have thought of two methods so far.

Lots and lots of dowels.

Or attach "legs" of 1x1 or maybe even 2x4 to the rim of the counter to keep the frame work from sliding out. legs mounted internally on the support frame will hold the pedestals in place, so the whole thing is "locked together" as one unit, but lifting it straight up it comes apart with no tools.

Lift off counter top

Lift off support frame

Pedestals are now unattached to each other.

I have some sketches drawn up but do not have a scanner hooked up yet to help visualize it. And have not played with google sketch up enough yet to attempt to draw it in that.

Hopefully my word pictures are good enough :)

Well I just got back from Lowe's. Wow are they overpriced compared to Home Depot on some things.

6' piece of cheap countertop starts at 60 dollars. That would be half the cost of the desk right there. So I went cheap and bought 3 3/4 x 8 x 72 whitewood and a quart of poly/stain for a total of 22 dollars :)

Bench station is no longer going to be part of the desk, as my current situation, my aunt is nervous about having large quantities of frozen CO2 in the house :p so I will probably just take my original idea for a bench table, and work with that since it will more easily be moved around.

Desk will still have my main rig built in though. and I will just throw together a 2 level benchstation for now for air cooled benching.

Should have some preliminary snaps up tomorrow. Running back to Lowe's to return some light bulbs, and will pick up some more 1x2 strap boards for the removable shelves, and I forgot drawer rails for the keyboard tray :p

We need pics!!!

+1 :clapping:

We need pics! :D

I promise I will uplaod some project log style pics tomorrow. I am mixing up the design a bit, as I said, will have to do a separate bench station. Just going to throw together a 5 minute Navig style one for now.

Thinking of adopting two server rack style pedestals instead and running one with a knockout for the KB tray. Would be easier, and give me more flexibility I think just gotta double check the measurements.
Also got a great idea for the modular design too..

Will post it up tomorrow :)

Sorry for the lag, lots going on here :( Been crazy busy and yesterday it rained so no cutting wood outside *sigh

Anyway, decided to take care of bench rig first.

All I have left to do is take it out of the case and swap it onto the bench rack and MAYBE screw in 4 bolts to hold the top on nice and square. Will do this in a few minutes when I finish my lunch

Quick job took about 75 minutes, and stupid me trusted the cheap ass table saw for measurement and straight cuts, so top and bottom are just a smidgen off as you can see in the second pic. Thumbnails for photobucket for full 1MB pics, not really necessary I suppose though

Have not decided on whether to just use a piece of pipe strap for the card bracket, or was thinking of two metal rods or straps that "pinch the top of the expansion bracket. Not really needed until I go with some type of 3rd party cooling on the card though I suppose :)

IF this was something I was going to invest anytime I would probably sand and stain/poly it. And I may do that at another time, but not right now.


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HAHA nice!

Very cool:D
Congrats mate:)
Keep it up:D

Thanks guys

Took as long to take it out of the old case, clean it up and put it on the bench station as it did to build the freaking thing :s

Loose molex plus was originally going to be for IDE DVD-RW but I went SATA instead. (IDE drive is a lightscribe drive so will go in my 24/7 rig)

Smaller heatsink is because this CPU runs cooler than my 920 and is going right next to an AC vent :) It will eventually be getting an upgrade when I can afford it.

Zip ties were left long so I can staple them to the bottom to hold that rat's nest in place.

First bench station built, think now that I know what I am doing, I can make some improvements and still knock these out in under an hour :)

Oh, going to get a piece of strap steel for straight across the back as a pci expansion support, but with the dual slot cooler and the closely placed PIE slots on this ASuS board, I do not need it, card rests on the release level of the slot next to it perfectly lol

Smoking a cigarette and going to go cobble together the top for my desk (only part of my desk that has not changed after the first design lol



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