214 replies to this topic

[Vincent Vascaul]

Madekatsu- Awesome to see another Idahoan here man, what part of the state are you in?

Skadi- I am neither, the dude with the beard is my brother in law (although I am currently rocking a similar beard) and the guy with the glasses is my buddy and old room mate.

Ignys-Thanks man!

Whacked- I wanted something that I would never have to worry about breaking and flex is unacceptable. As it is it wasnt really all that expensie anfd I have literally used it as a bed in a pinch. I am really please with its streagnth and durability and I feel it realy is a great blend of Form and function.

[Wyver]

mate! this is looking awesome!! keep up the good work!

[Madekatsu]

I just finished up Grad school back east so I'm back out in Kuna now living at home while working for free! (Gotta love internships)

[Vincent Vascaul]

Awesome man I live in Caldwell, good to see locals as always.

[Madekatsu]

Haha I never would've guessed. The 1A plates threw me off.

[Vincent Vascaul]

Ok guys here is my first crack at a video update, let me know what you think.

[Vergoth]

Brilliant bud, very impressive! You shall be the envy of all the Mech Pilots!

[Seth Deathstalker]

Man, that is just great!
After all the pics and infos - you go and give us video, too.
All the hardware goodies you are going to pack into this little project....
I have been interested from the start where you will be going with this and how it will finallly work out.
Keep it up, dude. Massive geek factor

(You are doing ok on video. Just a tad nervous. But that would be nominal, err, normal.)

[Tabrin]

I heard "Here's my Intel 386 processor...." and had a 90's flashback to the original Mechwarrior on said processor.

Side note, flow sensors for H20 setups are cheap, they convert gph to rpm so you can use fan headers and your motherboard's Bios alarm/shutdown configuration. The one in my old PC also had a coolant temperature sensor that could trigger the same.

Just in case you want to run single pump configuration for aesthetic reasons.

[Odins Fist]

Very Nice, I run my external "WATER BOX" with 2- 10" x 12" Copper Radiators from an old de-humidifier, keeps my CPU temps in the basement..
Good work...!!! I used .29 cents a foot vinyl 3/8" line, heated them up and crammed them on to 1/2" fittings, then clamped them, the first time I had to take the system apart, I litterally had to "CUT" the line off of the fittings... The only place I could possibly get a leak from would be the water block, since everything else is external, one Thermaltake water pump running it, and the whole thing cost me under $100.00 U.S. to build...
.
CPU is setting at 22-C (70-F) clocked at 4.1975-Ghz I've never seen it go above 40-C at load when the ambient in the house was 80-F during our little heat wave..
.
I was going to put the water box in a mini fridge for a laugh, and keep the temps in the mini fridge around 50-F to avoid condensate issues.
I don't think I will do that though, just seems a little overboard...

Edited by Odins Fist, 11 July 2012 - 10:27 AM.

[Nekomimi]

I need this to happen so I too can build an amazing desk:

Edited by Nekomimi, 12 July 2012 - 11:38 AM.

[Vyktamus]

I have been following this thread for a few days. I can appreciate the work you are putting into this. I began a similar and much smaller project, but decided to not go with the H2O. So I basically bought a monster of a case and added another mod to the desk Worked out to my benefit since we didn't end up buying the house we are currently leasing.

I did coat my desktop with an Epoxy Shield and used the blue specks to go with the blue LED theme of my case and peripherals. Made it easier to dust and tougher against scratches. It has held pretty well considering I don't think it was created to be used on wood. Just an idea if you are thinking of something for the surfaces of your desk. Even though I ventured into a different career, I come from a long line of professional carpenters so whenever I get around to projects like this, it always peaks my dad's interests.

Keep up the awesome work, I'm dying to see the end result. Any luck with sponsors? My dad did a job a few years back for a body shop that wanted a shelf system for their garage and Home Depot of all people sponsored him and gave him several tools for free. It was crazy, he just mentioned to one of the managers that he was working on one of the more popular garages in town and they gave him TONS of Husky brand tools to use for the job AND keep once he was done. He just had to take pictures for them and put some "Husky Tough" sticker on two sides of the shelf of something like that. Just another thought.

Best of luck to you man.

[Deaths Charger]

kool set up now to put up the plans in a pdf that can be d/l ed from this site

[Deaths Charger]

look up using a mini fridge as a water kooler or as the case kooler, lol just reach in hit the start button an puull that soda/beer out

[Bunkerbomber]

Great work! Keep it up!

[Nuclear Xmas]

That's awesome. I've been planning to build my own computer desk, not nearly as ambitious as yours, though...

Excellent job. Look forward to seeing the final stage of this project.

[Travers]

Pure, unrefined awsome.
I salute you sir.

[Vincent Vascaul]

Ok guys I shot a video update but I am having issues with it unfortunately so here is a regular old update.

Ok so I have been on a backup rig for over 2 months now and it has been killing me. So I now have most of the components I am planning on using in the desk build, so I threw all of them into a Bitfenix Shinobi XL case to test all of the components and make sure I am happy with the performance and everything works before I go through the trouble of mounting it up. This is just a temp build so its not my prettiest work.











Also I managed to snag a Dell 30 inch 2560x1600 to replace my triple monitor setup. I freaking love it! I may go up to three of them but at the moment 1 is enough. Specs for the system are as follows

Intel 2011 8320 w/ XSPC Raystorm waterblock

MSI Big Bang II Mobo

Gigabyte 7970 with EK Acrylic waterblock and backplate

G-Skill 16gb 1866 ram

Swiftech 360mm rad with gentle typhoons in a push configuration

Swiftech 240mm rad with Noctua fans in a pull configuration

Swiftech Pump with XSPC res.

Koolance 3/8 ID and 5/8 OD compression fittings

Corsair 1000w PSU

Asus Blu Ray drive

Crucial M4 256 SSD

WD Green 2TB Media Drive


Ok Guys I am ordering more parts for the build however I will not be posting much till the beginning of September as I have a huge workload to get done before I head to PAX Prime I will be going full steam ahead on the project when I get back. Thanks again for everyone following the build I will try to get the video update redone and working in the next few days though.

[Vincent Vascaul]

This Build still lives but there have been some changes, including a second PC. Here are some screenshots for what I have planned


















More to come soon.

[Vincent Vascaul]

Ok, sorry for not posting more details with the design updates guys, it was late and I had just gotten them done. Anywho So its been a couple months since my last update, between PAX, work and a unexpected medical issue I haven't been able to post much. However I have been making headway on the build so here is a list of some of the changes.

First off obviously is the monitor setup I have added 2 Dell 2007 1600x1200 monitors to my Dell 30 for a PLP setup, I have to say that out of all monitor configurations I have tried this is by far the one I prefer most it allows for crazy high levels of productivity without being crazy wide or narrow.

I also have a 24 inch 1920x1200 monitor to the left, that is for the next phase of my project. I am mounting a PC in the wall behind the Desk as the designs above illustrate. The room behind my office us unfinished as its where the HVAC is located in the house, so I decided to do something fun and interesting with this area as its basically used for just storage. The PC will be mounted on a hinged board with dual triple rads bellow. The reasons I did this are threefold

1. As some people have brought out there may be issues running a liquid cooled rig in this horizantal configuration and before I go through the trouble of modifying my desk this way (I have a backup configuration) This will serve as a proof of concept build for the liquid cooling layout and help me work the bugs out in a more forgiving setup with cheaper components. And should it not work I will put it in the up position and be no worse off.

2. I will need another PC up and running ans I am modifying and building the desk rig so this will serve as my backup and interim rig.

3. It s a chance to do something cool and different with PC components, duh!

So the specs for this rig are

i5 2500K processor
EVGA FTW mATX Mobo
Koolance 360WB
655 Pump
AMD 6970 Video Card with Heatkiller waterblock
2x 360mm slim rads
8gb of G-skill 1866Mhz ram
SeasonicX 750w psu

More coming soon, I am waiting for parts today and tomorrow, thanks for reading!