project... eventual water cooled desk build (picture heavy)

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21 Feb 2010
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Hello.

Forgive the project name i have become so entangled in this project i haven't actually came up for a name.
It has been called many of names up until now but none of which are suitable for forums.

A little bit of history. I am not a joiner/chippy/carpenter i am actually a mechanical guy so a good majority of these tools i have never used professionally nor do i really work with wood but i prefer working with wood over sheet metal given the flexibility that is wood.

In choice of design most of the picture i see on other builds are the box standard square desk which is fine enough as i can see the appeal over a normal desk with spacing e.t.c. For me however i wanted something different and as you will see and i will try explain the best i can why a curved desk might not be so appealing but most certainly is different.

and at the moment this project is not complete as will be obvious but most likely there will not be an update apart from answering comments/questions until either the end of September or Christmas. Why so long? Because i spend most of the year working outside of the UK. Why spend so much money on a build that will not be used ? because this is something i have wanted to do for a long time but never had the space. Regardless of personal circumstances. And its a Hobby if i was to be honest.

So Anyway. I literally got back from Italy on the 26th August. on the 29th I had moved into a new house sorted out all that i needed too and picked up the materials i would need ( at least to begin with)

Material - 12mm Birch Plywood and 8mm Flexible (short grain) Plywood
Tools - Circular saw. Router. Drill. Jigsaw. Electric sander. And normal handtools
motivation - lots and lots of coffee
Hardware - Corsair HX 1000. 2x EK-CoolStream XE 360. 2x XSPC D5 Photon 270. 8x Cryorig QF120 and 4x bit fenix fans

Other hardware i have not decided on yet but will do in due course. Onwards to the pictures and the pitfalls.
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The very first cut would be the upper part of the desk as this is the longest piece in the 12mm birch. The radius were marked using trammel points and make up 350° (ish) as you can see the pencil lines on failed attempts.
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marking out for the shelves
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first shelf carcass made

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marking out the top desk section for where the glass will go and access points (i would later enlarge the glass area)
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the lower half of the desk section. comprised of 2 radius cuts. 45° cuts to raise up the center partition by about 60mm
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the boxing which i had originally made 350mm tall. When i looked at it when i made this resembelled more like a coffin. i ended up cutting 100mm off to make look more suitable (i would later regret this)
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the part on top is where a piece of acrylic will sit which the motherboard will sit. The idea behind this is that all the cables will come from underneath and all being well i should physically be able too disconnect pipework and lift out the hole tray for bench testing or general assembly
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access panels and glass area cut out
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coming together
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primer paint and holes cut out. the support underneath are 21mm to allow for cables to be passed through
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first turn of flexi ply added to complete the carcass- pre sanding
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it was at this point i knew i was going to have a problem with the painting

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some parts
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more parts
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final wrapping on desk

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nothing a bit of wood filler wont fix

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This will haunt me for making an impulsive decision. Originally i had planned the 2 radiators to go one on top of each other, However when i ripped 100mm from the box i never too this into consideration and was 10mm too short and i was running out of time before i had to go back to work. So the soloution has been too put them at 90° to each other. One will draw air from the back side and the other will draw air from the underside. at the moment this was the only soloution because of the curved design i am unable to locate them anywhere else.

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more painting and sanding
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cutouts

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so this is where im at

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now i have spent about 4 days of painting and sanding and i can not get the finish i want on the wood and it is taking up too much time. The desk top is nearly there but the flexible ply i really deeply grained so i have decided that i am going to vinyl wrap in the colours. I also need to get some sort of graphics on the upper desk too take away the black. until this is done it is pointless in fitting any components.

every component can be accessed and removed through the 3 access holes. i have some parts still too tidy up but i started to rush trying to achieve because i leave the UK today. I had originally planned to groove in some lines and use some EK wire to add some lighting but on light test it is not as bright as i had hoped so this got shelved. What i have done instead when i wrapped the upper desk section i have left about 40mm more so i can fix a led strip under both sides which will light up the underside and the shelf unit top. i also have chrome poles to fit to seperate the shelf and the desk by about 100mm.

I extended the underside angles to match but this was a bad decision as now it does not sit so well with the shelfing i will figure something out by either making a correction and having this 90° to the underside so it blends or do something else. Needless to say i now have the time to reflect on choices and decision.

apologies for spelling. Sitting in Heathrow and my flight is ready so will correct when i get a chance

Reaper

Edit - Sincere apologies those pictures were huge.. now sorted
 
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Associate
OP
Joined
21 Feb 2010
Posts
17
OP how you're gonna sit in front of it if the top is so thick?

Once the top has been spaced out from shelving underneath it should and i will use a pinch of salt be slightly higher than a normal desk but not high enough where it feels drastically uncomfortable. I am hopeful to try and have this sorted for when i am next home but at the moment the vinyl design and affixing will take precedence. Only after that is done can i set the spacing between the shelving and the desk and hopefully get some pictures. I am still on course for home end of this month but by my rough calculations i am only going to have 1 full day at home :( before going away again. Such is the life
 
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i would like to see a pic of you sitting in front of it.. it just doesn't seem comfortable for me....
when i sit at my desk my hands are about 15cm above my lap and sidearms of my chair are at the same level as my desk..
so i don't imagine sitting with my hands so high ... but its just my point of view.

0wUkZCU.jpg
 
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OP
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21 Feb 2010
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So time for a quick update.

I got back from Italy and had a couple of days to try and progress and put any ideas i had whilst in Italy onto the desk.

During my time in Italy my head scratching moment was Av panels e.t.c and space, By the time the main board goes in the two reseviors at the side were going to take up the majority of the room not leaving much space for auxillary items like SSD's e.t.c so i had been playing around with a few ideas. When i got back home i checked height of the desk against my arm and as Chaos mentioned the desk is high, not too high that is was really uncomfortable but high enough that it would eventually get to me. I was at the stage where the vinyl had arrived and its was make or break time and figured whilst it was at this stage i may as well try and do something to alleviate the majority of issues i was facing.

So we are now onto Rev 2.0

The new plan was to now step down the desk by about 80mm thus giving my arms some more space but also importantly i now have a 80mm splash back where i can mount a lot of my usb's and sound connections whilst not impeding on the location of the radiators. the second part i have done is i have opened up the desk side to side giving me essentially double the space. On the left radius will now be where the main board is located. In the centre is where the resevoirs will sit and on the right radius is where all the SSd's will go.

I have partitioned off the rear and drilled new fan holes which alleviated the problem of the original holes were a tad on the big size. Instead of having access panels the main viewing panel will now mostly be acrylic on the radius area because there is no chance i can give measurements for glass. the centre piece will still be glass and the access panel at the back has been extended to almost the width of the desk allowing access to still fit and remove the psu and radiators.

I am happy that everything has opened up whilst it has alleviated most of my issues it has caused a couple more but the sort of current issue but isn't a issue but i need to measure up accurately issue is what i shall call the viewing panel has been cut quite considerably it no longer has much load bearing strength so i need to put supports in place to support the glass and acrylic. I do have an idea of getting some 20mm round acrylic tube. plugging both sides closed then drilling a small hole and filling with UV fluid that will react nicely with the UV lights giving off an illuminated column. At the moment that is an idea but nothing confirmed or ordered yet.

As for more hardware nothing has been ordered yet but with the release of coffee lake i am seriously looking at Gigabyte's Z370 board as i have always been a supporter of Gigabytes motherboards and from what i have read so far the coffee lake chips are looking promising, Subject to change of course but i would say that most likely will not.

I am unfortunately away again and this time its for 3 months. My return is not scheduled until the 18th December so i expect to hopefully have this project done and completed just before the new year. Unless something drastically changes of the course i believe the design ideas are now solid and anything will just be more of an inconvenience and chalk it up to inexperience and use everything i have learned from this build into the next build in the future.

So on with the pictures

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knees touching but that does not bother me so much but the arm did feel slightly higher
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choppy chop
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to give you a rough idea on the step size
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checked to make sure psu is good
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fan controller mounted
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what i refer to as the viewing panel the two holes were the original power on and reset have now been moved and those holes plugged
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so this is where at the moment. The I/o panel will be on the left hand side which i have precut already and the panels ordered from the states as was the only place i could get what i wanted on the panels and get panel dimensions to use. these panels will only consist of usb's ethernet and sound. the video cables will run directly too the monitors through the stand
StUQiWrm.jpg
It doesn't look very pretty at the moment but time really was not on my side in between everything else i had to take care of.

Once again i apologise about the delay in between updates and if i get lucky i might get a cheeky weekend at home in-between now and December but there would be very little i would achieve with timescales.

over and out
 
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as i said ... its your desk and you design it. I don't feel comfortable when i cant have my legs under the desk and arms at the same height as the top...
Plus if you have you motherboard in front of you you basically going to cover most of it with your keyboard and mouse (or if you are using a big mouse pad then its even worse).
The only solution to this as I see it its do something that linus did with his desk... cut out for legs covered with just glass.
You are not covering your mobo and in my opinion its much better looking and comfortable as well...
maxresdefault.jpg


I had a chance to try one of those lian li desk that cost 1k£+
( https://www.overclockers.co.uk/lian-li-dk-02x-desk-case-black-ca-688-ll.html )
CA688LL_97174_285x255.jpg

but i didn't found that comfortable as well

there is an option for additional shelf for keyboard but that just doesn't look nice IMHO
CA688LL_97175_285x255.jpg

that's something you may consider doing. Depending how much space you have.

maybe its a personal preference but I really believe that when you spend a lot of time in front of your pc a comfortable chair and desk are as important as having a fast pc.
 
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OP
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21 Feb 2010
Posts
17
So time to finish this project

I got back into the UK on the 18th of Dec and have pretty much been working on this constantly. A few things have changed since i was away mainly that my parents have moved into my house with all their stuff and so space was extremely tight. So much so i had to move the bulk of stuff into my room to work on which was extremely awkward. As per usual there were hiccups along the way which i will explain. The project is not fully complete but complete enough for the moment and i will explain why and also give a full rundown of all the parts

First job was to cut in the acrylic sheets which would make the viewing panels


After that was done it was more painting and sanding. Regardless of how much primer i put on and different paints i just could not get a smooth finish on the wood which would then give me good vinyl coverage. At this point it was either A) go and get some thin MDF and cover with or just vinyl it. I chose the latter. from a distance the vinyl looks ok but up close it resembles every teenage boy going through puberty


Radiators fitted


cable running



Flow indicators fitted


acrylic sheet drilled and standoffs fitted for mobo (used an old atx board for the hole locations


Mobo with CPU block fitted


in goes the custom looping. I have never had so much trouble bending pipe. I used to bend stainless steel piping in my early years of work and i was a dab hand at it but this was just frustrating it wasn't fun anymore. took about 2 days for the end of my fingers to stop burning


Filling the loop and leak testing and also bleeding as much air as i could through the tops of the flow indicators


And walla. we are up and running


I still have some tidying up to do. Where i took at the sata leads for the ssds are the wrong way round so i have had to try twist to get them to line up correctly. i still need to add some UV lighting to react with the UV fluid which has given me a slight problem in frothing up one of my loops.

I have a hardware issue which is the forefront of my problem im still trying to solve. Currently waiting for gigabyte to get back to me on. It is probably something i have missed but i want to avoid having to RMA anything.

Because of the lack of space i have rushed this on quite a bit just to get it up and running before i leave to go away to work again for a few months. I messed up one of my orders for the audio jacks instead of ordering 3.5mm jacks i ordered RCA jacks which obviously are not compatible (yes i am an idiot)

Apologies for all the rubbish lying around in the pictures at times i had to sleep in the spare room because all my floor space was occupied but i am happy enough with how its turned out, at least for a first build. I am still a bit high on the desk side with my arms raised slightly but it does not seem to bother me that much and worst case i just raise my chair up then back down. But next build ill bear all this in mind. But i have time now too plan out any modifications i need to do when i drain the loop in the future for maintenance in 6 months-year time unless anything goes wrong

Full hardware list
PSU - Corsair Professional Series HX 1000W
Mobo - Gigabyte Z370 Gaming 7
CPU - Intel I7 8700k
GFX - Gigabyte Arorus extreme 1080ti
Memory - Corsair Vengance 4x8gb 3000mhz ( i have a problem where i can only use 2 sticks not sure why yet)
Radiators - 2x EK 360 triples
Reservoirs - 4x XSPC 270 with D5 pumps (only two pumps running)
CPU block - EK-Supremacy EVO
GPU block - Phanteks Glacier
Fittings - Primochill Ghost fittings and revolver couplings for extending
Tube - Primochill Petg
Flow indicators - 2xPrimochill vortex
Fluid - Mayhems Distilled XSPC Orange and Blue UV dyes
Fan controller - Aquero 6
Storage - 1x m2 250gb 4x 850 EVO 250gb
Cables - Alchemy blue and orange with extensions
Face panels - Custom made panels from Datapro.net

that covers the majority of hardware used
 
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