I got a new desk. Help me put a computer in it.

Your-Amish-Daddy

Ok, I'm tired of my xclio case, it's not doing it's job. I had to install FRIGGIN' heatsinks on my hard drives. Lucky for me, I had the spare aluminum.

I bought a new desk recently. I really like it since it's got it's own liquor cabinet. Anything that's got it's own liquor cabinet is fine by me. It's got this huge open space, and I'd love to build a computer in there. Problem is; I'm a retard. I can get the idea of what I want, but I lack the dexterity to create it. Sorry about the bright spots in the picture. My camera sucks.

Depth 23 inches

Width 14.05 inches

Height 11 inches

View

So, I want your ideas on how to get this done. This is what I'm lookin' for. Anything blue is a fan, arrows depicting wind direction. The back of the drawer is some kind of stiff paper, so I can cut fan holes and install fans there. I'm looking for about 8 fans total, since I want dominated airflow to keep up to 12 disks alive. Here's what I'm figuring.

That design kinda reflects what I want. The bit that halves the image is a support rail for a PSU, or whatever else I need to stick up there. Optical device is USB, since that's what my current dvd burner is on now.

BuddyJ

Got an budget for this?

Your-Amish-Daddy

I'd like to spend less than the national gross of Zimbabwe if it's at all possible. Seriously though, less than 200 for structural. Fans and stuff I can pick up so cheap that it'll make you sick so that's not a problem.

BuddyJ

Okay. I'd go buy a set of drawer sliders and a sheet of 1/2" mdf to use as the motherboard tray. I'd cut the tray a bit short so the front edge is recessed a bit back into the compartment so later on you can attach a flat piece of material there to make the front of the drawer where I'll assume you wanna put your fans. Once you have the base made, then I'd fit the mobo and start marking off where the PSU support rail and hard drive cage will mount.

You might consider re-using a removable motherboard tray if you've got a spare. Same goes for a hard drive cage or two. Using existing pieces will be much easier than trying to fabricate your own. Hell, buy a cheap case to sacrifice to the project. A chopped up $50 beige box would take care of most your needs.

Your-Amish-Daddy

I've got free access to a CNC machine still, so I was thinking of making the bay custom. Buy some after-market drive rails or sommik to make the drive swapping easy. What do you think of that?

_k

Since you are putting this into a long space you could try doing a cut out in the rear for a few 120s. You could use a bunch of AC fans for this actually and have them all run to a power strip. But my best suggestion is do something like the wind tunnel on the silverstone TJ06. Basically my idea is to make tunnel that is open right behind the HDD cage with a fan in front and CNC a crazy tube or a basic one out of Acrylic that runs all the way back to you cpu HSF and right out the back. I have always gotten really good fee back from that design on that case for its ability to really move air.

Then if you wanted to you could make some sleeves/gaurds that sat around the rest of the board out Acrylic too and would work in the same way to funnel in air and move it straight out, just make sure to use some high torque fans or the air will stagnate. I would stick with what Buddy suggested and use a rail system to layer this stuff, you could just acrylic on this whole then with the shelves and just use metal rails with u-clamps to hold them onto sliding cross beams.

Your-Amish-Daddy

That's going to defeat one of the two purposes for this. I'm putting it on a drawer for easy access. So I can gain easy access to the drives, memory, video card, and all that jazz so I can upgrade it easily, or add/test parts as I need to without having to beat the hell out of a dozen things to get the parts out. The whole idea of having 8 120mm fans is to shoot all the air out of the back of the desk. I may even put in a total of twelve on a separate power supply (One of those external hard drive things made by Byte-tech or whatever since I've got another one spare. ) And call it squared away. The back side of the desk is that paper-board crap you see on entertainment centres that lets you cut it real easy. My razorknife goes through it like it were smoke so it's easy to make my holes.

While your idea is good; and I may do it for something else, the second reason is; I plan to turn the case shelf (Where the bastard case is now) into a removable, ultra-high flow water system. I want this desk to handle a COMPUTER, not some recreational crap. I got plans for this desk...Only God can stop me from making them come true, but he's sitting this one out.

Enough dramatics, I'm done being weird. But what I might do...Is put the hard drives ABOVE the board, like hang them from the rail the PSU will rest on. Since heat rises, why not put the hot crap together and knock it out like that? Also, I'd like to put my PS3 above it with some fan designing. Know any good HD tuners that support Analog HD?

Your-Amish-Daddy

Ok guys, I finally got all the tools together I'm gonna need, and I even went and got a tap and die. What I plan to do is go to Lowe's and pick up a drawer roller kit and that, and some sheet steel. I need to create a vibration-reduction system for this because I plan to use quite a bit of fans and all of this is going to be mounted to one piece of metal. I'd use wood, but wood's an insulator. I'm also thinking of making a heat pad for the back of the CPU, like they have on some DFI boards.

Any input?

BuddyJ

Use wood. It'll be much easier to work with. Who cares if it's an insulator when you're building into a big wooden desk?

MAGIC