Is it a PC or is it interior design?

[andywww]

Hey hey, sweet looking desk setup!

I was thinking about the coffee table problem and had a couple ideas i thought might be plausible:

1. Sockets in the floor, covered when not in use by plugs of carpet.

If you're cutting into the wall I figure you have the skillz to learn how to do a little electrical work .

2. Camoflauge in the form of a more socially acceptable reason for a power cord- like making it appear to go to a table lamp but actually go into an internal power strip which also powers the lamp.

3. hidden laptop space! (you know, a place where you can hook uup a keyboard/unexternally powered speakers/etc., with a really big external battery - yeah this one iskinda dubious)

[chylld]

2. Camoflauge in the form of a more socially acceptable reason for a power cord- like making it appear to go to a table lamp but actually go into an internal power strip which also powers the lamp.

that's gold

but in all seriousness i think this is close to the best way to get power to a coffee table in the middle of the room. i think the key features are:

1) must not look like a random power cord
2) must not be easy to trip over (so should be either hard or stuck to the floor somehow)
3) must blend with the floor somewhat, whether the floor is hard tile or carpet
4a) must be easily removable for maintenance tasks such as vacuuming, or
4b) must be vacuumable, i.e. a vacuum should be able to pass over it without any drama

*back to thinking*

[justblair]

This is starting to sound like a Blue Peter script.

Today we're going to build a computer! All you need is a shoebox, some sticky-back plastic and 'gubbins'. Here's one I made earlier...

But first we are going to box up the tortoise yet again...

Have been thinking about doing a case somewhere between this and Rusty's "quiet In-Desk PC" for a while, needs to sit in the corner of my living room, hold CDs/Books and, above all, stop sounding like an airconditioning unit!

Well you can maximise space for books by ditching your cds on to the hard drive. In the bedroom, it means that I dont get that ever growing stack of cd's beside a stereo. But the plan for the living room is to box up all the cd's in the collection, run the machine on MCE and do the same for the DVD's as budget allows(perhaps onto a network HD) What is the style your aiming for?

I would imagine a corner unit would leave plenty of scope for a machine that could be as elaborate, or as simple as you liked. I tend to err for simple if your working in wood, depends on your skills I guess. I'm learning as I go along. I would suggest that if your going that route, that you go for a donor case. The biggest mistake though that I made in the planning, was tying myself down to the shape the case made. Having been a midi case, it place the PSU right next to the CPU, a source of noise. Worse, that 80mm intake fan was squeezed in partially ubstructed. I could have made an L shaped case and had each section of the machine far less cramped together.

I guess the lesson I learned on an embeded machine is to think more laterally in layout, in particular look at other corner units, and see what space gets wasted within the construction of one of these units. eg. I have shelves in the living room that only the front third gets used as they are so deep and all I store on them is media. There would be space for a false wall there. Good luck in what design you design to take. Look forward to seeing your progress.

JB
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[justblair]

2. Camoflauge in the form of a more socially acceptable reason for a power cord- like making it appear to go to a table lamp but actually go into an internal power strip which also powers the lamp.

I love that idea Andy, its not something I had thought of perhaps I could rig up a webcam to feed back on my monitor... Fool the observer to thinking it was a mirror on the dressing table?



Chylld... Keep thinking mate!! You might want to consider some extra cooling for your brain as you mull it over... I suggest a highly active refrigerated beer system.

[chylld]

hehe well refridgerated beer cooling solutions tend to cause data loss and all sorts of interface problems so i'll have to stick with water for the time being

another idea that crossed my mind briefly was to incorporate the power cord into a 6" wide piece of clear plastic with LEDs along its length, and have them light up like a runway or something. i think my thought process was along the lines of "if people can see it, make people look at it."

no i didn't think so either.

[Mar.]

hehe well refridgerated beer cooling solutions tend to cause data loss and all sorts of interface problems so i'll have to stick with water for the time being

lol.... Geek joke of the day.

[pangit]

Pesky PSU doesn't have a through port for the monitor power cable, so i'm an available plug down from when i started.

I think Maplins sell a power strip that automatically powers up the other sockets when the PC is plugged into the main one. That way you can have all your other peripherals such as monitor, speakers, printer etc completely powered down (not just on standby) when your PC is off.

I actually built one myself from a kit you can buy here in Australia from Jaycar (the equivalent to Maplins). Takes 5V from a USB port and uses it to switch a relay that powers on all the sockets.

[ijgs]

justblair wrote:

Well you can maximise space for books by ditching your cds on to the hard drive

A good idea - even though I'm kind of weird when it comes to CDs; I like to have SOMETHING to play with!!! But, if I get a (much) bigger HDD I'll give it serious consideration... however there is also the fiancee factor to reckon on ("I can't find my CDs!!!!")

justblair wrote:

run the machine on MCE

hmm, not an option as I'm a struggling musician, and this is my only machine (ie, not enough money to buy a whole nother one/new software/massive amounts of new hardware!) so I'll be cannibalising parts where possible, and besides, I'm not sure how cubase SX or Reason 2.5 will like running on anything less than XP Pro (Which I've got!!)

justblair wrote:

I would imagine a corner unit would leave plenty of scope for a machine that could be as elaborate, or as simple as you liked. I tend to err for simple if your working in wood, depends on your skills I guess. I'm learning as I go along. I would suggest that if your going that route, that you go for a donor case. The biggest mistake though that I made in the planning, was tying myself down to the shape the case made.

I was thinking of beating my nice Ikea corner desk into submission! will probably work on the KISS principle (even though my woodworking skills are ok - I'm also building myself a new bass guitar from scratch!). I figure having everything laid out for ease of cooling (whether air or water... still undecided there - reckon I've got space to mount a nice big radiator to the side of the desk and have it be unobtrusive) is going to be the guiding light... however that works out!

Once I get round to it (and I'm sure I will, this thing is driving me nutty! ) I'll see if I can't post some pics! Keep up the good work!

chylld wrote:

but in all seriousness i think this is close to the best way to get power to a coffee table in the middle of the room. i think the key features are:

1) must not look like a random power cord
2) must not be easy to trip over (so should be either hard or stuck to the floor somehow)
3) must blend with the floor somewhat, whether the floor is hard tile or carpet
4a) must be easily removable for maintenance tasks such as vacuuming, or
4b) must be vacuumable, i.e. a vacuum should be able to pass over it without any drama

Just a thought, but couldn't you rig a lead that looked like it was part of the overhead lighting, that dropped down to the table...? Would satisfy or bypass all of the points listed above (well, except maybe point one, but if you had it on a retractable reel - kindof like those kitchen lamps on bungee cords that were all the rage about 10 years ago!)

[chylld]

Just a thought, but couldn't you rig a lead that looked like it was part of the overhead lighting, that dropped down to the table...? Would satisfy or bypass all of the points listed above (well, except maybe point one, but if you had it on a retractable reel - kindof like those kitchen lamps on bungee cords that were all the rage about 10 years ago!)

hmm nah i don't like the thought of working at the coffeetablecomputer(tm) and then looking up to the tv to hear breaking news and having to peer around a dangling power cord it's quite unsightly imo, i think it would be safe to assume that i'm only considering ground-based solutions

[justblair]

justblair wrote:
Quote:
run the machine on MCE


hmm, not an option as I'm a struggling musician, and this is my only machine (ie, not enough money to buy a whole nother one/new software/massive amounts of new hardware!) so I'll be cannibalising parts where possible, and besides, I'm not sure how cubase SX or Reason 2.5 will like running on anything less than XP Pro (Which I've got!!)

MCE is based on XP pro, so I doubt that is an issue, I've got MCE running on a 1400 athlon, 120gb hd, 512Mb ram. Its mostly fine, occaisionally gets a little bogged down on displaying media files in libraries.

If your budget is limited, go for fans, not water. It's pretty pricey, you can build a fan based system, thats near silent, for far less money. That leaves you more in the budget for other cool stuff. Or better still, have a look at passive. This is where my next experimenting begins!! I'm planning to go as passive as is practical.


JB

[ronrem]

Chyllid.

I had also wondered about doing the coffee table. What put me off, was getting power to it without trailing cables. Any ideas on that one?

that one has absolutely baffled me as well. i want to be able to move my coffee table from room to room (as well as make it for other people) and the variety of different floors that the power cable must run across makes it seemingly impossible to come up with a decent solution



i'm not giving up on this one though, especially since i want to incorporate an audio-out in my coffee table that runs to my lounge room's 6.1 sound system. so not only do i have to get power to my coffee table, i need to get audio out of it...
I'd thought a bit some time ago on a coffee table with an A/V puter-and a backlit chessboard. It would be,as is typical,a few feet in front of the sofa-so wire and cables----?

If I owned the place,drilling through-so wiring travels below the main floor,along the basement ceiling-like our ethernet would do. The ethernet holes are all right at baseboards-and we have a 3 yr old carpet-so-plan b would be an "accent rug"-with a 1/2" pad. . Cut a strip out of the pad-about 2-2 1/2" wide for your wiring run. That is going to let the wiring have a stealthy channel from under the sofa-across the short floor area,to the base of the table. Get a length of clear plastic hose to act as a soft conduit ,fitting in the channel. Slit the hose neatly with an exacto it's length so you can insert cables-wires (wires can be bundled but don't bunch them too thick. a bit of duct tape and or glue can then fix the hose/conduit to your carpet pad-and you use glue to then attach the pad to the rug or carpet. It's hard to describe it perfectly-and until I actually do it I can't do pics,so it's just a concept to work from-good luck.

[justblair]

he ethernet holes are all right at baseboards-and we have a 3 yr old carpet-so-plan b would be an "accent rug"-with a 1/2" pad. . Cut a strip out of the pad-about 2-2 1/2" wide for your wiring run

That I must say, is the most practical and attractive solution so far... And the simplest, I would go for that one chylld.

Only refinement I would make to that one is to use the (presumably) four table legs to run different cables. This way you could keep the pad underneath as slight as possible, reducing the trip hazard. Another benefit is that you keep the signal and power cables seperate. Smiles all round

Thanks for that one ronrem.

JB

ps. however, project "Beast" is now firmly underway, and I'm going to finish that one off. MCE puter, wireless KB and mouse, big telly, and a wee twist (TBC)

[chylld]

yeah sounds like a nice idea, it'd work well in my home but i don't think it'd work well for other people who might not like rugs... also rugs cost quite a bit i don't like the idea of making people feel they have to get this just so that can work - if i make a coffee table computer for someone i want them to be able to just use the coffee table computer as a coffee table computer.

that however is an ideal and we have to compromise on things, and the rug idea i'd have to say is one of the better solutions

my table... legs... no it doesn't have any legs but i will run the power cables as far from the signal cables as possible. one thing i haven't yet considered fully is where the power cord should run from. the audio cable will run from the front of the unit (i.e. towards the tv/hi-fi equipment stuff) but the power cord could ideally be at any side depending on where the closest power point is, and also where the least traffic is (to prevent tripping).

over the past couple of days though i've managed to refine the design enough to start thinking about construction, i hope to start building stuff soon because i'm getting sick of staring at 3d models

re the "Beast" project - can't wait to see what you've got in store! i wonder if it'll compare to my coffee table's twist

[justblair]

Thought it would suit you Chylld,,,

On the rug front.... You can get a really cheap rug made for you. A lot of carpet suppliers can have a carpet binded (wrong word) for you at a reasonable price. This is where they sew the edges to stop them fraying. If you have seen a carpet sample book at a shop, they all tend to have this binding. This means that any end of roll offcut can be used. Shops round these parts often do this and sell the cuts as "hall runners" basically a sacrificial bit of carpet to take the wear/dirt. £10-£20 is what they charge.

If you have some 3d models, hows about a post? Let me have a peruse.... No legs.... hmmm want to see what ou mean.

I have to say that on the one you see above, the planning was done on the back of a ciggie packet.. well almost!! Quick sketches on paper were all I used to get proportions right. A lot of the construction was done on the fly, fixing problems as they came up.

JB

[chylld]

yeh i'll definitely be paying more attention to rug shops when i walk by them from now on especially since most of them seem to be holding sales and/or going out of business...

a similar idea that would be cheaper is to just have a strip of rug for the cable, about 4-6 inches wide. it'd look nice enough for people to not deliberately step on it and not mind it being there.

unfortunately i'm very protective of my 3d models, especially this one since i've been working on some rather tricky geometry (there are moving parts) that took ages to derive using all the maths i know hehe. but by no legs i don't mean anything tricky - it's just got a big fat 'stump' in the middle to house all the components.

i truly admire your ability to alter part dimensions on the fly - for some reason i am absolutely pathetic at that and things seem to fall apart when i try (sometimes literally as well). i resort to designing things in 3d and getting exact measurements for every piece and then having everything line up perfectly. but then again, it's probably because i've been working on my current project for a number of months now and it actually requires millimetre precision. but i do intend to make a drawer for my computer table and i'll be doing that as much on-the-fly as possible

[compmouse]

This wouldn't totaly get rid of the cable, but it would make it smaller and easier to hide.
Power-Over-Ethernet
http://www.hyperlinktech.com/web/what_is_poe.php
This way you wouldn't have to deal with the slow speeds of wireless also.

Just a thought.

Oh and if you are interested, I did a little moding of my own, not on a desk, but on a brown leather box.

http://thecomputermouse.net

Phyllis

[chylld]

This wouldn't totaly get rid of the cable, but it would make it smaller and easier to hide.
Power-Over-Ethernet
http://www.hyperlinktech.com/web/what_is_poe.php
This way you wouldn't have to deal with the slow speeds of wireless also.

hadn't thought of that before... probably because my power cable will need to support 5A @240VAC

[justblair]

hadn't thought of that before... probably because my power cable will need to support 5A @240VAC Smile

I dont think that would be necessary chylld, I think what compmouse is suggesting is to do away with the power supply altogether,

Two basic types of Pickers and Taps are available: Passive and Regulated.

A Passive Tap simply takes the voltage from the CAT5 cable and directs it to the equipment for direct connection. Therefore if 48 VDC is injected by the Injector then 48 VDC will be produced at the output of the Passive Tap.

A Regulated Tap takes the voltage on the CAT5 cable and converts it to another voltage. Several standard regulated voltages are available: 12VDC, 6 VDC, 5 VDC. This allows a wide variety of non-PoE equipment to be powered through the CAT5 cable.

The site said. Now if I'm understanding this right, compmouse is suggesting wiring this direct. If I've picked this up wrong, please correct me.

Compmouse, My question would be this, what kind of wattage could this system sustain? I looked at the product list, all the injector power supplies seemed to rate less than 40w. Now I see on your sight you have made custom stuff on ATX mini. Are those systems light enough to cope?

I suppose laptop processors are less hungry too, and you could go for a network boot on an operating system, but I cant see that you could do it on a more powerfull machine.

Like your machine in a leather box. That wouldn't look out of place on a dresser... Very stealthy and nicely finished.

jb

[chylld]

hmmm poe would be really nice for small devices or maybe even really light-duty computers, but my coffee table will be drawing 1200W. the PoE standard (which i know not all companies comply with) seems to have a maximum wattage rating of 13W.

but yes i forgot to comment, that leather pc is really nice, as long as you don't accidentally pick it up in a hurry on the way to work

[qviri]

my coffee table will be drawing 1200W.

There's a new Prescott out?

[chylld]

my coffee table will be drawing 1200W.

There's a new Prescott out?

ROFL

no it's not a prescott, it's just that i'm building a number of other peripherals into the coffee table as well so the max peak power draw (e.g. during startup) will be somewhere around that mark. sustained power will only be around half that.

[ronrem]

Ok,

Chris... The temp is sitting ata steady 38c. Before I decoupled, it was 32c. Yes I think this is a little on the hot side, I plan to keep it decoupled, but add a heat sink soon.. My jigsaw gave up so i cant cut the metal at the moment.

Hyperq you wrote

"However, while not trying to pour cold water over your enthusiasm, I couldn't help wondering why not just get a Thinkpad? The newest Thinkpad X or T series are small, light, and very capable. The best part of getting a laptop is, you can take it anywhere you go. For today's mobile knowledge workers, building a PC into furnitures isn't very practical. What if you move?"

Simple answer... My Parts bin is full, my wallet sadly is not! lol

As for building into furniture.. You have a point about the moving bit.. This design is integrated to my room, and would be junked or left to a new owner if I went.

1) I dont plan in moving for a while, I love my flat here.

2) If that had not been the case, a standalone desk would have been the answer.

3) See chyllids answer.. Cause we can

Chyllid.

I had also wondered about doing the coffee table. What put me off, was getting power to it without trailing cables. Any ideas on that one?

In my cse I guess I could drill and run wire under the floor,but it's fairly new carpet. instead I'd get some thick shag carpet to bridge the space between coffee table and sofa. Cheap fix if you know yard sales like I do

A variation would be to do a platform a couple inches high,using 1x4 on their side and 5/8" particle board. It would be big enough that the sofa and coffee table sat on it. it could be carpeted,or tiled. You'd devise a bevel effect on the sides so nobody trips.

A rather different twist,a pole lamp attached to one end of the coffee table and going up to the ceiling, There it meets a channel that houses wiring.
Probably not what you'd do in a rental,but could be tasteful

[chylld]

ronrem: excellent ideas it's been a while since i last visited this thread, but it's good to see that people are still thinking of that cable-hiding problem.

the very first idea i had was similar to / the same as your thick shag carpet one. i think it's a very simple way of hiding the cable and provided the edge of the carpet isn't too hard, it'd be very hard to trip over it. if the carpet is nice enough people might actually want to walk on it

the platform idea sounds particularly interesting though - do you mean to construct a simple platform that runs from one edge of the coffee table, all the way under it and to the wall on the other side? or i guess you wouldn't need to run it all the way to the wall, just to the end of the walkable floor space e.g. to the nearest couch.

the pole lamp idea is the first i've heard of that type. installation would be a bit tricky though, i ran edging around the top of my lounge room for my home theatre system, it wasn't exactly the quickest/easiest job, and quick+easy is what i'm after.

when i was in training for my current job, the training centre 'concealed' the cables using plastic strips that were like long, very flat mountains. they were impossible to trip over and they held the cables very well, but they were quite the eyesore... however i think the ideal solution for a lounge room lies somewhere between that and the shag carpet idea.

[Copper]

Hi, justblair.

I love it! I have a simular setup, but with nowhere near the elegance of your's. View of Desk I've come to enjoy not having a tower, or any other kind of case. You can see the mechanics of the setup by clicking my sig. Once again, really nice job.

[justblair]

Thanks for the kind comments Copper.

I have seen your desk before somewhere I think. I like the idea of having the electronics in free air, must offer very good passive cooling, If it were me doing that I would make a cage from Alu U channels (I love them for fabbing stuff, when I get my next project finished you will see how usefull they can be) and a nice wide open mesh to protect it from accidental bumps and small animals.

My next project has a lot of mesh and works passively, though its not an integrated one this time, its a heavily modded ATX case.

Project after that is a DIY projector which will be integrated into some type of furniture.

[chylld]

Project after that is a DIY projector which will be integrated into some type of furniture.

that was the project i just finished and have prolly been referring to in this thread coffee table projector.

i hope it goes well for you, it went surprisingly well for me... i spent around $1000 on it (lots of r&d into mechanisms and electronics) and now i have a usable 2m diagonal projection in my small study it's a humongously rewarding project i'm sure anyone would have fun tackling.

[justblair]

Chylld, that is outstanding!! Great minds and all that.

How DIY was your projector, did you use a comercial unit and adapt the furniture, or was it DIY all the way?

I'm looking at building one from the parts from a 650w overhead projector, a 15' lcd panel and probably a couple more fresnell lenses. Been researching what I need. Just trying to visualise now what design I will be making.

Do you have photo's that you can post? Might give me some inspiration. I have developed my knowledge as much as I can from the enthuisiasts forums, but I have now got too many ideas floating around. Your project is closer to what I am aiming for, your end result may help me out. Would be usefull as well if your prepared to admit any mistakes you made? Might save me from making them too...

Now I understand why you were taking about such large power draws earlier in this thread.

Please give me the gory details!!!

[chylld]

good to see a relatively old thread come back to life again

my projector was very DIY. i used (in order from light to wall) a 400w MH lamp w/ matching ballast, a glass-sandwiched 220mm fresnel+uv filter, the lcd panel from a benq fp567sv2 15" lcd monitor, a glass-sandwiched 330mm fresnel, a $5 mirror and an 80mm triplet projection lens. the 'furniture' was built around the projector workings, rather than the other way around

my end result is quite large however, because i designed my own height-adjustment-with-automatic-optical-keystone-correction system, the coffee table measures 450(H) x 500(W) x 800(D)mm. that's huge. i am planning a smaller one, but one of the biggest (no pun intended) lessons that i learnt is that it's very easy to get 'over-elegant', which is a nice way of saying i tried too hard and i would have been 10x better off doing something simpler.

apart from the fancy height adjustment mechanism, i also built an aluminium 'cage' around the lamp to guard against a lamp rupture, and took care of the airflow using 2 sorbothane-isolated arctic cooling AF3 fans spinning at about 9V. of course my projector had to be silent (and it was, which is something you can't say of an off-the-shelf product.) i used an IR thermometer to make sure nothing was too hot and everything was fine.

another good lesson that i learnt is that a 400w MH lamp puts out a lot of heat - not quite enough to be uncomfortable, but it's definitely noticeable. for my next design i plan on using a (literally) smaller 250w MH lamp that will allow me to use a reflector behind it - apparently that yields higher output than a bare 400w lamp.

i'll see if i can find some suitable pics

[justblair]

Thats exactly the sort of DIY build I was thinking about. Though I am going to use as much of the 650w OHP that I have aquired. Still looking for a donor panel. The benq is well reckoned, though I am looking also at DELL panels as aparently some are benqs rebadged. Money is a bit tight at the moment, so seaching flea bay for one. Want to get it under 60gbp if I can.

Got a new toy today for the pc in this thread. A 19' widescreen lcd to replace the 15' that I broke. Can you make a wild guess how I managed to break it???

You need to give me links to photos... I am bursting to see your build. How quiet did you get it. I was planning to use a 12v playstation supply to run 12cm Loonies to provide the cooling. Was thinking I could do it with 2 or 3.

The fan on the OHP is very loud, not something I am prepared to put up with for long.

[IsaacKuo]

I've been working on DIY projection off-and-on for a while, but my dreams are stymied by the lack of a projection lens. Any tips on where to get one's hands on an economical triplet or even an old OHP lens?

At Hobby Lobby, I ran across a really cheap $20 mini-projector. Surprisingly, the projected image is pretty decent. Unfortunately, it only accepts a "source" about the size of a 3x5 inch index card. None of my displays are nearly small enough to fit.

I also got my hands on some cheap $1 magnifying lenses at Dollar Tree. I don't need to tell you how pathetic they are. I couldn't pass up trying them out, though, and amazingly the focal length is just about perfect. I might still get some usable results out of one of them if the central portion is good enough...

(I'm in the USA.)