Building an invisible PC

coming up in this video we'll be working with sliding rails pneumatics and springs as well as soldering up a giant heat spreader for an experimental cooling system all on top of dismantling an OLED Monitor and the goal building what appears to be a normal wooden desk however you are watching DIY perks so this desk is far from ordinary it is in fact the endgame invisible PC let's go now some parts of this build are going to be super complicated but thankfully one thing that I won't have to design myself are the legs as this video is being sponsored by flexispot advertising their E7 Pro standing desk system which I'm going to be integrating completely into the build now if you've not heard of flexi spot before they make really solid adjustable height desks that can change the way you interact with your computer now thanks to the way the legs have been designed they can actually be mounted onto custom desktops which I'm going to take full advantage of by making a massive custom desktop so we have enough room for the various mechanisms that'll make the invisibility concept work and just like my last desk PC build I'm going to be using for its main structure two sheets of 3 mm thick aluminium now as you can see it is somewhat bendy but that's easy to fix with some extruded aluminum lengths by screwing the aluminium sheets directly to these they become a lamination which brings some significant advantages while remaining Hollow you see these sheets were super floppy but just look how rigid they are now that they're bolted together and this is going to make a fantastic desktop um so with all that done we're now actually ready to start working on the potentially quite complex mechanism to make the hidden monitor system despite how complicated things are going to get it start start out being quite easy as cutting a hole for the monitor to fold down into only takes a few minutes using a jigsaw as aluminium is quite a soft metal choosing a hinge for this is where things start getting a bit more involved though you see simple hinges like but hinges would leave a visible Edge going against the concept of the build but what about concealed cabinet hinges these are definitely more like it but unfortunately they don't rotate around a stationary Point as this point literally moves as they open making them difficult to figure out how to design around for a non-standard use case like this ultimately after a lot of experimentation I've settled on some rather unusual invisible hinges which thankfully have a purely rotational hinge movement making them far easier to design around and with them mounted in place the hatch can open and close without the hinges being visible in the closed position perfect with this now sorted the complexity is about to Skyrocket though as we need to use this rotational movement to affect the height of a platform in front of the hatch basically turning rotational movement into linear movement before we can get going with this though we need to make the platform itself which can just be cut from the lower aluminium sheet making it look a bit nicer with some vinyl wrap as this platform needs to have various components mounted to it I'm going to utilize some vslot profiling to give them adjustability as they can be used with captive t-notes anywhere along their length this allows pretty much anything to be added or taken away or adjusted as required which is going to be very important for the mechanisms we're about to build the first of these mechanisms is going to be limiting the platform to purely up and down movement and is going to be based upon some linear sliding rails these work thanks to having tiny bearings inside a guide carriage for smooth operation and thanks to the vslot profiles they're very easy to mount in place with one in each Corner once they're mounted to their accompanying rails they allow the platform to slide up and down as required but how are we going to control its height purely from the rotational movement of the monitor hatch well the key relies on the addition of another set of linear rails to the top of the platform linked together with some aluminum strips that these can slide back and forth is vital as the intention is to use them with some heavyduty L brackets these are custom made to be of the required dimensions and have bearings installed to provide an easily rotatable point where they're attached to the additional sliders now while everything is upside down in the shots you should still be able to understand what's going on here with the other side of the brackets screwed to the monitor hatch the monitor Hatcher rotational movement causes the other end of the L brackets to be forced further away and because they're linked to the platform through the sliding sections the platform is completely free to follow along cool as you can see though it only affects the rear side of the platform but as the sliding section runs all the way to the front we can actually use some extra identically proportioned brackets to exploit geometry and turn it into a parallelogram forcing it to remain flat no matter what with it flipped the right way up it's now the moment of truth will it work hey look at that much to my joy this works a great with the opening of The Hatch resulting in the platform rising up to become flush with the rest of the desk the most important Milestone of this build as you can see though it does have a tendency to slam closed but this is easily fixed with some pneumatic struts these strongly resist being opened out but are happy to close with very little opposition so by attaching them to the vslot profiles they'll restrict the movement of the sliding section and force the hatch to close softly I'm also integrating some tension Springs to help them along as they'll counter the effect of gravity on the platform and the hatch and bias them towards their opened positions this balances the system beautifully providing not only a nice soft close action but making it much lighter to operate as well to finish things off the use of some magnets allows it to confidently lock into its open position when it gets there which makes the platform feel surprisingly solid there's plenty of space for a keyboard and mouse here and the mechanism moves them out of the way completely to make room for the screen speaking of which seeing it's such an important feature it makes sense to go with one that's rather special you see computer monitors have gone through some major advances in the past few years to the point where we can forget about old style LCD panels like this entirely and use a vastly superior OLED one instead now as you can see this is an ultra wide which is a fantastic format for both gaming and productivity but what makes it particularly special is that it can be made Flat an essential feature for the desk as it makes the monitor's profile super thin it's Electronics pose a challenge though as they are on the back so need to be detached to be hidden elsewhere I'll be honest dismantling such an expensive monitor is a bit scary but there's not too much that can go wrong so long as I'm super careful this one is more complicated than most due to its adjustable curvature arm but once everything is finally stripped down I'm left with the raw OLED panel it's incredibly thin and also thankfully incredibly light but it does have some proud mounting cylinders that will prevent me from attaching it directly to the front of the monitor hatch as they are simply in the way my only real option is to drill holes in the monitor hatch for them to hopefully disappear into as this is also a bit floppy though I've made two identical copies to make it two layers thick with some vinyl wrap around its perimeter to finish off its visible Edge once it's reattached a front plate can also be installed directly onto it this again helps with rigidity but it also provides a lip for the OLED panel to rest upon now so much of the build actually relies on this installation going smoothly and if it goes wrong it's going to be extremely costly because this panel and the screen was like 2K so yeah there's a lot resting on this actually uh working well so I'm just going to lift it up and it's going to stand on that lip and these holes at the back should allow the little Noggins to go through and as each of these Noggins has an internal thread I can use them in conjunction with some washers to pull them tightly in place there's just enough room on the bottom here to connect one of the two control boards as well with the other tucked inside the desk behind the hinges with the screen now installed the concept really is starting to come together and it's looking pretty awesome but as this is just so unique I think it deserves high power PC components for inside it the ones I have for this are some of the highest end parts available right now an Intel 13900 K on an ITX motherboard and a Zotac 490 graphics card to get the most out of them I am of course using water blocks so that the heat that they generate can be pulled away from them as quickly as possible and of course the other benefit of using water cooling is that it keeps their profile quite low so that they can fit within the desk using some PCB pillars to make them nice and secure as there's not quite enough room for a normal power supply though I'm using a set of gallium nitride Alternatives these can deliver 500 watts each one of which is dedicated for the motherboard and CPU and the other for the graphics card as for storage I'm adding a flash store Nas that I'm populating with 12 4 tbte flash dries for a rather gargantuan 48 terab of space accessed directly through a 10 GB m.2 network card we are after all going for the end game here with everything wired up and the water blocks connected together in series we need to think seriously about how we're going to deal with all of the heat that these components generate as they total over 800 WTS and standard PC radiators aren't really an option because they're just so thick while smaller radiators are definitely available I have an idea that I really want to try which is to use these old server heat sinks as you can see they've got a really fine fin structure which makes them extremely effective at transferring heat into the surrounding air and they're the perfect size to match these laptop fans if you recognize these These are actually from my previous project where we made a portable PS5 and if you remember from that video These fans are bidirectional which means that they can actually cool two heat sinks at once and in this configuration they can actually get rid of 40 watts of heat silently now obviously that's a long way shy of the required 800 we need to get rid of here and that's why I've bought 40 of them this is Possible only because they are just so cheap as they are after all from decommissioned servers and are available online for pretty much nothing in order to combine them together into one giant heat sink though I've bought some brass box sections to make a massive heat spreader for them to attach to as you can see these are completely Hollow which is important as the idea is to have the water that cools the components flow through them to transfer all of the heat into the brass to do this effectively they each need some holes drilled through them so that the water can flow from one to the other being brass they can of course be soldered together really easily making each join watertight in order to provide some water entry points I'm simply using some Barbed elbow joints again using plenty of solder to ensure that there won't be any leaks the intention with this is for water to enter one port and go up and down its entire length a few times before exiting through the other Port as the surface area of this new brass construction is so large it basically becomes a massive heat spreader which allows all of the heat sinks to work in tandem to remove all of the heat from the water now it does end up being super heavy but thankfully I don't have to worry about this as the flexi spot desk is happy with a load up to 160 kg so me and my dad should weigh about 160 kg together uh and the desk can handle it no problem it goes so high you could actually paint a ceiling really easily with it way and this is a lot of weight this is two people like it's it's a lot so I don't think it's going to have any problems holding those heat sinks having so many heat sinks though does mean we need quite a few fans to keep them all cool with the idea being that they should each work at a slow speed to operate quietly in order to take advantage of their bir directional air output I've 3D printed some air ducts that can take the rear output and push it back towards the top heat sink so they both get cooled at the same time now wiring up so many fans has the potential to be quite a tedious job but my favorite method to speed things up is to use strips of copper tape to make some voltage rails with the third strip carrying a Fane speed control signal known as a pwm signal after hooking up the custom brass heat spreader to the main water cooling Loop the whole thing is ready to be filled with coolant as there hasn't really been room for a proper Reservoir inside the PC though I'm using an external pump to force the water into the system as it allows me to get rid of any air pockets by temporarily looping the coolant through the external plastic container before we can test it out though it does need closing up with the bottom panel since you last saw this it's had a variety of holes and cutouts made in it most of which are for airflow purposes and to allow for easily removable covers for access to the internal components so although this is on the bottom and won't really be seen having it finished in this vinyl wrap makes it look really rather smart and honestly I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out but before we flip it over and start working on the top section which is of course still raw aluminium I'm getting fed up of it just being perched on top of my workbench so I think it's high time that it has its own legs and this is where we're going to be installing and integrating flexi spot standing desk system now this is the E7 Pro and I've made some slots for the legs to be fitted into like so now if you weren't integrating these into such a custom project they'd normally be installed onto their robust steel frame which is how flexispot have managed to maximize rigidity on all of their desks this steel frame also houses the control box with a smart magnetic cover keeping it all neat for me though I've housed this control box inside the spare chamber opposite the PC components where all the cables for it can be plugged in so with the feet added the next job is to get this upright and uh I think it's a bit heavy for me to do on my own so I'm going to employ some help oh nice that's good look how solid that is hey look at that how cool is this now let's try out the uh flexi spot legs oh yeah all that's smooth check that out so I've just adjusted it up and it should be about the right height to use as a sit down desk which it is but what if I want to stand and do some work standing up which I personally actually prefer a lot well with the push for button I can actually raise this up and uh it becomes a standing desk look at that and if you're particularly tall uh it can go really High it just keeps going and going and going and we're done so it goes comes to a nice stop now um as you can see the raw aluminium doesn't really suit being a desk surface so we need a way of covering it with a much more suitable material I've encountered this problem before of course as the original invisible PC was also constructed out of aluminum which I gave a wood appearance by gluing thin wood V on top to disguise it this hasn't really stood up to the test of time though as some parts of it have started to peel away so this time round I've ordered some massive Oak planks don't worry I'm not about to stick these on top and call it a day I took them to a joiner to have them divided up into many smaller and thinner lengths compared to veneer these are still much thicker though and are actually structurally sound and will make a much more robust covering for the desk I'm using some ct1 glue here to stick them down to the aluminium being extremely careful to make sure that they fit nicely around the monitor hatch and the keyboard platform another advantage of using thicker wood compared to veneer is that it's possible to Route out some patches of it underneath to make room for any elements on the desk that are proud of the main aluminium surface like the back of the monitor's wiring and some of its threaded Noggins if you're wondering what the white patches are that's actually wood filler which goes into any gaps or knots to make them smooth once it's sanded down so with all of the wood added it really hides the aluminum well but what about the front and sides due to all of the mechanisms that have been jammed inside the desk it's not actually super thin but to make it appear much thinner and more elegant we can employ another illusion tapered edges as you can see these have an angle to their unders side which means that once they're glued to the Outer Perimeter they give the desk a much thinner appearance with only the thinner forward Edge being visible very cool the MIT joints in particular are a really nice touch and I've got my dad to thank for these as he made these extra sections and that's why they're so precise as he's a much better woodworker than I am after giving it a thorough sanding down it looks absolutely fantastic and the final job is to give it several thin coats of oil to bring out the richness of the wood when putting oil on Oak it can end up with a pretty bold honey colored finish which I'm personally not a fan of So to avoid this I'm using a combination of two types of oil to give it a lighter appearance the difference with this technique makes it look almost like a different type of wood and is definitely more to my tastes being oiled gives the surface a cohesive finish with the hatch barely being visible now except the back edge of course as the hinge point is below the surface of the wood a Groove has had to be made to prevent the wood from intersecting and jamming as it opens to make it completely invisible I've made a little spring loaded insert that can fill the Gap with the idea being for it to move out of the way as the hatch opens and pull itself back in when closed and it's surprisingly effective and with that the end game invisible PC is complete just looking at it you wouldn't assume that there's an entire PC setup here the thought that there's a monitor keyboard mouse and a fully water cooled selection of ultra high-end components right here in front of you is kind of wild even if you did know it was here though how on Earth is it supposed to be opened well this secret lies with what appears to be a silver paper weight it might appear rather ordinary but it's actually a super strong magnet of course it's not attracted to the aluminium at all so even when resting on the desk it doesn't give any clues away but earlier I embedded a steel sheet into the top edge of the monitor hatch underneath one of the bits of wood this gives the paper weight a specific area to be strongly attracted to allowing it to become a sort of key that can be used to open the system up thanks to the internal sliding rail mechanism this opening action brings the keyboard platform up to be flush with the rest of the desk's surface and because it moves so thoroughly out of the way when closed the space for pretty much anything you can think of here I've not only got my full-sized mechanical keyboard and mouse but I've built a little speaker system and dock as well even headphones and an audio interface can be fitted here all to be made invisible with one simple movement that this works so well is hugely satisfying especially having spent so many weeks making sure that this mechanism works properly and that it's on Flexi adjustable height desk system gives it that final level of Polish now one aspect of the build that hasn't been tested yet is its cooling system which is rather unusual so let's put it through its paces and make sure that it can actually keep the hardware in check for this I'm running two bits of software at the same time Prime 95 and furmark these stress the CPU and graphics card respectively to push them to their limits for maximum power draw the heat from which has to be gotten rid of by the cooling system as the components have used are pretty much the highest end parts you can get right now it's a lot of heat to contend with and ideally we're looking for them to Flatline in temperature but disaster they don't the temperatures of the components keep going up and up ultimately reaching their maximum and throttling to keep themselves from overheating and what's worse is that this is with the fans at full pelts making a lot of noise now this is supposed to be the end game invisible PC so that its cooling system isn't working anywhere near where it should is pretty annoying so what on Earth is going on here and what can we do about it well after some experimentation it appears that the issue lies with the airflow path of the fans being too restricted by things like the air duct and ironically the fine fin structure of the heat sinks resulting in them barely moving any air at all it's actually so bad that I think the best course of action is to compl completely remove this version of the cooling setup and come at it from a different angle this time swapping out the small bidirectional fans for some normal 140 mm PC fans you know there's a reason why they use them in PCS and sometimes just sometimes it's worth going with the crowd and not experimenting too much they do of course protrude beyond the bottom of the desk now but I don't think that this will be too much of an issue as they are at the back after all and will never really be seen these obviously can't be made to work with the old heat sinks so I'm swapping them out as well in favor of some that have a significantly wider thin spacing as well as a taller height and this should help keep airflow restrictions to a minimum these heat sinks are also from decommissioned servers and are even cheaper than the first set despite being much larger and arguably nicer looking thanks to their nickel plated finish from here it's pretty much the same as before the heat sinks can be placed side by side right along the back of the desk with the custom brass heat spreader being sandwiched in between them it looks kind of wild and I've never seen so much heat sink surface before this might seem a bit over the top but the thing is these heat sinks have cost less than a single computer radiator so in terms of value they're actually excellent but will they fix our cooling issues there's only one way to find out well uh yeah yeah they do perhaps a little unsurprisingly this quantity of heat sinks absolutely obliterates any heat in the system and it's able to keep all of the components cool without even breaking us sweat I mean the fans are turning at about 400 RPM and yet they're keeping 800 WS of PC cool silently and I really do mean silently here's a little example so you're presently listening to the audio output from this studio grade microphone so if the PC is making any noise you should be able to hear it I can barely hear anything that's absolutely fantastic so remember this is running thermark and Prime 95 I'm happy with that now although this heat sink setup is far larger than the old one it's not at all visible unless you're literally on the floor so there really is no compromise for getting pretty much the ultimate in cooling performance as it can handle anything that's thrown at it while remaining inaudible speaking of compromises there are certainly none here we've got Ultra high-end components driving an ultra wide OLED monitor with a full-sized mechanical keyboard and mouse and would you know any of it was here at all I'll let you be the judge of course we can't forget the ergonomic benefits of it being on a flexi spot adjustable height desk system which allows it to just simply become a standing desk with the Press of a button which is really good for your health now if you want to get a standing desk system for yourself actually flexis spots right now have their brand Day deals on and using the code DIY perks you can actually get $50 off their E7 Pro or E7 plus standing desks there's plenty of different desks tops to choose from as well so you can select something that matches your decor and it really is one of the best value upgrades you can have to your setup that will have real world implications for your well-being so highly recommended I love these things so check them out through the link down below but other than that I really hope you've enjoyed seeing this endgame invisible PC it's been a wild one it's taken so much effort but I think it's been worth it because this thing I think has the highest end Finish of anything I've built now a quick shout out to basically homeless for setting the par high for me to re revisit this topic again um and yeah I wonder what he'll do next um but other than that I'm Matt you've been watching DIY perks and I hope to see you next time goodbye for now [Music]

Channel: DIY Perks

Views: 2,511,360

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Id: UQ6ueTe8KQM

Length: 27min 30sec (1650 seconds)

Published: Thu May 23 2024