after seeing us build one of the internet's most epic battle stations
Intel reached out with a sponsorship and a challenge
build a new diy desk project even better
than before highlighting the 8th generation core i7 8700k
in a ba gaming rig so we set out this
time with a small form factor origin chronos
the plan a gaming setup that lets you have it any
way you like switching between pc gaming
and console gaming with ease and with a throwback to that analog feel
with physical buttons oh and RGB naturally
thinking it would be easier to augment an existing desk rather than build one
from scratch we used ikea's build your own desk tool as a starting point and
chose a mixture of wood finish and pure white for a modern look that would also
effectively bounce our RGB lighting around before we dive into the diy
action let's meet the gaming pc that Intel provided for this project origin
pc's chronos complete with custom paint job it rocks the up to 4.7 gigahertz
Intel core i7 8700k and all six cores of
it are tamed by origin's own frostbite 120 liquid cooler which allows it to
really stretch its legs despite the system's small size
so we modified the cabinet portion of the desk so that it could hold not only
our kronos but also an xbox one x and a
ps4 pro oh yeah and all of the circuitry needed
to switch between them so we picked up these led toggle buttons on amazon
this HDMI switch for changing our inputs and an arduino uno to act as the brain
for the whole thing to make room for all these goodies we decided to remove the
cabinet's top three drawers and then to shift the rails down on one of the two
large bottom drawers so we could swap it out for a small one
then using some white wood paneling that we got from home depot we made three
custom shelves that we fastened to the cabinet walls by simply drilling new
holes and inserting those small wooden dowels that are often included with ikea
furniture pro tip by the way you can take as many of those as you need from
the bins at ikea customer service ultimately we didn't end up with a ton
of extra space around each system which isn't great for thermals so if you're
following along at home then you might choose to keep just one drawer at the
bottom instead of two or you can do what we did and integrate some cooling fans
at the back this allowed us to keep the storage space at the bottom and the more
finished look of the tight compartments
but hold on a second if there's so little space above the
chronos where are all the switches and wiring going to go huh oh ye of little faith
there's a spare three and a half centimeters up there now this is not
quite enough for a fourth shelf given that the shelves themselves are almost
two centimeters thick but what if we salvaged some of our
discarded cabinet pieces to make a custom super low profile drawer
we remounted our spare rails and gorilla glue on a new facade that would hold our
switches et voila all the desks hardware in a compartment
no taller than the trim piece that we were going to use anyway
so it's going great so far but let's be honest this wouldn't be an LTT project
without at least a dash of jury rigged jankery
so let me assure you this is an LTT project
to seamlessly switch from pc to xbox to playstation we needed each of our
physical buttons to correspond to an input on our HDMI switch one each for
HDMI 1 HDMI 2 and HDMI 3. problem is we could not find an HDMI
switch that hit individual physical buttons for each input instead they all
have one button that cycles through the inputs
however they do come with remotes and the
remotes have individual buttons so our plan then was to connect our arduino to
the remote and then just point the remote point blank in our HDMI switch
inside the cabinet problem solved or at least it would have
been if we hadn't accidentally connected a 5 volt power supply to a 3 volt remote
and completely destroyed it in the end we soldered the
HDMI switch directly to the arduino and relied on software to send the
appropriate number of button presses depending on which input you're starting
on anyway after all that it was just a matter of using a hole saw to bore cable
management holes so we could you know plug stuff in because that's important
and so we could wire up our RGB strips
which we opted to stick to the top side of each compartment way at the back for
a sexy gentle glow then we added wood trim with a bit of
overhang to hide the RGB strips wrote this arduino script to control the
switches and the lights and put the whole thing including an ultra wide
monitor together ending the console wars and ushering in a new era of gaming a
peaceful era of gaming once and for all
not bad for a total of 420
so thanks santel for sponsoring this build and thanks to you guys for
watching if you disliked it you can hit that button but if you liked it hit like
get subscribed maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff we featured
at the links in the video description also down there we're gonna have our merch store which has cool shirts like
this one and our community forum which you should totally join