The SWEATIEST Gaming Setup
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
2,507 words · ~12 min read
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we've identified a problem with pretty much every desk on the market the
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traditional sitting desk has all kinds of ergonomic and posture challenges and
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of course encourages a more uh sedentary lifestyle and then there's the
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new age standing desk well with the
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standing desk you know you stand and there are a lot of claims being made
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about how these might help offset the uh
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gigantic cake that you're apparently eating for lunch and making matters
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worse these standing desks are inordinately expensive in many cases
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so we thought leave it to us we've got the solution
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for less than a couple hundred bucks we're gonna build the desk that forces
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you to stay in shape
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more so you want a desk that keeps you fit
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where do you start well there are actually commercially available
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treadmill desks but they are freaking expensive so we set out to make
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something a bit more economical now given that many maybe even most
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people should probably have a bike lying around and if they don't you can get one
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for pretty cheap on craigslist we figured that seemed like a good place to
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start but how could we make sure that the user
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actually pedaled on it and didn't just sit on the bike seat feeling like they
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were exercising could we maybe generate the power for
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the computer using the bike well that seemed a bit harsh but what if
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we took away their internet whenever they stopped pedaling
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now we're getting somewhere so we set about creating a small
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generator from a bike that could be used to power the user's internet switch
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after ordering a bike fitness trainer an electric motor and a charge controller
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from amazon we were ready to get started now you might think that we should put
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the electric motor directly onto the flywheel of the fitness trainer but we
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need the motor to be spinning at around 3000 RPM and we're not going to be
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hitting anywhere near that on the bike so we need to create a gear reduction
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from the bike to about two and a half
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two inches something like that so the plan was to use a v-belt attached
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to the tire and then onto one of these pulleys which came in from amazon and
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the bore diameter is just totally wrong and will not fit onto here so now we're
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just going to kind of raw dog it and see what happens
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the flywheel was removed from the fitness trainer and the tire was removed
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from the rim allowing the belt to sit directly on the rim
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the tires needed to come off alex's bike anyway after he ran over some beer
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bottles that someone kindly smashed on the road so that worked out great for
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everyone so the plan since
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our die cast pulleys aren't going to work
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or to laser cut out pieces of wood
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have one that fits over this sprocket and have a couple
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that go along the shaft here and sort of
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screw them all together and hopefully can transmit the torque after a little
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bit of cad we were ready to fire the laser
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fire the laser
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look if we can just transmit the torque with this it's going to be like done
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tomorrow like on a scale of one two absolutely
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horrendous where would you rate this idea
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somewhere
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okay i'll take that
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do you think that we just got someone to sort of hold this and then we pedaled we
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could just see if it's going to work
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with the wooden pulley attached and screwed together
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we were actually we weren't that hopeful at this point
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so that's got a bit of stickiness
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i don't even think this is going to work with wood all right fits in the groove pretty well
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yeah we'll just call friction part of the exercise experience with very little
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to lose we geared up to see if this plan could work at all
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we would need to make sure that we could have the motor spinning at over 3000 RPM
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without the poor wooden pulley blowing to pieces
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looking go so we're getting like 27 volts something like that
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so clearly we need this to be mounted better than just me holding it but
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after proving that at least in theory this should work we needed to make a
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more permanent mount for the motor so we need to lift the motor up about this
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high so that the belt doesn't hit on the frame here
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i'm kind of thinking that we might be best off making a frame so we sort of
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put two here and then
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one across and that's where the motor actually mounts it would be nice to if there's
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some way for us to tighten it do you have any ideas
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this is not how you're supposed to use these tools
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oh that's kind of sketchy no that just
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came right out editors note that one didn't happen
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you know i just realized this is a dirty prototype why did i even bother drilling
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four holes
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so that's a problem
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yeah we need to sandbag that for sure the electric motor will be connected to
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this solar charge controller which will take the constantly changing voltage out
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of the motor and output a nice clean 12
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volts from here it will go to this 12
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volt inverter which will turn the 12 volts into 120 volt ac so that you could
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plug any device into it like a normal outlet
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we weren't entirely sure if this would work since
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you might need a battery between the controller and inverter
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on there
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i wonder if this will work
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actually it kind of looks like that i just forgot to put the nut on
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oh so if i start pedaling
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can you press the button that's on that nothing
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yeah we must need a battery in there darn fitness pc
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we grab dead because he's over here taking candy
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the candy that's upstairs
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for it to actually work we need this battery here between the solar charger
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and the inverter and that basically just allows the solar
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charger to actually turn on and then it does its thing so add start pedaling
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so when this light's blinking slowly that means that we're actually getting
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charged into the battery and that means that it's around 24 ish
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volts or so now what we need to do is have it so that if ed
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stops pedaling this light turns off because right now
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it's just staying on until the battery drains which is way too long and it's
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not nearly as would you call it draconian as we want
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because the idea is to punish the user whenever they stop exercising we needed
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to add a relay where the did i put that relay that closes a switch when the user
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starts pedaling completing a circuit and sending power from the battery to the
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inverter then immediately opens it disconnecting the circuit once the user
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stops pedaling with the relay added into the circuit well was time to see if it
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works yes
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haha and then if i stop
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yes i don't want to call it a success but it
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is definitely a prototype that works i learned so much about electronics
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today with v1 working all that was left was to clean things up a bit so i kind
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of want to just laser cut a piece of wood
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that'll go sort of around here out for some
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sandbags and have perfect mounts for the motor and then on
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monday we'll have the thrust bearing arrive for this and we're basically done
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just clean up the electronics a bit put it in like a nice box or something just
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do we have to make a nice box oh it better be the best the best box i can't
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make good boxes though we could laser cut a box and you
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basically know how this works now cad
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laser and boom we're good to go
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except wood is a pain i think it's fine
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and different pieces can have slightly different properties so a bit of tlc was
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needed here and there it's still looking pretty good it's a four foot job you can
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get pretty close
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like that works
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not bad with the top piece cut we attached some two by fours on the bottom
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for support and ed filled in the letters using
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permanent marker since we couldn't just leave the electronics lying on the floor we
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decided to stash them in a Dan case using double-sided tape and after a
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little bit of love everything actually fit in surprisingly
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well any holes were closed using acrylic
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dammit
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wow that actually cut me now are you bleeding like slightly yeah all right
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time for first aid and in the end it's not looking half bad if we do say
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so ourselves so now that the fitness pc2000 is ready to be set up at an
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actual desk well maybe it's time for us to show it
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to me so this is
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the fitness pc 2000 is that just sharpie marker wow that
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actually looks surprisingly good like good for what we would normally do yeah
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okay sandbag goes here so basically what we've just got a motor
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here with did you make the set of wood why
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well we ordered the ones but they came in the wrong size so they didn't fit on
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the shaft you give a man a laser laser cutter and
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no laser cut anything this outputs like 24 volts 200 watts you
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mean yeah 200 watts of basin ac power okay so
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200 watts is our maximum output here you
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guys probably realize then that if you have a powerful rig that's not enough
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for you to actually power up your gaming machine while you game
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but any more than that would be quite difficult for most people to
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to do just by pedaling anyway so should we evaluate now just how usable this is
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i guess yeah so uh you know here what what should i what should i try to do
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just you know browse the forum watch some youtube videos
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i gotta say it is a little bit harder to type while i'm
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you know going ham on the on the exercise bicycle but it's not as bad as
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you might think oh look at this a mouth-operated mouse
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it's like all these crit what are these tech chips guys doing one thing that is
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a little bit tough is you can actually feel the resistance changing sometimes
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like it'll it'll almost like it'll let you know
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when you need to give her a little bit more
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do we know why exactly that is that has to have to do with the battery charging
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so what could i do that would make it draw more power should we try to power
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the whole the whole thing with it as well yeah let's do it let's do it
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okay so here we go powering up the computer
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wow so you get like a real physical
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feedback for the amount of power that your components are drawing like during boot
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up oh like it initialized something there i
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felt it oh that is some good resistance we got going here i'm gonna work up a sweat
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pretty quick here let's get this demo going you know that's actually not
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that bad and it's a constant load now whereas
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like the spikes in CPU activity before i could really feel them
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you would get absolutely no i fell behind oh
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crap okay that relay is really unforgiving
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the second generation of this product definitely needs like a phillips hue
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that gives you like a reading on your battery or like a capacitor right so if you had
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a big fat capacitor and then it was like green when it's full and then would
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slowly go to yellow and red that would be cool
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you'd probably want to get one of those stupid mice from thermaltake that has
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the fan in it they have a keyboard with one too
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keep your uh keep your palms from getting too sweaty
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and your arms from getting too heavy this might be a little extreme i think
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having it plugged into the network switch is good enough
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okay should we try and play a
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game come on
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okay play cs go ah
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no no no oh no
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just load the map come on just
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i just want to play one round okay ct here we go
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so CPU is at like 25 and GPU is going up as high as like 80
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100. oh almost fall behind for a second there
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no i give up
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the new volta xl charging cable delivers great value durability and some
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enhancements over the original it's capable of delivering up to 87 watts at
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4.3 amps allowing it to be compatible with fast charging devices with
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on-the-go charging functionality it'll allow your phone to act as a battery
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bank to help you charge up other gadgets and the snag safe tips are made from an
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n52 neodymium magnet that offers a strong solid connection which enables
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you to quickly connect your devices but also acts as a safety in case you get
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your cables caught on anything they're made of strong military-grade nylon and
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they come with a lifetime guarantee on the cable so check out their indiegogo
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page at the link in the video description oh
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oh my legs so
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if the goal was an exercise bike
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that makes you literally get ass wet the
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mission [ __ ] accomplished
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the fitness pc is a huge success
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so thanks again for watching guys if you disliked this video you can hit that button but if you liked it hit like get
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subscribed or maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff we featured at the link in the video description
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also down there is our merch store which has cool shirts like this one
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but not pre-soaked and sweat um and our community forum which you should totally
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join i am like actually dripping all over the
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place right now