Spotswood Tech Station - Extremely Modular Test Bench
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
1,844 words · ~9 min read
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you've you've you've probably never heard of it they're called Spotswood
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Tech stations they're uh yeah they're pretty
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obscure Cooler Master V series semi modular power supplies feature 80 plus
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gold efficiency and their gold guarantee 5-year warranty click now to learn more
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so I bought the Spotswood tech station for a personal project of mine which
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will be in a build log update video in the future but some of you may know that
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we use high-speed PC tech stations for our Tech stations at work so why deviate
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from what I know is already good I mean I've been using high-speed PC tech
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stations for years and I've never had a problem why use something else outside
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of work honestly the main reason was looks but outside of that I appreciate
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that it is made entirely of aluminum it's extremely modular and every one of
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its arms is a mountable rail so you can put anything on it that you want I
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really liked how you can put a radiator virtually anywhere so I went through the
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ordering process which was great by the way rich Suki AKA Spotswood I hope I
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said his last name right is very accommodating and seem to go out of his
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way to answer every question I had very quickly upon receiving the unit I was
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happy to see that he did a great job packing it with gratuitous amounts of
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bubble wrap and tons of packing peanuts as well for an independent the packing
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material was great tons of peanuts and bubble wrap had the bench actually quite
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secure before it showed up first thing you'll notice is that the Tex station is
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in two halves it goes together very easily and is quite secure once you have
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it in place next up you'll notice the the accessories oh my God the
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accessories there are so many the amount of bolts nuts and washers this guy
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included is insane and it doesn't stop there he also included all the different
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mounting brackets and arms you could possibly want and all of these things
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came in nice little reable bags that are nicely labeled other than a couple
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brackets I didn't order anything extra and everything you can see right now is
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just the leftovers that didn't end up on the tech station there will be no kit
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limitations here the only complaint I could see anyone having about the
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accessories is that they are all hex bolts which can be kind of annoying
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because you can't use your standard screwdrivers with them but not only does
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Spotswood include the three different hex Keys needed to install everything
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but if this is a bench that you'll be taking to something like a land or any
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public place the added security of say your graphics card not being able to be
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removed by a simple thumb screw in a matter of like 3 to 10 seconds is kind
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of nice next up we have the tech station itself starting from the top of the
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station we have the standoffs which I wish were installed by default as it
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shows in Spotswood pictures but it's not a very big deal as they're very easy to
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install also with the standoffs and the open rail system it is very easy to
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access the back of the motherboard which will make CPU block swaps a breeze
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speaking of the open rail system for those of you that may want to install
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motherboards that are not at TX format all the rails are easily adjustable and
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even removable by simply loosening or removing the bolts that are at the rail
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intersections even the expansion card support bar is adjustable just in case
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you may have short expansion cards like maybe a raid or sound card although I
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expect most of people to leave this bar exactly where it is then we come to the
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power supply mounting I really wasn't so sure about this before I started working
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on the unit but once you install the power supply there it's actually quite
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nice the cables don't look messy up top due to the cable management hole created
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by the motherboard support rails and it leaves you with more room to be creative
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with what you want to do on the lower level but you may notice the Wii U game
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no unfortunately this tech station does not come with Mario Kart 8 for Wii U I
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put it there to support the power supply as it is roughly the same thickness as
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one of the aluminum rails which is already holding up one side of the power
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supply unit while I do mostly trust the standard mounting setup it sketches me
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out that there's no support for the bottom of the power supply on that side
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now this power supply isn't necessarily short but it isn't long either if you
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had a long power supply like the one I intend to eventually install in this
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test bench it will reach to the second motherboard support bar but if you don't
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it will just kind of hang there all of
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this in mind it's probably fine I'm sure Spotswood knows about this as the power
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supply unit in his pictures is roughly the same length as the one that I have
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on the bench and he probably didn't see it as a problem I don't see it as one
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necessarily either as long as the tech station is left alone if someone wants
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to rest something on top of the power supply or bump it it's possible that
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something bad could potentially happen and whoever unlike likely the situation
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is I personally would rest easier if it was just supported hence the Wii U game
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all of that aside we can move on to the bottom of the tech station first off we
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have the hard drive and SSD mounting which is essentially the same process
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and it can take a little while but once they're in place it's actually quite
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secure and it has a bit of vibration dampening due to the rubber mounting
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solution which is a nice added bonus due
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to the spacing differences of 3 and 1/2 and 2 and 1/2 in drives you would need
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to install them on different rails if you wanted to do it properly but what
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exactly is properly when working on a tech station which caters to
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creativity I don't know but I will likely be buying a hard drive cage
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either from Spotswood or some other vendor to free up some real estate in
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the bottom of this tech station as multiple drives take up quite a bit of
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space if I wasn't interested in buying an extra cage I would likely end up
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fixing the SSD to one of the Rails just below the motherboard just to get out of
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the way secondly there was mounting my radiator the process of fixing the tabs
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system to the radiator and tech station through the use of the standard bolt nut
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and washer method was easy enough to do and looks quite sharp once you're done
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but you may again notice the Wii U game
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no yet again sadly it does not come with Super Mario Bros U or Super Luigi U and
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this is another one of my ghetto mounted support systems being only able to mount
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my thick and heavy Alpha cool nexx exos radiator which by the way will only get
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heavier once you run water through it on one side of the tech station causes it
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to torque and pull down on the far non-secured side now again it's probably
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okay but I especially don't trust this one as it seems to be torquing much more
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than the power supply was and has the same kind of issues if someone bumps
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into it or if I say accidentally pull it while trying to install a fitting it
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could get torqued too much and I would be livid because of this I grabbed my
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trusty Wii U game mounting system before it was even full installed this is
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something I will be finding a proper and more permanent solution to before I move
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my personal rig to this tech station Taran and I were able to come up with a
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few potential solutions to this radiator mounting problem one if we had longer
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tabs we could fit it to the bottom of the tech station as well meaning it
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would have two points of contact two another rail I could install myself on
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the other side would add another two points of contact and supported on both
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sides or three a rail mountable rubber pad system which could replace my Wii U
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game in its exact same Form and Function in conclusion is this the easiest thing
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to build on no but it's damn fun the
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Spotswood Tex station is extremely high build quality overall and allows you to
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do almost anything that you want with it because of how modular it is that being
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said the almost non-existent documentation can be more than a little
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annoying when trying to figure out how you're intended to do something and
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there's so few build examples out in the while that some of the issues I ran into
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could have honestly just been myself failing understand how something was intended to work especially since I may
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have been doing this build while streaming at 3: in the morning last but
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not least is the purchasing experience again Rich chety hope I'm saying that
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right AKA Spotswood as far as I can tell is a oneman operation and despite that
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he managed to keep on top of things very well I received shipping confirmation
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surprisingly quickly after ordering my unit and he continues to this day to
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answer any and all of my questions both quickly and thoroughly all right guys
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that's it are you interested in a techbench OR tech station let me know in
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the comments down below and while you're down there like dislike favorite subscribe share
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a thing I don't know if you don't want to comment down there jump over to the Forum and comment on the Forum and while
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you're there if you don't like the ads be sure to become a contributor that gets rid of all of those ads in the
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description of the video you'll see a link to buy a shirt we have some pretty cool shirts going on there be sure to
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check that out thank you guys for watching and I'll see you next
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time