DIY pfSense Rackmount Router Build Log - Part 1
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
2,339 words · ~11 min read
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all right so welcome to a pretty unusual build log around
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here we are going to be building ourselves a badass new
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router yes we've got a wicked new internet connection we need a wicked new
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custom pf sense box to go with it so
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come along for the ride because this one i promise you is going to be interesting
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the master case 5 from cooler master gives you the freedom to truly make your
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mid tower case your own with modular parts and accessories click on the link
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in the video description to learn more you missed there Linus yeah first thing
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i need to do is uh follow my own rules about no garbage in
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the new office there next let's have a look at the hardware we're going to be using so step one is CPU we've got a low
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power Intel xeon CPU this is an e3 1260
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l this is an Intel s 1200 kp
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server board provided by kingston we've got kind of a special stick of memory in
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here so this is a low profile ddr3 dim we've got a 1u
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server case so this is a rack mountable case that'll be going in our new cabinet
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from norco you could install up to i believe an atx size board in here if you
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really wanted to but we're just going to be installing an itx board because we're
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going to be using this space over here for an expansion card yes it's an i340
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t4 quad port network card and we're actually going to be installing that
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sideways we're also going to need this was provided by Anthony over at ncix so
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huge thanks to the ncix tech tips crew this is a pci express extension uh what
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else we got for hardware ah yeah we're going to be using an SSD yes i know
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pfsense can run off usb stick i don't care uh the next uh this is a really
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cool piece of hardware so this a 1u
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redundant power supply
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so each of these is an 80 plus gold 250
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watt power supply and then you can actually slide these
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modules out last piece of hardware this is a super micro
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heat sink and that's another challenge in 1u case
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you can't even use a stock Intel cooler you might be thinking to yourself
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gee Linus that doesn't have any fans on it how's it going to cool the CPU
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great question
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i think this is definitely the most constrained case that i've ever worked
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in the part i was worried about was the
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clearance at the back now i already know about some challenges
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that i'm gonna have fitting our power supply in this case so the board goes in
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here and you can see all of my ports
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stick through just fine but the case
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is actually shorter than a standard io shield
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if i mark this really carefully i can basically just
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hack it off with a dremel tool ah i'm getting so much metal in my eye
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not too shabby i hope oh wow i way over did it look at that
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so that is what it's gonna look like
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okay so the next step is to get our CPU installed so the CPU we're using is a
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1260 l we could swap this out
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with relative ease if we needed a beefier router
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let's go ahead and install our back plate oh
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okay this chip on the back
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is interfering with our back plate
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shoot and we're gonna need the angle grinder for this this is not a dremel
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task
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okay not bad at all
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just clean it off i might want to take that in a little
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bit tighter so there we've dug out a little bit more
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material still fairly strong i mean strong enough to hold a cooler on so
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ah yeah there we go so you've got lots of clearance around the contacts for
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that chip there so orientation here is key because the airflow only goes one
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way so our CPU cooler needs to you have got to be kidding me
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we are making contact with the pins on a fan header
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right there
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so the speaker's okay but that
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bit next to the pins has to go this is intended to sit right flat against the
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back of the board but there's quite a few things on the back of this board we
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might just barely be able to screw into that back
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plate and then this corner
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yeah that goes in it's a fair bit of flex on the board but uh nothing deadly
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nothing i think we should just hack off the top
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of this speaker too it should be enough to get the job done
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i just don't want those pins to touch
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yeah take that speaker
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we've been at this for like an hour and we've installed an io shield
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and installed a CPU in a socket i haven't even managed to put a heatsink
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on cold thermal compound there
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let's put the back plate on again
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so if i can just get this on here then we're good okay
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no clearance issues this time
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not too shabby next step
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put motherboard in case
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so this heatsink basically sits millimeters
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from the top of the chassis meaning that you cannot install a fan on there most
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1u coolers are like uh side blowers you know we wanted to
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leave ourselves room for a beefier CPU in the future if we wanted it so that
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option was not going to work for us we're going to have to be careful when
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we slide this on we got to kind kinda okay
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this is the next big challenge i had no idea that there even were standards for
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one new power supplies these two are not the same one the way that this goes in
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just has absolutely nothing to do
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with what the back of this power supply looks like
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that leaves me basically cutting the case to get this in here so
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i need to get this in here and i need to secure it somehow
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you know what let's just hot glue it in because i don't feel that comfortable
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drilling into the side of a power supply the last place you want metal shards
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okay
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the window in go in push down
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cable management is going to be key for achieving
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any kind of proper airflow in a system like this
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yep power led is green so this my friends is where we start to
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get into why it was important that we
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use this low profile ecc memory a full
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height dim would pretty much block airflow to our fins now some boards have
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the dimms this way this one does not so we have to
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deal with what we're given to work with here next step mounting the pci express card
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oh cool you can actually install it either way
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wow i don't know if we're even gonna get a 4x
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extender in here our cable management
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is done so we have a nice clear path
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to our balls so we have a nice clear path from our fans
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to everything here that needs to be cooled the heatsink on our neck the
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heatsink on our CPU and all that's left to do
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is close her up and find out how she runs now what i'm
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actually going to do is put Windows on this machine first just so that i can
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use nice familiar testing tools in order
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to evaluate cooling because i am a little bit worried about this CPU
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so we were defeated we were defeated by a dead motherboard but
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ebay to the rescue i can't say enough good things about ebay i ordered this
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motherboard a 250 watt power supply and four gigs of RAM
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at least i got the motherboard fortunately i didn't need that other
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crap so let's go ahead and rebuild the
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machine this time with a oh
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working motherboard
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oh crap i can't even do it right the second
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time around let's try putting the actual
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cooler back plate on here i don't know how i missed this before
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but on the old board which fortunately we
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can now use as a as a tester for the additional cutting that it looks like
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we're going to be doing there are a couple of components here that are
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clearly interfering with the back plates till so we actually need to do
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more back plate cutting
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so in theory this finally actually fits on the board
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okay great
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it shouldn't be this much effort to build a router
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this is why most people probably buy a router
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i mean they have them they have them at the store they have a whole aisle called
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browders
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thermal compound all right
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and this speaker maybe i'll just
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rip this off this time that seems ill-advised on my working
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board doesn't it we could use the sacrificial board to
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find out if you can rip the speaker off
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okay you can't now we know we can use a dremel if i can
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find it oh yeah there it is sure
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there we go in theory we are
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ready to rock let's see if it's on
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nothing ever takes as long as it's supposed to
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okay that's in let's put our cable management
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nonsense back into place i mean that's nice at least i don't have
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to plan out the cable management anymore since i've already done it once
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there we go okay so that's good i'm
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thinking yep there we go so in theory this time this stupid
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thing powers on all right come on baby
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please work
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what
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okay i'm at a total loss right now i'm not sure what just happened
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i have nothing to say at this point i i think something about our config
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just killed another board but i don't understand
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why that would happen because the only thing in here that i haven't
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run in this board before is a pci express riser
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and um RAM which
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shouldn't make a board scream and then die it's
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unheard of
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but i think we just killed another board
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exact same behavior as last time we're getting beeps
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and then he stopped getting beeps
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our working hypothesis right now is that this is some kind of connector
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that i've never seen before and was actually providing power to the
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motherboard instead of acting as like an RPM sense or something so we're testing
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with the multimeter now we just bricked two boards time to order
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another one i guess stay tuned for part two
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so i learned a lot in this video you know what else i learned
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squarespace their websites look better
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than me writing on a chalkboard yes my friends they do with squarespace.com you
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can build yourself a beautiful functional website that serves whatever
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best butt in the biz or how it doesn't you can do that you can make a blog you
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can make a personal portfolio you can make a hey you can make a store you can
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have a store where you sell um you know license plate covers that say luke has
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best bud in biz or you know something people might actually want to
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buy say for example so head over to squarespace.com i think it's Linus i
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should know this kind of thing by now so head over to squarespace.com and if you
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guys use offer code Linus you can save 10 but you don't have to buy it up front
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you guys can try it out for a couple weeks for free they do a free trial you
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can play around with their tools they've got 24 7 tech support so if you're
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having trouble building your site you can reach out to someone via email or
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live chat and get them to help you out great stuff they've got all kinds of
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stuff that like i used to talk about but isn't in my talking points anymore but i
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still think is cool like their little logo builder app and uh they've got this
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really cool thing coming up that
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oh i guess i wasn't supposed to talk about that sorry sorry well whatever
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they're always developing their tools and making them better all the time so
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squarespace.com make a beautiful website all of your own
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all right so thanks for watching guys if you disliked this video as much as i
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disliked making it then press like uh also if you liked it
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press like and uh if you liked it then maybe you'll consider supporting us
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either by buying a cool t-shirt like this one directly through our community forum or by changing your amazon
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bookmarks with our affiliate code you can find the instructions for how to do that up in the eye in the top right
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corner i think that pretty much wraps it up though thanks again for watching and
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if you're wondering what to do next now that you've done all that stuff because you liked the video maybe check out
14:57
Channel Super Fun where we've got a new video that just came out where we
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eat bugs it's gross but cool