Ultimate DIY Desk PC - DRILLING SO MANY HOLES
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,576 words · ~7 min read
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there were some scheduling difficulties around the arrival of my third and final
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offspring that delayed the release of this video sorry about that but good
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news everyone it's finally here desk PC
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part two the finishing
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touches tunnel bear is the simple VPN app that makes it easy to browse
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privately and enjoy a more open internet to try tunnel bear for free check out
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the link in the video description so step one was to remove
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the literal dust that had settled on
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this project then roll it over to our shooting location to Begin work those of
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you who haven't seen part one you should probably go back and watch it it's up
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there but I'll get you up to speed anyway we constructed this desk out of a
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single piece of MDF and we made a slight miscalculation that resulted in our
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piece of glass that we got on Craigslist being slightly smaller than our desk no
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problem so now that we're back at it we're going to manufacture a small lip
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to both hide our error and to hold our glass Snuggly in place and keep it from
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sliding around so while my Dad ran to Home Depot to get the necessary Cuts
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made Jake set to work on one of the most important steps of any complicated
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custom build pre-testing to ensure that the Hardware Works before you install it
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then it was time to begin what would prove to be by far the most tedious part
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of this entire process aligning Hardware
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as perfectly as possible and creating all of the mounting points that were
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going to need for final assembly so after a quick test hole and a scrap
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piece of wood we were ready to create the motherboard Mount which was actually
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one of the simpler ones we just positioned it with the correct spacing
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to allow for cable management up the side later poked a mark through the
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holes Center punched and drilled for the
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same threaded inserts that I used for the bottom mounted desk PC project which
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you can check out here then there was another delay I think a big part of why
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this project has taken so long has been
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in decision done we have many other holes to debate
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for the rest of the day why are you creating work that's like 2 minutes why
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are you creating work out of no out of no work okay just cuz you're you don't
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have any handy skills any else you're the handiest person I
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know J right oh God so with that out of the way it was time to work on water
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cooling now the original concept was to use Hardline tubing like every other
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desk PC ever but in part because
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Hardline is tedious and in part because we wanted to do something a little bit
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different we ended up deciding to drill 5/8 in holes through to the bottom of
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the table and Route both our cables and
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our tubing down there for a really clean
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look so with that settled we were able to mark the mounting points for the
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radiators in such a way that the air holes wouldn't interfere with our
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diagonally positioned legs on the bottom and then move on to the hard drives hard
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drives were another case of we came in with one plan and left with a completely
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different one we were originally going to use L brackets and screw them into
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threaded inserts from the top but hey
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why not put the St handoffs in the drives then drill all the way through
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and use long 632 bolts so using
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templates we aligned our four Drive RAID
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10 as best we could and then after a test fit with our custom length cable
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mod SATA cables we ended up having to widen the holes a little bit for some
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more wiggle room but it looks pretty good and hey at least we missed
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accidentally drilling through the legs on the bottom right this time we did no
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such luck with the reservoirs spacing wise we wanted to keep somewhat
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consistent with what we'd done with the hard drives which put our tubing right
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over the leg now what well we ended up
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drilling straight down then Beering off
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at an angle with our 5/8 in bit it's not
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perfect but the hole isn't that much bigger and once it's painted black it
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shouldn't end up being that noticeable leading us to more problems while my dad
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worked on the outer lip I I began work on the radiators while the fan holes for
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them won't interfere with the legs the tubing unfortunately will so if we flip
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it over and we try and go straight down to the bottom of the table we go right
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into the legs if we had the tubing come up and then out we're short and elbow
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fitting and we end up with one of the tubes really close to where the tubes go
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through for the reservoirs and it's going to end up looking dumb damn it
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Jake so I decided to change gears and work on the mounting for the G CPU and
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the SSD so I decided on a height for the floating video card Mount and got the
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water block installed on our GTX 1080 so that we could build the mount and Mark
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our tubing holes while my dad built a small wooden post with a threaded insert
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to mount our PCI Express SSD so we made
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good progress for a while we completed the SSD mount it lined up perfectly then
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we decided to use some extra mounting holes that EK left open in their block
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design to bolt the GPU into the bottom of the desk with inserts and we
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finalized the holes for the power supply and then we went back to debating the
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damn radiators and pumps again then it was drill drill drill insert holes for
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the GPU and power supply remeasuring the
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very approximated holes for the CPU block tubing drilling holes for the GPU
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and damn it I hit a leg again this time
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I cracked a support but it doesn't seem to be a major structural issue next we
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drilled the hole hes for the front intakes they're not quite perfect but
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we're going to cover them with some Silverstone filters for now that'll mask
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small errors and later on I might ask protocase to make something custom for
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it after running out of battery cuz that hole saw is a bit of a beast and running
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out to Home Depot for a corded drill we drilled the holes for the radiator
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tubing hit the legs again holy crap I wish we had plann that out a little bit
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better and we are finally done the holes
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except wait no no I need holes for the power wires for the pumps and the fans
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we also grabbed a power sander and some 220 grit sandpaper while we were out
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remember though that this step wouldn't be necessary if we hadn't bunged up the
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size of our desk so it shouldn't affect your cost if you were to recreate the
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project and some washable furnace filter
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that along with some xacto knife cut border pieces should be a pretty darn
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good solution to allowing access to the
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machine's IO while keeping out dust the
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pumps and radiators go back in one more
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time to drill their power holes and we are pretty much ready to paint which I'm
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going to do off camera whenever I have some time so part three will be the
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final assembly and the conclusion and I promise it won't take as long as part
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one to part two did so stay tuned and stay tuned on massdrop.com
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massdrop is the site Well Community really where users talk about product
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they're interested in buying then mop kind of goes oh yeah what's that you're
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interested in goes to the manufacturers or authorized resellers and places a
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bulk order at a discounted price then the more people buy it the lower the
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price goes and now they're featuring a drop for the high man re IM they feature
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9mm Dynamic drivers they ship with two pairs of silicone ear tips and they're
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only $35 woo so check them and other drops
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out at the link in the video description Mass drop has all kinds of stuff
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everything from audio gear to keyboards to like camping
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gear so thanks for watching guys if this video sucked you know what to do but if
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it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or check out the link to
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where to buy the stuff we featured at Amazon in the video description also
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linked in the description is our merch store which has cool shirts like this
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one and our community Forum which you should totally join now that you're done
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doing all that stuff you're probably wondering what to watch next so click that little button in the top right
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corner to check out our latest video over on Channel Super Fun