Project - Omega Desk

Hi all

New to the forum, so please do excuse any mistakes i may make in my post..
Been working on my scratch build for a little while now, still have a heap to get through but making some good progress.. Let me know what you think. Oh and big up to l3p on his build, was a big inspiration for this build!! Materials i will be useing for the build will be mild steel for the frame, 2mm aluminium for the cladding, and tempered glass for front and top.

Anyways, onto the log..
As we all do started with good ol Sketchup..


From there i found a suplier that could roll square tubing for me.. ended up having to revise the design many times but still kept it in theme..


Milled out a cutout for the slim slot load dvd drive


Also milled some cutouts for the glass top


then tacked most of the frame up.


Did full welds and cleaned them up


rounded off some edges to fit in with the design


Finally done with the frame :banana:


Then it was time to start with the cladding, got most of the pieces laser cut including Mobo tray and some custom fan grills that will be used on the one leg for a 1080 rad with 8 x 180mm fans.

The outside of the leg with a squigly cubed logo ( as in squigly's box)


Inside leg


[Mobo tray


Then started bending the HDD trays, only 2 for storage drives, planning on water cooling those.


Side profile of HDD tray


Basically how they will be mounted


Splitting post due to to many images..

 

Another epic build. Bravo!

 

interesting to see how it all turns out. =D

 

nicely done

 

Part 2

Part 2 of original log, had to split due to image limit..

Placed most pieces in just to check fitment, still need to be mounted.


then started rolling some of the small radius bends..


couldnt get the radius small enough so had to jig it..


then rolled the large radius, was much easier and worked out perfectly


Fitted.


from the outside.


The aluminium still has the protective sheets on. Thats about where it stands for the moment so still have lots to do.. the frame will be powder coated black and then i will do a custom spray job on the aluminium.

More work to come this weekend :infinity: , thanks all for the comments so far.

 

Dang... this is gonna look so sick. You all are making me want to do a desk build so bad.

 

Thanks peeps yet another Saturday so got to do some graft on it today

Managed to order and pick up some rivnuts during the week, will be needing them to mount all the cladding to the case since the 1.5mm of the mild steal won't really be enough to tap and hold the aluminium. got 200 M4 rivnuts and hex head bolts.. yup, got me some drilling to do...

These are the rivnuts and bolts I will be using


So decided to check fitment of a few more bits before I started my drill mania.. took one of the rubber grommets from my 600t to check if it fits in the hole i had laser cut for the HDD cables..


Who's yer daddy... fits like a charm!


also took in my old mobo in to make sure all was well with the mobo tray and to check if i would have any issues with the cable management.


So far so good then was looking at the hole on the left side, I new the support beam was going to interfere with the hole from when i did the original design.. but knew I could get my cables through anyways..


but then thought to myself...


Im building a custom ring, why the fudge do i wanna make myself struggle to get cables through... so cut out a section...

Be gone!!


Then welded in a filler..


Happiness is no more support beam interfering with the hole..


Ok cool, so now time to start mounting, measuring, clamp.. measure again... measure 1 more time to be sure.. and then.. DRILL!!!


Oooh more holes..


The riveted the rivnuts..


and taadaaa.. first panel mounted...


Splitting post....

 

Part 2 of today's update

And so the rest of the day went... and after a measly 50 holes and rivnuts.. this is where it stands...





So back into the corner till next weekend... cant wait to get the rest of the panels on!!!!

 

Bless the Maker,the one who struggle to get his design done!
I salute your effort in making your awesome custom desk/rig.
Nice to have acces to a metal workshop!

 

Thanks again all, really glad to see it being so well received..

well since i can only get to the workshop on Saturdays i started stripping down my screens... I will be running surround setup on 3 screens (unfortunatly not 3d just yet but maybe in the future) but the problem i have is that they are 3 dirrefernt screens, and Acer H233H, and the 2 samsung syncmaster's, one 2333 and one 2370... so they dont all look unifirm and the 2370 does not have VESA mount.. so i was playing with the idea of getting 3 new screens to replace them... but that just takes CUD funds away from some of the other components i still need to get...

So...



I stripped down my screens and luckily they all have the same metal bezel... i now plan to make my own monitor "case" for each monitor so they look more uniform.. also the metal bezel is only 4mm vs the 12 - 30mm bezel of the plastic covers... so will be able to set them up in portrait or landscape.. need to get back to sketchup to plan it all out, but that is the intention moving forward :rock: :rock: :rock:

 

This is looking awesome! Keep up the good work

 

now you speak like a true guru
i want to see it done
you know,why don´t you make a "modular"casing for all your monitors,so you can have the thinnest bezel ever
something like a big frame where you mount all LCD panel,as closest you can,with your desired angle and have Eyefinity worth its money.

 

Thanks all

@ anticupidon, i had thought of that, but then i thought i may want to change the angel or even the orientation of the screens, so am thinking something along the lines of this..



so basically its still individual frames for each monitor but allows me greater flexibility.. this is just a rough draft quick for concept really.. im not sure i want to go with such a square back.. I'm thinking more a round back, almost like a bubble, but a gentle curve..

But doing the bubble would be fairly tricky out of steel or aluminium.. so was thinking maybe fiberglass... thoughts anyone??

 

well another Saturday passed so more work done.. oddly enough was busy the whole day but didn't feel i got that much done on it.. so only a few pics..

Started off by grinding some of the overhang i had on some of the panels, neatening things up.. and of course grinding leads to sharp edges..

the obligatory injury shot..

Note to self: Dont try catch a falling piece of aluminium if you just finished grinding it...

Anyways, carried on with the cladding got the outside leg panels and the rolled plates properly mounted



the leg it almost totally covered, i also bent the bottom plates but like a muppet didnt take any pics...



Even gave it a little winter blankie... awwww.. puke.

so that's it for now, also spent a lot of time marking up where the buttons will go and measuring out the power and sata cables... hmmm now to find 2m sata... wheres that google thing...

Squigly out..

 

Yet another Saturday in the workshop things are moving forward but a little slower now, lots more measuring and making sure things fit properly as it gets closer to the end of the cladding fitment.. So a few more pics but no major progress this week..

Carried on with the cladding and worked on the profile for under the leg, I was originally planning to make this a radius but didnt have a roller that could do a radius as small as i needed so went with this instead, was just fitted to check alignment etc.. still not mounted properly.

But that lead me to a new problem... getting into these tight corners to drill and rivet the rivnuts.... ended up getting a 90 degree chuck for my drill so will work on mounting those next weekend.

The finished bending and filing down the leg ends, was sure to watch out for sharp edges this weekend so no more sliced fingers


Then drilled and riveted them in place


I had removed some of the mild steel support struts from my original design, these were supposed to be where the panels join, you will probably notice that at the joins sometimes there is some "sag" in the aluminium. I had removed the struts to save some weight. So started bending the profiles that will act as the new support struts for those joins.


These profiles will be mounted inside the frame area.


It will then allow me to join up the 2nd panel on each join keeping them inline, the profile shape adds tensile strength and will avoid warping or sag, and since they also aluminium have saved me a fair bit of weight.. (this thing is getting chunky in the rear if you know what I mean..)


So that was about it, spent most of the time measuring and making up the joining profiles, also measured up for the last 2 pieces of aluminium i still need to have laser cut (for the central section and the front and back panels. I will probably also order the glass sometime soon

So took some general pics and peeled off some of the protective sheets so you can see it coming together






That's it for this weekend ;-)

Squigly out!

 

Amazing.. Love how people have the patience to build something like this. If it was me I would rush it all in one day and the watch how it falls apart when I moved it.

Well done mate, can't wait to see the end product.

 

Thanks bud, trust me the patience does get tested many times over with this..

Ok well got into the workshop as early as i could but still don't feel I managed to get much done.. Think i spent most of the time contorting my body into weird and wonderful positions trying to drill into some of the smaller corners..

Started off by finished up bending all the profiles, this should hopefully be the lot!


Then started test fitting and drilling them


And got the riv-nuts mounted, so far I think im a close to 130 riv-nuts used... me thinks final assembly once its all been powder coated is gonna take a while.. :wallbash:




And finally mounted!! I must say this has brought the panels together nicely, am really happy with the result!!




I took a break from trying to bend and twist myself into the smaller corners and started working on the screen mounts.. measured them up then filed down some aluminium angle profile to be bent into shape


Bends came out pretty good, just used the vice and bent by hand since its nice and soft..


I will need to weld these up and then start working on the back plates for the screen case.. I will take some pics of the test fitting later for upload.

after that i couldt draw myself back to the small corners so was looking for anything i could do instead :blush:

So drilled out the button holes, and test mounted the button, for now there should be 3, power, reset and a lighting switch.


so after that it was back to trying to drill in the corners, after a few smokes and staring at the corners i realised i actually didnt need a mount where i was trying to drill, with the support struts i was putting in it would give sufficient hold and i could simply mount a screw head, for asthetic purposes where i was trying to drill.. had to stop myself from doing a happy dance in the workshop when that little gem struck!!

So got the other profile mounted and it worked out great!!


So that was it for this week, will be doing some work on the screen cases during the week hopefully :rock::rock:

 

Small update

Managed to get both legs outside panels support profiles mounted today, didnt take any pics as its the same as last week really.

I did spend some time this week working on a circuit i will be using for my lighting, its basically a 55 timer LED breather that allows me to control the "breathing" of the LED's in the case, all LED's will be connected to this, I may run 2 or 3 of them for different sequencing but will see.. Its just on a breadboard while i was testing so will have the PC boards made up soon.


Here is a short vid of it in action..
video

Apart from the support struts I also ordered the Plexiglas for the front of the desk this week so got that marked up and ready for sum cuttin


Got the basic shape cut out, still need to file it down for fine tuning the fitment.. that will take some time!


So back in the corner half stripped.. good news is that i only have 3 more holes to drill for these panels :rock: whoooop whooop :rock: am ordering the remaining aluminium for the front and back panels so will hopefully start on those next week... and that will mean back to drilling holes again :wallbash:

 

Been working on the curcuit to controll the LED's, got some standard breadboard PC board to do the curcuit as apposed to etching an actual board, its going into a project box anyways

Getting there slowly.. problem with using this type of PC board is that there are solid tracks across the underside that i need to cut or "break" at certain points.. made the build of the board a little slow and painful.. :wallbash: I decided to use some 3pin fan headers that i had laying around to get power to the board as well as connect the LED strips.


Amazing how doing a simple little circuit can turn my desk into a war zone!!


Finally got the board done and working after a few trouble shooting items (tracks not being cut where they were needed)


Here is a better video of the effects the board allows, flash in fade out, fade in flash out, pulse or breathing effect..
Video

Then got it onto the project box and fed the cables through


Done and ready to be mounted in the current rig till the desk is built will do another vid tonight showing the effect.


the more i think about it i think i am going to run a single board for all the lights.. if i add another for different sequencing on some lights i think im going to end up with a Christmas tree effect... :frown:

 

Squigly, this is incredible! Can't wait to see more pics of the progress.