Building a minimal media center from solid wood with a $50 office desktop PC.
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- čas přidán 23. 06. 2020
- I wanted to build a minimal media center so I built a custom wooden pc case recycling a $50 desktop pc for parts.
My old Lenovo core2duo desktop was showing its age as a media center so I decided to upgrade it to a Lenovo ThinkCentre M82 SFF. Problem is, it is quite ugly to have one of these desktops sitting in your living room. So I figured why not build my own from solid wood. It's also a nice challenge to try to minimize the footprint compared to the original.
It needed to fit two 3,5" hard drives containing my media collection. I sacrificed PCI-E expandability to save space. I don't need a dedicated GPU anyway. It has an i3-2120 and 8GB of ram so it should be a decent upgrade
The goal was also to keep the budget as low as possible, I only ended up buying two 120mm fans. The pc was about $50.
If you like it let me know in the comments. Perhaps I'll do another version of this with new parts just to see how small I can go.
Also, I realize I could have made the frame from aluminum to save even more space but I never really worked with this material. So in order to keep things simple I stuck with wood.
The plans are available for download: here. Keep in mind that during the build I did make some changes that aren't reflected in the original design.
Music: Valante
licensed trough Epidemicsound: www.epidemicsound.com/referra... - Jak na to + styl
Good Job. You need these, WW skills, the right tools, patience and hours of work.
I really like the look of your finished case. The frame sliding into the case was a great idea!
I love the design, great production quality too
Thank you very much!
You lost me at hot glue 😅 but everything else is topnotch ❤
Very nice, I really love where you added the outside video of buildings and people, very nice.
Thank you so much 😀
Quedo de lujo 🎉
Looks great, you could make a front panel in the same way that speaker grills are made. Make a wooden frame and put some cloth over it. I have it like that on my PC and works as air filter too.
Cool idea!
Estuvo fabuloso el vídeo, todo quedó perfecto, no dudaré en hacer mi CPU
Glad the project proved to be inspiring!
Hard drive stuck to glue? I am against.
pekná práca......
Aside from the hot glue, nicely done. Has you had any issues keeping the computer cool enough?
Cool PC, but why is your TV in the fireplace?
Has been decommissioned for the past 80 years or :-) Also I live in a big city so not really eco friendly...
What about electromagnetic emission?
Imagine using all fancy tools to make the case to then just hot glueing the pc parts in place
Fuck I hate MDF
How can anyone dick with that -- is beyond me
Not very practical. Gluing the hard drives are very very impractical. The total amount of heat it generates will not get out through that tiny gap of the front panel instead of putting two 120mm fans. Those will not help. Putting the PSU over the board without sufficient gap, will eventually affect the board because the PSU generates a lot of heat and as the cabinet is made of wood (MDF may be), it would not pass the inside heat to the outside. So, the build is technically not so great and not useful at all. Though the video is great to watch. Nice shooting and editing.
Thanks for your feedback, the hard drives are held in using hot glue. Perfectly removable should you want to upgrade drives in the future. The front fans are the intake fans (not exhaust) and provide plenty of airflow. The drives are sitting at 32°C with at 22°C ambient temp. PSU's do not generate a lot of heat if not stressed, since this is a simple media center and not a gaming PC there is no need to worry. System is running fine for over a year now :-).
@@makerkarel2925 Great to know. May be it's time to redesign my thinking. But as I am going to make a drawer pc with which I will do all my editing works as well as play some middleweight games, I will try to make the ventilation better and much less congested. I know, I am not very comfortable with cramped up space... not for living, working or gaming. Like that I also try to make the inside of my pc airy. I will do that for my drawer pc also.... airy. 😊
Muito trabalho pra pouca qualidade projeto e montagem. Cola quente em coisa que esquenta?! Pior foi fechar a entrada de ar...
Nice work! Very stylish, especially combined with the rest of your living room.
I'm wondering, are the small cutouts in the front panel support enough for the fans if you would use something more powerful inside?
Hi Andrei, I assume you are talking about the amount of airflow? For me it was all about creating a minimal profile that would hide the edge and would prevent you from looking inside while providing enough airflow. Many full tower cases use the same principle where they allow airflow from the side of the front panel but you can see the gap.
For my use case it is sufficient but I have to add that I rarely stress the system since it is a simple media center. I do have 2 large HD's and an ssd inside but they stay plenty cool. You can also play around with fans of different amperage. I used 0.1A fans for this build which is quite low.
Thanks for your feedback! You are my first comment ever :-).