What about making the center section of desk over the pc's a liftable flap. Then you can pass all the cables under the desks then down into the mobo sections. You could make the breaks a feature, edge the sides of the flap with perspex with led's embeded use them as the power and HDD activity lights.
I know I said 30 minutes, but got caught up with chores. Anyway, I worked this up the best I could. I have yet to figure out about the bottom legs cause I am thinking of something really neat with some intricate cuts and lighting, possibly shelving too. The word cubicle still comes to my mind but my wife says she really likes this design better than the first one. The desktop can be cut out of 4' x 8' sheets to keep it very stable, however it can also be cut in half to add versatility to it...the side edges could then be put together to look similar to the first design, or they can just be in separate corners. With this layout though it would not be able to completely go in the corner as the person on the left side would be cramped into the wall. But I like the fact that the mobo's are in one location respectively. I have yet to figure out where to put all the DVD and HD's at, but there is plently of room in the "triangle" for them, as well as doing a stealth DVD drive near the lower section. I will have to do a custom mobo bracket as a regular sized one would have to be hacked to pieces in order to fit properly. On this design of the stations the top would lift up allowing easy access to the rear of the mobo. The only other downside to this would be needing a chair to get to the top of this beast...I am working on that though as I have yet to try putting in just a board to see if I could do an accessible panel from the front. New front view: Closeup of the motherboard casing: Individual workstation: Anyways, I will be doing quite a bit more work on this layout since it seems what "we" (my wife) wants Please keep the suggestions and comments coming. @Drysofar: That sounds freaking wicked doing the glass LED's as power and HDD activity lights, but I have absolutely no idea how to wire that up I believe if it could be done I would still need it on a switch as well so I could turn them off if it were an inconvenience (wife complains ). This sounds logical though so I will be looking up some stuff on it. One thing though, a normal Activity/Power LED draws its voltage from the motherboard...if I were to wire this up to the LED's for the plexi, I don't think that it would provide enough voltage. The LED's that is needed for what is in the first picture is going to be like 80 LED's...I still have yet to do the bottom and layout any LED's for it. If I were to go that route I would probably just incorporate the plexi under the monitor platform for this feature.
wow, a mod with a wife clausule... instant MOTM material if you ask me! I like the new layout, though i don't think i'd let the construction get that far off the wall. I'm very interested, keep going
Just think, I have yet to style the bottom, and add all of the spiffy do-dads to make this thing really ugly I know I can get similar corner desks from a company that virtually do the same thing, but it would not have the comp built in, or be nearly as unique.
Having a change of plans Unfortunately with the cost of building this desk, I will be unable to afford an LCD which debunks the design down now to only using the CRT we have. I have also been unable to work the mobo tray around for some sort of hidden front access, without having to raise the monitor platform up another 8" unless there was a way to have the PCI cards installed at a different location (I don't even know which keywords to begin goggling that at). All this while keeping it "upgradeable" if a part ever goes out such as the PSU or mobo. Creating a custom mobo tray just for this would limit me to finding the exact sized mobo with its current layout. Still working on this though...
