DIY Low Cost Benching Station

Another Fine Masterpiece Navig

I'm home, uploading now

Looking good there thideras

Looks great!

How many drives do you have under there?

I think the switching panel turned out nice. Also, I think its the best paint job I've done on these yet, but I really hate painting.

navig

Navig said:

How many drives do you have under there?

Click to expand...

looks like 5 to me. i see 5 sets of mounting screws.

Navig said:

Looks great!

How many drives do you have under there?

I think the switching panel turned out nice. Also, I think its the best paint job I've done on these yet, but I really hate painting.

navig

Click to expand...

Yuppers, 5 drives

3 in a matrix raid (left three), 135gig in raid 0, rest in raid 5. 175mb/sec

Alright, I've begun a new station. This one's for JamesXP, for his comment earlier on the thread:

I wish my benching station (under construction)looked as good as your'es navig

looks awesome.. nice job

Alright here's the latest pic of my new version: featuring full trim in aluminum.







Has a nice metal-meets-wood effect. Does bring up the costs a fair bit (over 10 feet of aluminum trim on there).




navig

Looks better x10

Wow it looks amazing. I've been meaning to put aluminum trim on mine but I haven't had any spare time since school started

Did you get the feet from mcmaster? If so what is the part number?

The feet are part#: 92675K43.

navig

BUMP to the top baby!~

I just built my ghetto version of naviqs bench rig..well its 90 percent done..I gotta setup a decent switch panel, just using some bits ganked out of some tear downs...

Fully functional, I have to decide on the mounts and locations yet and style of mount for the hd and or optical cages..

Harder then it looks..I hate wood......

Built using solid red oak plank, quite rigid...clear coated only...


just took number 8 spot on the p4 board with this old rig..half busted...rofl..

mobo works fine, except for the pci slots....using a ten mb usb adapter sucks!

looks like a mini coffee table !

added top view pic...


temps are low....

i was actually plotting something similar for my bench. since budget is a major concern for me, my plan was to chop up several old cases and weld. perhaps after i make a nice enough mock up, i can truly make a custom setup using the canabalized set as kind of a pattern. i REALLY dig what you made and the possiblities in El Grande are endless, especially for a guy like me who may build/assemble PCs 4-5 times a month for other people. nice work

Thanks,

The DIY station continues to be on ongoing project (a lot of the development has moved over to the For Sale thread). I'm on my eighteenth build! One of my stations traveled the world and ended up working for the winning team for the Tomshardware overdrive overclocking competition.

Here are some various update pics.





On LN2 and winning the competition.









The ever popular Brollocks bracket:



















The new packing job: Pull out of the box, lift up the PCI bracket and you are ready to install!



















The Extreme cooler mods: Extra tall standoffs and behind-the-socket cutout with fan mount:














And my latest creation: The triple level station:







I've made enough that its almost just a design pathway in my mind--so customizations are pretty easy for me build in.

I have been taking a mini-hiatus completing my personal project--watercooled exoframe. But I will be resuming production of new stations shortly.



navig

As Always Looking Great there Navig,
I like the Design of the Tri Level, will be very beneficial to those for WC Benching, with the added room.

On average what are the finished dimensions of a benching station?

How hard are they to move once they have parts in them?

The typical sized station is 470mm x 380mm. The height to the top of the posts behind the PCI brackets is about 450mm. The height to the top of the first tier is about 250mm.

I ship with the PCI bracket folded down at the level of the top tier. In such a configuration, I ship in 16" x 20" x 12" boxes. The typical shipping weight is about 13 lbs.

How hard is it to move around?
Not sure what you are asking in this question.
1) Everything is hard mounted, so you don't have to worry about components falling off the station, except maybe for your loose DMMs.
2) There are no sides to protect your components, so random blows and kicks will hit your components. So I wouldn't recommend kicking around a benching station.
3) I can and have added handles. I can make custom plastic shells, if that is desired.
4) If you desire long distance cargo transporting, the point is, you ship the station without components in a box, and you ship all your components in their own boxes. When everything arrives at its destination, the beauty of my station is that you can go from my station in a box to ready for install in 1 minute, and then you can go from components to a running computer in 10.

The stations are sturdy and can be man-handled. For example, I once built a station for a tester who liked to test his heatsinks in both the horizontal and upright positions. So I merely added feet to one side of the station, and you can just reach out and flip it on its side, components installed and all:



Try that with any other benching station out there!

navig

thanks