[Gertlex] – like just about everyone reading this, I’m sure – has a messy desk with monitors, keyboards, mice, several other input devices, tablets, and a laptop. He wanted a system that would reduce the wire clutter on his desk and after thinking a bit came up with a really cool solution for arranging his monitors. He’s hanging the monitors from a shelf above his desk using nothing but some aluminum and a few 3D printed brackets.
The main structure is a shelf of ‘bridge’ above his desk, made from 3/4″ ply. The inventive bit of this build is the two 1″ square aluminum tubes spanning the width of this shelf. From these, a few bits of aluminum angle pieces slide along the 1″ rails. a mount holds a 1″ round pipe to these supports, and a VESA mount is clamped to the pipe. There’s an imgur album that goes through the entire design. It’s certainly an improvement over the earlier battlestation, and the wiring loom cleans everything up nice and tidy.
[Gertlex]’s new system of hanging monitors is great, but this simple puts some even cooler builds on the table. The sliding system is great, but by putting one monitor on its own carriage, you could have an infinitely reconfigurable monitor setup. Some proper bearings, 3D printed VESA mounts, and maybe even a few stepper motors would make a build like this the coolest battlestation rig since the great ‘capacitor plague and I have a soldering iron so free monitors’ spectacular of 2005.
Hanging the entire desk would keep the floor in even better state.
Warning: If you’re married don’t read it loud unless you love spending new year’s eve drilling holes in the ceiling.
As long as the desk is suspended independently from the monitors, that would be a good idea. In my experience, the taller/longer the monitor stand, the more vibration from the keyboard can carry to the display. A suspended desk+monitor combo would add quite a bit of leverage for all that vibration, so you would want to isolate the desk from the displays.
I also wouldn’t recommend suspending things directly from a ceiling under a well trafficked floor (like a basement) for the same reason.
Hang the monitor rack with a spring buffer between it and the desk. A foam block buffer might work too if it’s not too heavy.
My desk has layers of stuff like an onion!
^- this.
I just hope it doesn’t smell like a onion!
Just different filing system. Whether it is LIFO, FIFO. hash, fixed location for things etc. as long as you can find something you want in reasonable time, that system is working for you. If you spend too much time doing garbage collection moving things around, your system is not efficient.
What is the official queue name for that thing where stuff piles up until it’s turned to sedimentary rock on the bottom? Geology? :-)
Are you saying that my desk will soon produces Petroleum ? :o
That sticky goo and the smell is just the beginning.
No, geology is the thing that tries to describe such things. You are looking for the stratigraphic hypothesis and a bit of pressure. Stratigraphy is the way I store and find items on my desk. Thanks Charles Lyell…
Memory leak
No, it didn’t. You just cleaned the desktop little.
Let’s put it this way: when you get a new set of drawers for stuff, you still have too much stuff. I built a new shelf for stuff, so I still have too much stuff, but I have quickly accessible places to put it when not using stuff. It also inspires cleaning up more often; previously the best result would still be a ton of wires from monitors laying on the back half of the desk.
George Carlin knows a thing or 2 about stuff…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac
Honestly I would say no.
It would have looked much better with the tower moved to hang below the desktop and with the monitors clamped to the back of the the desktop. The bridge makes it all seem very claustrophobic.
Having the desktop on the desk is about being practical, not “looking better”. Since I’m regularly tinkering with stuff, I like having easy access to 8 usb ports on the front of my computer. I also find that I like having my desktop visible. *shrug*
More practically speaking, my hand was forced at the time by the length of numerous cables… I really didn’t want to go out and find new power and monitor cables to get my setup working. Might do this in the future though.
If you like it then that is what matters. To me it is jus too claustrophobic with that “bridge”. A USB hub is a great way to put the ports on the desktop without having to have the entire PC.
I’ve had fantastic luck finding cables (both power and DVI) at thrift stores.
I second that. just picked up an HDMI cable the other day for a buck, also found firewire, CAT5/6, lots of RCA to mini audio cables & USB of all flavors, usually for a tenth of what new cables would cost at a store. I don’t even live near a major metropolitan center and the pickings are good, often cables are in original plastic bag!
I use a KVM switch for my setup. I have a set of cables plus Ethernet when I need to tinker with a PC so I don’t need to plug and unplug all my cables. Spiral wrap tubing at fixed interval along a cable bundle is a good alternative to cable ties, zip tie etc.
When you have a messy desk, wire cluttering is the least of your problems assuming you can even get to that. :P
Dangit Brian, why did you have to choose the worst pic? :D
He could at least noted this is “before” and given an “after” along with it, nice hack by the way!
Thanks to whichever editor swapped the pic, heh.
It definitely looks better. You could make it slightly more tidy by running the wires up the tubes or at least zip tying them to the back of the tubes so they’re out of sight.
Ummm, why not invert the monitors and hang them from their bases? Maybe with spacers if needed?
Then use the Screen Resolution option “Landscape (flip)”
That’s what I did as I already had the over-head shelf with the printer on it. So, I screwed the monitor base to the underside of that shelf. Didn’t really see it as a “hack” worthy of alerting others. Seemed pretty logical to me. :)
Cap plague of 2005… Man I couldn’t keep up with all those blown 16v 1000uf dell caps.
I’m really hoping led backlighting has made that a thing of the past.
I think tilt is needed if there are any lights across the room.
Computers came late to my workbench, which prides Edison’s. One monitor hangs on an arm off the edge at a right angle, above it one hangs from a floor to ceiling style 60’s pole lamp . Cases are behind those screens reachable from behind, and swing the arm mount away to get to the rear ports.
The cap plague won’t be over till poly-caps take over, since soy sauce electrolyte in ‘lytics.
i screwed two bits of cheap and nasty pine to my desk. then rested a bit of wooden flooring on it. my monitor sits precariously ontop. seeing this i now feel ashamed
I was just really bored…
this is stupid. much better to use wall mounts. way much cheaper and easy. I’ve it like that my quad monitor setup.
also, why is this here? slow day at hackaday office? how is this shit a hack?
And a slow day in the troll pits it seems.