Most standing desks on the market use electric motors or hand cranks to raise and lower the deck. However, [Matthias Wandel] found a Kloud standing desk that used an altogether different set up. He set about figuring out how it worked in the old-fashioned way—by pulling it apart.
The Kloud desk relies on pneumatics rather than electrical actuators to move up and down. Inside the desk sits a small tank that can be pressurized with a hand-cranked mechanism. A lever can then be used to release pressure from this tank into a pair of pneumatic cylinders that drive the top of the desk upwards. The two cylinders are kept moving in sync by a tensioned metal ribbon that ties the two sides together. The mechanism is not unlike a gas lift chair—holding the lever and pushing down lets the desk move back down. Once he’s explained the basic mechanism, [Matthias] gets into the good stuff—pulling apart the leg actuator mechanism to show us what’s going on inside in greater detail.
If you’ve ever thought about building your own standing desk, this might be a video worth watching. We’ve featured some other great pneumatics projects before, too. Video after the break.
What I love most about this is that there are manufacturers willing to send their product to someone who they (hopefully) know will openly criticize the negative points and will destroy the product to show their inner workings, which is very much not the normal modus operandi of “influencers”. To me, that already raises the faith in these manufacturers!
Will it fall victim to the classic problem of a gas lift chair–that when the seals start to wear a little, it settles to the floor after a couple hours?
I mean probally but my kid’s amazon basics chair is starting to do that after a year, my (hell if I remember) ESD workbench stool that probally cost 4x as much is easily 20 years old and only occasionally does that during the most bitter nights of winter out in the garage
Build quality matters. Also I guess the table will be loaded and unloaded and change position less often… Probably
It seems to have a brake, so the gas springs will only be loaded when releasing the brake to change the height.
Reminds me of the very flawed mag-lev furniture in Vonnegut’s “Sirens of Titan”. IIRC the scion of a mysteriously wealthy family blows a fortune investing in the idea. :-D