[Zac] of Zac Builds has a shameful secret: he, a fully grown man, plays video games. Shocking, we know, but such people do exist in our society. After being rightfully laughed out of the family living room, [Zac] relocated his indecent activities to his office, but he knew that was not enough. Someone might enter, might see his secret shame: his PlayStation 5. He decided the only solution was to tear the game console apart, and rebuild it inside of his desk.
All sarcasm aside, it’s hard to argue that [Zac]’s handmade wooden desk doesn’t look better than the stock PS5, even if you’re not one of the people who disliked Sony’s styling this generation. The desk also contains his PC, a project we seem to have somehow missed; the two machines live in adjacent drawers.
While aesthetics are a big motivator behind this case mod, [Zac] also takes the time to improve on Sony’s work: the noisy stock fan is replaced by three silent-running Noctua case fans; the easy-to-confuse power and eject buttons are relocated and differentiated; and the Blu-ray drive gets a proper affordance so he’ll never miss the slot again. An NVMe SSD finishes off the upgrades.
Aside from the woodworking to create the drawer, this project relies mostly on 3D printing for custom mounts and baffles to hold the PS5’s parts and direct airflow where it needs to go. This was made much, much easier for [Zac] via the use of a 3D scanner. If you haven’t used one, this project demonstrates how handy they can be — and also some of the limitations, as the structured-light device (a Creality Raptor) had trouble with the shinier parts of the build. Dealing with that trouble still saved [Zac] a lot of time and effort compared to measuring everything.
While we missed [Zac]’s desk build, we’ve seen his work before: everything from a modernized iPod to wooden sound diffusion panels.
wow, spinning media for game carts??
i learned a long time ago the secret to optical drive longevity is to make sure it doesn’t have the case’s cooling fan flowing through it, collecting dust on the parts. i guess the stock ps5 must do honor to this principle?
Kinda doubt it, it’s probably using every air passageway it can. I mean after all, they will have two or three games come out and then make everyone buy a PS6
You’d be surprised.
I mean, not about the planned obsolescence of video game consoles, but the drive..
In contrast to the slot-loading drives of the ps3 and ps4, the ps5 drive is quite well sealed by the metal case that encloses it (which you can get a good look at in the video around 4:00 while he’s 3D scanning it). On top of that, sits in its own little pocket of the internal frame, where it’s walled off from the rest of the system’s airflow by plastic baffles. No intake vents anywhere on that part of the case.
The desk build is neat, and I still wouldn’t be too worried about dust getting pulled through the drive, but It does bother me a bit that it’s installed with the slot facing up.
Fully grown man playing video games
Sounds like 90s generation
I remember when the ps2 launched people camped out all night to buy a game console at midnight
Sometimes they served food and drink…
Usually little Caesars pizza and a bunch of 2 liter soda at GameStop back then
Real men participate in the games in the Colosseum.
lol. It’s the only way to keep up or at least not too far behind my co workers. 🤪
My problem with this project is that he doesn’t care to understand how the PS5 was cooled with its stock fan. It’s a high pressure fan that drags air in over all the components.
His solution pulls more air but barely guided and with no additional exchangers so air near components isn’t going to move as much as it did before.
Honestly this looked more like a sponsored 3D scanner, a sponsored 3D printer and a sponsored CNC all looking for a problem, rather than an actual attempt at making something good.
I’m probably just jealous.