desk

41 Articles

The Emperor’s New Computer

May 27, 2024 by 57 Comments

You walk into a home office and see an attractive standing desk that appears bare. Where’s the computer? Well, if it is [DIY Perk]’s office, the desk is the computer. Like a transformer robot, the desk transforms into a good-looking PC.

He starts with a commercial desk and creates a replacement desktop out of some aluminum sheets and extrusions. The motion uses some V-slot profiles and linear rails. The monitor and keyboard shelf pop up on invisible hinges. When closed, there’s no trace of a computer.

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Walking Desk Is More Annoying Than A Standing Desk

November 26, 2023 by 34 Comments

We’re often told that sitting is bad for our backs, for our necks, and even our general health. The standing desk aims to solve this by keeping us in a more vertical position while we work. [Joel Creates] took this a step further by creating a walking desk that’s motorized and keeps him on the move.

[Joel’s] build started with a standing desk. He then pulled off the desk’s standard wheels, and replaced them with motors sourced from cheap second-hand hoverboards and a couple of casters. The hoverboard wheels and casters were upgraded with pneumatic tires for the sake of a smoother ride, and control is via a thumbstick mounted on a mouse. Power is via a large bank of lithium-polymer batteries which are responsible for running the motors and the computer hardware which [Joel] uses to work on the go. A solar panel canopy helps top off the batteries when he’s out and about.

As you might imagine, a guy walking around trails with an entire computer desk draws a lot of attention. It’s probably not the best way to be productive, but it’s a neat way to integrate exercise into your routine if you’re always working at a computer. Somehow we suspect these might not catch on. Video after the break.

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The Loveliest Electronics Desk You’ll See Today

September 21, 2023 by 10 Comments

Does your electronics desk have a lap drawer? And is it filled with random, disorganized detritus? Well, [Handy Bear] is here to show you that you can put so much more in every drawer you’ve got if you do it right. And boy, it sure looks like [Handy Bear] did it right.

Hidden inside this beautiful antique desk is plastic storage compartment after plastic storage compartment, all situated inside custom dividers made painstakingly from 3mm MDF. The first iteration, a cubbyhole arrangement, was not modular and looked crappy by [Handy Bear]’s standards.

Back to the drawing board and the scroll saw. [Handy Bear] came up with a new scheme that mimics the dividers in the plastic storage boxes they’re using for components and more. In addition to the slotted parts are open-top boxes for things like the multimeter, helping hands, and the ever-important label maker.

[Handy Bear] used hot glue and simple joinery for everything, sealing all the seams with a mixture of glue and water to keep it from turning to dust. We especially like the caliper holder for the lap drawer. You’ll notice that not quite everything fits inside the desk, so [Handy Bear] put the bigger stuff on a couple of IKEA carts. Be sure to check out the short build video and take the desk tour after the break.

Don’t have room for a whole desk worth of stuff? Build an electronics lab in a box!

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Denim Epoxy Table Is A Work Of Art

July 27, 2023 by 34 Comments

Epoxy has become a hugely popular material in the woodworking and furniture worlds. Who doesn’t love glossy, translucent finishes, after all? [Cam] recently spotted some neat combinations of epoxy with denim, and decided to see if he could replicate the technique to create a very unique desk. We’d say he succeeded.

A significant amount of material was involved, with [Cam] claiming he used 1,000 square feet of denim and 20 gallons of epoxy. The denim was sourced as a bulk roll, making it easy to cut to the proper size to make the desk. Liquid Glass epoxy was used for its visual qualities and its hard-wearing nature.

Combining the two materials was a challenging task. The 50 layers of denim had to be squeegeed one at a time to remove excess epoxy, a process made harder by the thickness of the material. Once all laid up, the stack of denim was compressed between sheets of wood, leading to an epoxy spill of monumental proportions.

Regardless, when the final desk was cleaned up and polished, the results were well worth the trouble. It looks like some kind of crazy denim gem thanks to the rich shine and perfect grain. It’s a material we’d like to play with ourselves.

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Chevron Desk Takes Advantage Of Plywood For Patterning

November 8, 2022 by 23 Comments

Buying a desk is all well and good, but [WoodCraftly] found that the options they found online were too pricey for what was being offered. Buying the table frame from scratch was much cheaper, and just required crafting a top to match. That provided the opportunity to create this beautiful herringbone-finish desk created with some simple woodworking techniques.

Plenty of clamps were needed for the glue-up.

The build starts with a motorized corner desk frame that can be bought from amazon for just $550. To create the chevron-finish top, [WoodCraftly] grabbed some plywood sheets, and cut them into a series of 1-inch strips. These were then flipped 90-degrees onto their side, and glued together to create a panel that showed off the individual layers of the plywood. This panel was then cut into 3-inch wide strips at a 45-degree angle, and these strips were then placed back to back and once again glued up to create the attractive herringbone design.

From there, it was a simple matter of gluing up panels into the L-shape required for the desk, adding mounting holes, and rounding off the corners for a nice finish. The desk was also given a thick coat of epoxy on the bottom which soaked into the wood and helped give the desk some strength, and a top coat that was sanded back to a natural-look finish.

Overall, the final desk is just the product of some smart cutting and gluing steps combined to create a fun pattern in the end. It’s always fun to build your own furniture because you can express your own style in your creations. Video after the break.

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PCB-Filled Dream Desk Will Only Get Cooler With Age

October 7, 2022 by 27 Comments

We all have one. Maybe you’re sitting at it now, or just wishing you were — that perfect desk. You know the one — a place for everything and everything in its place, ample acreage, specialized storage, and top-notch looks. Oh, and blinkenlights. Can’t forget those.

It took four months of hard work, but [Build XYZ]’s dream desk has been finely fabricated into fruition. There’s a lot to unpack with this build, which you can appreciate after the break, but it all started with a donated up/down desk from Progressive Desk. After building the base and putting it through its body weight-driven paces, [Build XYZ] set about making the perfect top, which, as you can see, highlights an assortment of PCBs by encasing them for eternity in resin.

But don’t let your admiration stop there, because the woodworking is just as much a part of the show. In addition to the functional blinkenlights that notify [BuildXYZ] when it’s time to stop working for the day or just take a break, there’s a working wireless charger hiding among the FR4. We can’t wait to look back on this desk in 20 years or so and we also can’t wait to see how PCBs will change over the next 20 years.

This tightly-produced video is a fascinating look into the process of forever immortalizing things in resin. So much resin, in fact, that [Build XYZ] came up a gallon short during the pour and had to wait an excruciatingly long time before more resin showed up. Seeing as how you totally can’t tell at all in the final build, we have maximum respect for [Build XYZ]’s inclusion of this part in the first place, which serves as a warning to the rest of us.

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Automate Your Desk With The Upsy Desky

August 28, 2022 by 33 Comments

It might be surprising for some, but humans actually evolved to be long-distance runners. We aren’t very fast comparatively, but no other animal can run for as long or as far as a human can. Sitting at a desk, on the other hand, is definitely not something that we’re adapted to do, so it’s important to take some measures to avoid many of the problems that arise for those that sit at a desk or computer most of the day. This build takes it to the extreme, not only implementing a standing desk but also a ton of automation for that desk as well.

This project is an improvement on a prior build by [TJ Horner] called the WiFi Standing Desk Controller. This new version has a catchier name, and uses an ESP32 to run the show. The enclosure is 3D printed and the control board includes USB-C and a hardware UART to interface with the controller. The real perks of this device are the automation, though. The desk can automatically lift if the user has been sitting too long, and could also automatically lift if it detects no one is home (to help keep a cat off of the desk, for example). It also includes presets for different users, and can export data to other software to help analyze sitting and standing patterns.

The controller design is open source and could be adapted to work on a wide-array of powered desks. As we’ve seen in the past, with the addition of a motor, even hand-crank standing desks can be upgraded. If you haven’t gotten into the standing desk trend yet, we hope that you are at least occasionally going for a run.