Shop workbench computer

That is VERY cool, Dick!! I’d love to set up something like this.

One question…how did you handle, if at all, the heat build-up from the CPU?

- Keith

The HP Thin Client is low power and fan-less. I just drilled a few 1” or so holes top and bottom for convection cooling.

-- Dick, http://www.carveshop.com

A nice personal touch and love how nice it all looks…....

-- What we do in life will Echo through Eternity........

A cool way to combine nature and technology! Nice.

Awesome work! Really a cool project!
I like the Buttons! Nice Touch!

-- Robert B. Sabina, Ohio.....

That’s what I call nice. Man you are uptown on this project. Like that shop setting also. I would be ashamed to post pictures of my shop.
Would like to have more information on how you were able to take the laptop apart and install it in the cabinet. Well I really don’tknow enough to really ask questions. I have a Hp laptop that I use for my shop and sure would love to be able to do as you did. HELP

-- Tom Godfrey Landrum South Carolina (tom@thcww.com) 864-384-4938

Thanks.

I did not use a laptop, I used an HP T5700 Thin Client. I’ve posted a picture of it, removed from its plastic case. There’s one listed on eBay right now – actually several for $39. I don’t have the exact dimensions, but it measured about 6” x 6” x 2”. It came with a small solid state drive which I replaced with a notebook hard drive that you see in the photo. You can also see the large heat sinks that, along with the low power draw, require no fans.

The display was a standard desktop display and I simply removed the guts of it from its plastic case. The specifics would of course depend upon the particular display. Again listed on eBay for $41 right now.

-- Dick, http://www.carveshop.com

Nicely done! Sure beats printing things out then running back downstairs only to have forgotten a page.

how are you keeping dust out? or are you just opening it up and blowing out every so often.

Nothing special. Since there is no fan, I don’t think that a lot of dust is getting in. I suppose I should open it up and check. But I think if I just blew compressed air in once in a while it would clear out any dust that got in.

-- Dick, http://www.carveshop.com

you should probably open it occasionally as powered electronics have the bad habit of electrostatically attracting dust from the Air. At the tv stations I have worked at the engineers actually have to go through the racks from time with a little electronics vacuum and clean out the build up. The other side to that is that dust accumulation does actually cause increased heat build up and thereby shorten the live of said electronics.

I have never installed something like this in a shop but I would have to think that even with dust collection that there will be enough in the air to be sucked in.

Dick, you beat me to the post…lol.

I have a mini-itx pc that I used in my truck for a couple of years. I am currently working on integrating it into my shop. (http://www.enterprise-dashboard.com/tag/nissan-titan-dashboard/) It can be used as an online reference, documentation, and media server. I am going to take it a step further and connect the tools to the pc…more to follow.

As far as dust, you can use flexible copper conduit to make a vent “tube” that coils around the processor and uses air flow to cool the core. It gets sealed to the case at both ends so there is no direct contact with the computer components.

Great idea!

-- Visit my blog at http://drunkenwoodworker.com

Nice project. Now I want to take the old laptop I have sitting around and re-hack it to make something like this.

-- -=Pride is not a sin=-

The shop cabinets are rather nice too. How about you post some pics of your shop?

-- Greg D. -- the price of freedom is tolerance