Hi All,

I have a somewhat ridiculous setup where I have:

  • 4 monitors all fully adjustable arms
  • 2 totally separate PCs (one running windows for mostly work, the other debian for sanity)
  • all monitors going through switches so any can be either machine with the push of a button (in any combination)
  • A M&K switch that swaps my M&K from one machine to the other by double clicking the scroll wheel.

As you can imagine this takes some space. I have both boxes under my desk towards the edge, and have a three section cabinet in front of my desk to neaten everything up/hide cables. It’s kind of like the one in the picture, except mine would be an isosceles trapezoid from a top view.

It works well, but I don’t really use the cabinet as, well a cabinet. What I’d like to do is mount each computer in the left and right area of the cabinet. At some point, I’d get around to getting an old electric fireplace (preferably a craigslist or garage sale on that didn’t work as a heater), take the door off the center cabinet, mount the fireplace in there and tie brightness to fan speed (that part I can do). As a bonus I’d put a mechanical vent switch that let me output heat to the front, or behind, where my feet are under the desk.

My question is: what do I need to do to ensure proper grounding? Also, are there any rules of thumb for air circulation? Any other pitfalls you might be able to think of?

I am also considering putting the guts of both PC’s in the center section of the cabinet, but I think that would make it a bit crowded for the fireplace insert.

    • batmaniam@lemmy.worldOP
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      6 days ago

      lol

      edit: Ok, I might have missed the joke here… I want to build a PC, two, actually, into a piece of furniture that sort of looks like the one in the picture. Is there some obvious reason this is a terrible idea? I figured I’d be able to set up the thermal management just fine.

      • Kruh Master@sh.itjust.works
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        6 days ago

        A picture of a home coffee bar in a post about PC building, with no reference in the post to said picture. The misspelling of the word coffee is just 😙👌

        • batmaniam@lemmy.worldOP
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          6 days ago

          It’s kind of like the one in the picture, except mine would be an isosceles trapezoid from a top view.

          I didn’t even notice the misspell in the photo, I just picked a random picture because I didn’t want to upload my actual cabinet lol

  • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl
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    6 days ago

    For grounding, no. The parts are all qualified and have many many many modern ESD and ground fault detection, prevention, and mitigations.

    The biggest problem with airflow is making sure it doesn’t recirculate as much as possible.

    • batmaniam@lemmy.worldOP
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      6 days ago

      Awesome! Thank you for the helpful reply. Are components speced with an air exchange rate in mind or something else that would help me plan?

  • aubeynarf@lemmynsfw.com
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    6 days ago

    please make sure there is a continuous metallic shield around the entire enclosure so you’re not polluting the radio spectrum with broadband noise from your PC’s components.