Gadgetory

after seeing us build one of the Internet's most epic battle stations intel reached out with a sponsorship and challenge build a new DIY desk project even better than before highlighting the 8th generation Core i7 8700 K in a be a gaming rig so we set out this time with a small form factor origin Kronos the plan a gaming setup that lets you have it any way you like switching between PC gaming and console gaming with ease and with a throwback to that analog feel with physical buttons oh and RGB naturally thinking it would be easier to augment an existing desk rather than build one from scratch we used ideas build your own desk tool as a starting point and chose a mixture of wood finish and pure white for a modern look that would also effectively bounce our RGB lighting around before we dive into the DIY action let's meet the gaming PC that Intel provided for this project origin pcs Chronos complete with custom paint job it rocks the up to 4.7 gigahertz Intel Core i7 8700 K and all six cores of it are tamed by origins own frostbite 120 liquid cooler which allows it to really stretch its legs despite the system small size so we modified the cabinet portion of the desk so that it could hold not only our Kronos but also an Xbox one X and a ps4 pro oh yeah and all of the circuitry needed to switch between them so we picked up these LED toggle buttons on Amazon this HDMI switch for changing our inputs and an Arduino Uno to act as the brain for the whole thing to make room for all these goodies we decided to remove the cabinet's top three drawers and then to shift the rails down on one of the two large bottom drawers so we could swap it out for a small one then using some white wood paneling that we got from Home Depot we made three custom shelves that we fastened to the cabinet walls by simply drilling new holes and inserting those small wooden dowels that are often included with IKEA furniture protip by the way you can take as many of those as you need from the bins that IKEA customer service ultimately we didn't end up with a ton of extra space around each system which isn't great for thermals so if you're following along at home then you might choose to keep just one drawer at the bottom instead of two or you can do what we did and integrate some cooling fans at the back this allowed us to keep the storage space at the bottom and the more finished look of the tight compartments but hold on a second if there's so little space above the Cronos where all the switches in wiring gonna go huh oh ye of little faith there's a spare three and a half centimeters up there now this is not quite enough for a fourth shelf given that the shelves themselves are almost 2 centimeters thick but what if we salvaged some of our discarded cabinet pieces to make a custom super low-profile drawer we remounted our spare rails and gorilla glue on a new facade that would hold our switches a wallah all the desks hardware in a compartment no taller than the trim piece that we were going to use anyway so it's going great so far but let's be honest this wouldn't be an LTT project without at least a dash of jury-rigged Jiang curry - let me assure you this is an LTT project to seamlessly switch from PC to Xbox to PlayStation we needed each of our physical buttons to correspond to an input on our HDMI switch one each for HDMI one HDMI 2 and HDMI 3 problem is we could not find an HDMI switch that had individual physical buttons for each input instead they all have one button that cycles through the inputs however they do come with remotes and the remotes have individual buttons so our plan then was to connect our Arduino to the remote and then just point the remote point blank and our HDMI switch inside the cabinet problem solved or at least it would have been if we hadn't accidentally connected a 5 volt power supply to a 3 volt remote and completely destroyed it in the end we soldered the HDMI switch directly to the Arduino and relied on software to send the appropriate number of button presses depending on which input you're starting on anyway after all that it was just a matter of using a hole saw tube or cable management hole so we could you know plug stuff in because that's important and so we could wire up our RGB strips which we opted to stick to the top side of each compartment way at the back for a sexy gentle glow then we added wood trim with a bit of overhang to hide the RGB strips wrote this Arduino script control the switches and the lights and put the whole thing including an ultra-wide monitor together ending the console wars and ushering in a new era of gaming a peaceful era of gaming once and for all not bad for a total of four hundred and twenty dollars so thanks santel for sponsoring this build and thanks to you guys for watching if you disliked it you can hit that button but if you liked it hit like get subscribes maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff we featured at the links in the video description also down there we're gonna have our merch dorm chests cool shirts like this one and our community forum which you should totally join