Gamer aesthetics are divisive, to place it calmly. Some individuals like gaming PCs lined in sufficient RGB LEDs to rival the sunshine output of a supernova and there are tons of circumstances available on the market that cater to these individuals. However a few of us want extra refined and understated designs, as a result of we’re grown adults with mortgages. And a few individuals need to cover their PCs solely. Nick Zetta, of the Mainly Homeless YouTube channel, falls into that closing class. So, he created the “Chair ATX” type issue — a workplace chair that doubles as a PC case.
For those who’ve ever examined a desk chair, you in all probability observed that it doesn’t precisely have an enormous empty cavity giant sufficient to suit a complete laptop. And no, a single-board laptop like a Raspberry Pi doesn’t rely. Zetta needed to place a legit PC, full with GPU, within the chair.
The desk chair in query is a FlexiSpot C7 Max. For those who aren’t acquainted, FlexiSpot is a barely premium furnishings firm that actually likes to sponsor YouTubers. You’ve in all probability seen advert reads for his or her chairs and motorized standing desks. As you’d count on, they sponsored this video. However don’t depart but! The undertaking remains to be cool.
To get a complete laptop right into a sittable type, Zetta employed a two-pronged technique. The primary prong was to make use of as many small and low-profile elements as attainable. That included a mini-ITX motherboard, a low-profile graphics card, and even a slim energy provide supposed for server racks. The second prong was to create an area between the chair’s base and the underside of its cushion.
That second prong is the place Zetta targeted most of his efforts. He put in aluminum spacers to create a niche the place the underside of the cushion connects to the bottom. That gave him room to put in a 3D-printed enclosure for the PC elements. He needed that enclosure to be as innocuous as attainable, so he spent a substantial amount of time studying the best way to use Autodesk Fusion 360 CAD software program to do the design work. He then printed the elements on a Prusa XL 3D printer.
Zetta ran the PC’s energy cable by the chair’s base to cover it, however he additionally needed to maintain the opposite cables (USB, video, and audio) from ruining the look. And he got here up with a number of options to attain that. One was a wi-fi HDMI transmitter, which is wise. However he additionally thought exterior the field and tried VR glasses and a VR headset.
In all of these circumstances, we’d say that Zetta succeeded in his aim of making the precise reverse of a rainbow-lit gamer PC.
