Building The Black Tower
Building the Black Tower was not that difficult. I had some experience with rough carpentry, so I got a bunch of 2" x 3" studs and cut them to length with a circular saw. The Black Tower is really just a frame of 2" x 3" pieces nailed together. On the sides I decided to use bolts to hold the cross pieces so they could form a level surface for the shelving. When the frame was complete, I painted it black (of course!) to give it that air of sinister respectibility that you want when Taking Over the World.
The Black Tower has four levels. Each level is made standard 1' x 2' particle board shelving nailed to the cross pieces of the frame. Particle board used to be really ugly, but the shelves I found had a nice white finish that looked good against the black frame. I left a 1/2 inch gap between the shelving pieces so I could add some sliding clamps to secure each PC. The lower level holds two PCs, the second level has a monitor and keyboard (at the ergonomic height of 27" off the floor). The third level has three more PCs, and the top level is for setting up breadboards or other experimental equipment.
The wheels for the Black Tower are three inches in diameter and come with a mounting flange so it was easy to fasten them to the base. These wheels were about $4 each, which is a good price, but they are a bit too small to easily roll the Black Tower over carpet. If you make your own Tower, try to get wheels at least 4 inches in diameter.
On the sides of the Black Tower I mounted several power strips. You really can't have enough of these. If you try to take over the world with your own Black Tower, be sure to have at least four power strips. Above the power strips I mounted a wireless router, two network hubs and a wireless access point. The soft wood made it easy to install screws for mounting everything. A clip-on 50 Watt work lamp finished it off.
Now that the Black Tower was built, the next thing was to add the old PCs and get them all going again...
The Black Tower has four levels. Each level is made standard 1' x 2' particle board shelving nailed to the cross pieces of the frame. Particle board used to be really ugly, but the shelves I found had a nice white finish that looked good against the black frame. I left a 1/2 inch gap between the shelving pieces so I could add some sliding clamps to secure each PC. The lower level holds two PCs, the second level has a monitor and keyboard (at the ergonomic height of 27" off the floor). The third level has three more PCs, and the top level is for setting up breadboards or other experimental equipment.
The wheels for the Black Tower are three inches in diameter and come with a mounting flange so it was easy to fasten them to the base. These wheels were about $4 each, which is a good price, but they are a bit too small to easily roll the Black Tower over carpet. If you make your own Tower, try to get wheels at least 4 inches in diameter.
On the sides of the Black Tower I mounted several power strips. You really can't have enough of these. If you try to take over the world with your own Black Tower, be sure to have at least four power strips. Above the power strips I mounted a wireless router, two network hubs and a wireless access point. The soft wood made it easy to install screws for mounting everything. A clip-on 50 Watt work lamp finished it off.
Now that the Black Tower was built, the next thing was to add the old PCs and get them all going again...
posted by Documatrix at 9:29 PM
1 Comments:
pictures! we need pictures...actually we don't need them, but I like looking at big dark sinister looking constructions...
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