Cross by Red Harbinger - Finished!

[Peter Brands]

Quite a puzzle with what I wanted with the in and outlets of the multi reservoirs and both loops mirrored.

It became a multireservoir extreme

Measuring the reservoir brackets.

Going to have the tubes to the pump of the left loop in the bottom.

Again happy this part is aluminum.

Done!

And the first tubes.

Also quite a puzzle again with all the small distances.

Pump for the left loop.

Might change this later..

Mainboard done, reservoirs next.

With flasher.

Left loop with flasher.

And just the RGB LEDs

Exiting for me .. first time filling.

And another adrenaline moment for me, first time enabling the pump.

Also need to find another solution for this, now that i'm running 2 pc's I don't need the long sata cable lengths to the raidcard.

Maybe will order other cables later.

Great feeling when you don't have any leaks.

The Mayhems Pastel and red dye additives.

I was warned this could fail with such a big loop

Here I forgot to close one stopfitting after disabling the pump...

Glad is was easy to clean

Adding the Aurora, it was a bit scary at the start.

But got the result I wanted one minute later.

Another exiting moment....

But it boots with the desired temperatures

And a video of the loop, filling and mixing.

Got the Maximus V Formula in.

Only one day to go, so started right away on the second loop.

Meanwhile testing and installing the left system.

Raw fingers of all that tube

Again exiting..

This time premixed before filling.

Mayhems Aurora, cool stuff

But also creepy.

Both loops running.

Because there's a team of helpers ready to get the desk one floor down.. quickly close the panels without any management.

Ready to go!

Later today the migration.

[Peter Brands]

20 hours before I bring the desk to the event

Small reminder all photos are linked to bigger format photos

You can see on the face expression who's stressed

At the right the remains of the little 'incident'.

A filled pc with a length of 1.50m and 80kg that has to go downstairs almost vertically.

My wife taking pics and most of all ... paying attention I don't scratch the wall

The fun they had.....

Being relieved.

Temporary on a wooden box so I can do the last adjustments, cable management and installing OS+drivers+software etc.

The rubbertape I used for sound attenuation and protecting the glass panel.

Also filed the weld so the cover fits.

With glass panel.

This was a weird moment for me .....

"Desk ... I am your father"

[Peter Brands]

Firstlook 2012!

It took me 2 weeks to prepare everything for just a 2 day event including taking 3 days off from work ....

Well in my opinion it was completely worth it!

Ready to go! The Friday night before the event.

Inspecting the booth.. oops .. I didn't expect the front side wouldn't be able to show.

Too bad .. too late to change, this way they can't touch any of the buttons.

The first "wtf's" from the ASUS crew

Last minute adjustments so the glass panel will be flush.

Really cool experience, the constructing of an event, 1 big pile of ants

Checking if everything still works.

All just fine

Also finding a spot for something from a previous project. On top was no option cause of bending the glass shelf

This is how I had to leave it behind.

Believe me, this was pretty scary..

Till tomorrow morning!

Quickly getting everything running 15 minutes before the doors open up.

The relaxed overclockers 'Old Scarface' en 'Leeghoofd' also at the booth.

Here some shots of the event itself, made by my brother in law, still nice and empty

Everyone getting instructions

Doors are open and first people get in.

ASUS booth still pretty quiet.

Our little corner

Fun to see from that close.

Honored this could also be at the booth.

And some shots of the built-in desk now that it's still quiet.

First thing they run off to .. Black Ops II stand ... yup .. 100% gamer event

Really enjoyed the OC sessions!

Cards were gone within half an hour :/

For who wants to see more boothbabes .. check here

Ok .. here it was too crowded for me

Highres picture of all the interest for the desk.

Playing with Nitrogen

Here a small video of the desk 5 minutes before closing time.

The result .... I hate fingerprints

Astonished how the got the stand 'hardware-less' within 10 minutes.

And back home.

ASUS Benelux, a huge thanks for this opportunity, it really was a great experience!

For now a small break, need to save up some money and and saw in some stuff in the desk

[Peter Brands]

Cross back to her room

That went much faster somehow

A few orders with my last available money

So assembled it right away.

I like the new block a lot ... except the pci plate sticks out a bit.

So tried to bend it without a folding machine.

I'm satisfied with the result.

Draining the right loop ... by blowing on it

Swap the blocks.

Tight fit!

Got a (spam) mail with an offer to order posters in 100x75cm format for €4,90 each ... So thought I could try it for that amount of money.

I really think they succeeded! Nice to fill up the empty walls

For who's interested in these big format photos..

-> http://www.l3p.nl/files/Poster/ <-

And testing the loop again.

Small photo shoot

And playing around with the effects of RGB.

This has to be the weirdest color ... red completely disappears.

Getting both systems running again.

Idle usage .... oops.

That evening Shawn came with the cool idea to use the RGB leds, meant for the legs, in the lamps next to the desk.

First thing I did in the morning .. but the effect wasn't really visible cause of the sunlight.

But at night ... wow

Personally I like clear white ...

....and blue/purple most.

Here a video of the RGB effect .. and testing the speakers

Till the next update!

[Peter Brands]

Played around with some acrylic remnants this weekend.

Not going to order large amounts of acrylic for these prototype legs/build (hint )

Once you're busy I got the tendency to keep improving it.

Really love this cutter.

Would love to do the small ring too.

I had 3 small pieces of black mat, transparent and glossy acrylic, think the glossy looks best.

Testing it on the 'UV bench'

Drilling the holes.

Maybe I will add a ledstrip in the future. (would need to saw in the legs)

Next leg .. next weekend

Didn't have much time to play with the hardware yet.

However, on request, here some temperatures of the CPU/GPU with a bench of the SSD's on the left system.

And some temperatures of the CPU/GPU with a bench of the SSD's on the right system.

[Peter Brands]

It has been over 2 months, time for a small update.

Needed some time to finish some things up and save up money for the screens and stand.

In the mean time also finished up a small passive cooled Htpc mod 'L3p AlCu'

And busy on a watercooled Acrylic build 'L3p - Parvum'

Also gathered a small collection of 'Desk Pc' builds I walked into the last few years.

Desk pc build collection.

(Send me a pm if you want yours added )

So here the photos from the last 2 months.

First bought a second hand floorstanding monitor mount.

Decided to buy this since I like to work with the desk and hardware inside and adding another 25Kg to the existing 80Kg ..

Dell 17" mounted for the looks .. bit small

Tested some other stuff in the meantime with the desk and some hardware.

And the first one out of 3.

Was in love with the design since day one.

Few weeks later also got the second one.

Still need to find a solution for the 'missing' Vesa mount.

(Sometimes you have to sacrifice for design)

Warranty voided .. but the leg is off

The original Vesa mount from the RS Stand won't work on the 1.5mm plastic.

So thinking of something else.

Will be be the fixation from the original foot.

Gladly have some 15x15mm aluminum bar left.

Also glad Asus and RS work with metric

So some drilling and tapping.

And assembled.

First one hanging like a rock!

2 outside monitors will need a small different way but should be no problem.

Waiting for the third monitor

[Peter Brands]

Small update again.

First the gaming package for this build from SteelSeries.

And made the two other monitor supports.

The photos will explain it all

At this moment I'm fully investigating a problem I had with the memory since the start.

The mainboard doesn't recognise the memory from slots B1 and B2. (More info here)

Seems I got scammed with a second hand cpu

No idea what to do yet...

Hopefully soon the third monitor

[Peter Brands]

There has been quite a change in GPU's here.

Had the abillity to trade the 7970 for a GTX690.

This card was perfect for the Parvum build.

So decided to trade the second 7970 for a GTX690 too.

Will also polish both blocks and bridge like in the Parvum build as soon as they are here.

So played around already with them this week.

Under full stress.

After buying 2 239H's myself I got a third ASUS 239H from Asus Benelux for helping them on the Firstlook event.

Thanks for everything Rogier and Sven!

Couldn't wait to get it working.

And have my first triple screen experience

Here a small video, monitor isn't aligned yet and please don't mind my gameplay

Really an awesome experience!

Soon the final pics.

[Peter Brands]

Did the last photoshoot last weekend.

Will be sorting them this week and make a final post including 2 nice videos.

Here the last pics right before it was finished + something extra

Bought an LSI Megaraid from someone to replace the Highpoint.

Also decided to place the monitor power adapters inside the desk .. enough room for it

And the last cable management... pfff

Got my last order thanks to Highflow!

And on request a small 'howto polish EK CSQ blocks' video.

Inside Cross I will use Red coolant off course .. still couldn't resist to show the result with UV Green

[Peter Brands]

Final pics!

First a shot of the inside. There's just one power cable coming out of the desk to feed the 2 pc's, speakerset and 3 lcd's. This next to the 'standard' cables and watercooling

And the rest

(click for full res)

Lights off!

Taking my word back on surround-gaming .. pretty awesome

So is dual benching.

This wasn't just a casemod/build .. on the background the last 8 months I was able to to fully test the prototype on temperatures and compatibility etc. with the used products.

I want to thank² all the sponsors for helping on this project!

Some words from Thomas Nunn - CEO Red Harbinger:

"Well, it has been a challenge, and we appreciate the extreme levels of patience as seen within our fan-base.

We had no idea of all the complex logistical issues that would arise when manufacturing and distributing the large Cross desk around the world.

After several design iterations and manufacturing tweaks, we finally got the process down and have a viable means to store and ship out the desks to both North America and the EU.

Cross is meant to be our high-end flagship product, but while we were ironing out the key details, we designed several other products as well; we won't tease those photos until they are in production!

Our North American retailer is awaiting their Cross desk sample to arrive so that we may conduct final quality inspections on the finished product.

Once we review, you can expect the button to be pushed for final production and delivery to our North American and EU distributors.

As a status update, the desk is finished, with packaging development in the process as we speak.

Make sure to visit our facebook page or later our website to keep updated on future products and contests."

Thomas, Scott, Shawn, Chuck, Youri, Daniel, David .. you guys are awesome!

Next to the sponsors I also want to thank all other people that helped Red Harbinger or me personally on this project!

And off course ... you guys

(click for full res.)

At the end of this week I'll upload 2 different videos. An unpacking/buildlog video and a final video!

Is there a specific photo you guys like?