Project Logs

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• [T] Moving on to a test bench

  kelvinA • 06/25/2026 at 19:12 • 0 comments

  It's been almost 6 years since I started conceptualising and modelling this PC and almost 5 years since being able to use it while it was perched on the box the motherboard came in. Due to starting my #Hexagon Bed for a 220 cm Mattress project, I thought it was good to do some 5-year maintenance.

  Since it's been 5 years, I can only come to the conclusion that I didn't need the portability I designed Teti for. Instead of 3 screens stacked ontop of each other, I've instead just used a single one of them in portrait mode for the past year. 

  Since I hadn't used it for some time, I also disabled the Gigabyte Titan Ridge in Device Manager because I was getting a stream of Error 17 in Event Viewer where "A corrected hardware error has occurred." with it about 30 times a second. It obviously isn't advisable to route a PCIe wire right under the CPU of all things, and then flatten the weight of the motherboard on it:

  The above was taken while I finally moved the components to an £11 test bench, which I got so that I could properly mount the PCIe expansion cards, not have the motherboard slide when plugging in/out ports and even get a power button! Yes, I've been having to close the circuit with jumper-wire and something conductive, such as wire snippers, to turn on the PC for 5 years.

  For the aforementioned #Hexagon Bed for a 220 cm Mattress, I've been looking in a slightly larger, high refresh rate monitor with a small "chin" bezel. The only one that does all that without giving up touch is a Realza 18" 3840 x 2400 120Hz monitor:

  I plan to go down from 150% on the 15.6" the UHD screen I use now to 125%, increasing my portrait logical resolution from 1440 x 2560 to 1920 x 3072. 

  I looked in the documentation of the Titan Ridge and it supports full DisplayPort 1.4, not allegedly capping the framerate at 4K60 like the Vision D Z590I motherboard documentation claims. Using a bandwidth calculator, a little over 100Hz is possible without display stream compression; I've heard some NVidia features turn off when its in use, though I don't think I've ever used them. I believe monitors over 16 inches need a little more power than 15W, the minimum spec for USB-C ports. Since I already own the Titan Ridge, which has a 27W port that can inject DP into USB-C, the most seamless and lowest cost solution is to simply replace the old NVMe to PCIe riser cable with a new one for £8 (which is half I paid for half the speed 5 years ago):

  This test bench has an oh-so-convenient set of cutouts to port it right on over:

  As for #Tetent [gd0090], it means there are no longer any sizing limits.

• [M] Tetent Concept3

  kelvinA • 03/26/2023 at 17:57 • 0 comments

  
  

  I will write a more detailed log in the #Tetent [gd0090] project, but I was seeing if adding a copper line would tie the look together with Teti and I think it does and I had to write about it ASAP. 

  The stripe doesn't go all the way around the back (similar to Teti) and I think that preserves the pure white look from the 3rd person perspective:

  I also like the larger diamond squares as it looks more modern than if I had a speaker grille with squares the same size as Teti. It also looks like a brand image decision and not a generic grille. I also think that, from the first person perspective, there's enough copper to break up the otherwise bland looking white shape.
  

  Lastly, I've added the same reflective LCDs on the bottom. The BOM of this "controller" is over £200, so I don't think it's too bad to add 10% for the satisfying convinience of not having to worry about device orientation, especially when Tetent is in a pocket. Just grab, calibrate and type.

  New main project render

• [M] Small file updates

  kelvinA • 09/19/2022 at 10:21 • 0 comments

  Tetent as modelled in https://hackaday.io/project/184181/log/211077

  Width increased from 185 to 190mm.

  The screen holders have been increased to the same length as the two Tetent's, which is currently 214mm. The print thickness has decreased slightly from 12 to 11mm so that they'd fit. This decreases the pressure exerted on the screens, and should make the tablet stand and laptop mode more stable.

  Wed 21st Sep

  Following the PCB design of #Tetrinsic [gd0041], I've updated the branding of #Tetent [gd0090] and Teti.

• [M] Small tweaks

  kelvinA • 07/13/2022 at 16:21 • 0 comments

  First was adding some faces to the mini logos so that they can be lifted up and slotted back in. This is to allow storage of the Tetents.Then I modelled the clips that will hopefully keep the screens in place.

  Currently, I'm adding mounting holes and slots everywhere, in hopes of being able to print a minimum viable box.

  I don't know why I didn't think about it until I woke up today, but I could've designed and printed these sections of the case and have my PC in some resemblance to a box instead of living ontop of the motherboard's packaging box.

  It also allows me to make sure all the wires fit in here before I start printing the rest of the case.

• [R] OLED Screens

  kelvinA • 07/11/2022 at 01:06 • 0 comments

  I just found out that 4K touch portable OLED screens now exist, and at a price that is actually affordable: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004110616192.html

  If these were around in Dec 2020 when I bought my screens, I most likely would've jumped on these instead. Thinner, deeper blacks, more colours, built in stand and has a full sized USB? Yes please.

  Especially nowadays since the screens I bought late 2020 have gone up £70 each.

  It also looks to have less chin.

  Oh there's also an IPS one in the same body.

  Then it would've been an even easier sell to me. Buy 1 OLED main and 2 IPS additionals.

• [M] Screen Holders and Dual Screen Laptop Mode

  kelvinA • 06/17/2022 at 15:40 • 0 comments

  [17:30] Sigh... Now that I'm back into designing Teti, I think I can see the reason why my progress has stalled for months: all the "low hanging fruit" tasks mostly dried up and it was now predominantly the complex tasks left. One such task is designing the screen holder.

  Read more »

• [M] Feature Naming and Branding

  kelvinA • 06/17/2022 at 08:18 • 0 comments

  Last night, I was renaming Fusion 360 features to bring the standard of the CAD file more inline to the best practices I thought up a while ago. I also added a temporary stack of screen holders in the area that has been vacant for quite some time (see below).

  Eventually, I got to the part of the model that puts branding on the left panel, and I wanted to change it in a way that would be consistent with other projects.

  Read more »

• [E1][A] Initial Project Status

  kelvinA • 04/08/2022 at 01:19 • 1 comment

  This is what the first 2 designs of Teti looked like before I thought of the current one:

  The idea was to use 2020 and 2060 extrusions for the frame. The first one was going to use magnets to hold the screens at the top. I was also planning to use the RX6800XT but my human eye could only see out of stock. The image below is what I expect it to look like when all 3 screens are out, with a 27" iMac for scale:

  Anyway, the 5900X was also out of stock and the Z590I Vision D ITX just came out with the cleanest and most ideal IO I could've ever hoped for, so I switched to an 11600K + 3060Ti system and embraced the all-white I originally planned for:

  I went for black because it looked a bit cooler during the design stage. Anyway, this third design drastically simplified things, as I no longer needed an AIO or GPU riser cable and could just use the PCIe port the ITX came with along with a Noctua NH-D9L CPU cooler whilst still staying under 200mm width. This was the first concept, planned for an RTX 3070 in October 2020:

  That blue block at the bottom was magnetically attached and would've been the base for the monitor stand before I thought of making the PC case itself the monitor stand. This concept also used some older screens that never worked out. They arrived from AliExpress bent, the main 4K monitor's touch didn't work and the dual 1080p's confirmed my suspicions that I needed a resolution of 1440p+ if I wanted to work without distractions.

  Currently, the PC is sitting on the box the motherboard came in:

  I also tried the 3 screens with some filament spool boxes:

  Right now, my task list is:

  • Go through the model and add mounting screws
  • Design the screen stands / holders
    • These holders need to be able to hold them in the 3 screen setup as well as individually like a tablet stand
  • Design a kind of locking mechanism to keep the screens in place in the case
  • Add the hinges for the 3 monitor setup stands
  • Add the holders for the screen stands

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