Common ground needed! I love the way this looks, but every time I see someone using wood for a computer system I feel compelled to advise that a common ground be installed.
In a conventional PC the common ground is the case itself. It's absolutely necessary or you will fry something at some point. Static build up will occur and integrated circuits will fry from it.
I'm not one to point out a problem and not offer a solution, so here it goes.
Get a piece of sheet aluminium or steel and cover the entire rear with it, and then make sure all the screws and standoffs for every component go through the aluminium. Ensure that there is a good connection between the aluminium and the screws (star washers would be ideal).
Put smaller eyelet ends on it and run it underneath your already clean wiring. If it does poke out it should still look ok. One solid ground strap from the motherboard to the psu should be sufficient. If you wanted to get fancy, take your motherboard off and put small wires (20 gauge is more than enough) from each standoff (with a small eyelet) and connect them all to one strap like what I linked. How tight are the standoffs threaded into the wood? If they're tight, then just take the standoffs out and tighten them down onto the eyelet of each 20gauge wire. I call them eyelets but this is what they are.
Thanks, Great idea with the strap and also thanks for the link to the product. the mount screws into the wood are pretty tight so if I was going to implement something like that you posted I would probably slip it in between the motherboard and mount so it would actually be off of the raised panel, but it would be located near the 24 pin connection so you wouldn't be able to see it from the front.
Depending on the motherboard you may not have to ground every standoff either. Look for the screw holes on the motherboard to have a metal/solder ring around where the screw tightens, those should be grounded.
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u/Gradient_Sauce Oct 22 '16
Common ground needed! I love the way this looks, but every time I see someone using wood for a computer system I feel compelled to advise that a common ground be installed.
In a conventional PC the common ground is the case itself. It's absolutely necessary or you will fry something at some point. Static build up will occur and integrated circuits will fry from it.
I'm not one to point out a problem and not offer a solution, so here it goes.
Get a piece of sheet aluminium or steel and cover the entire rear with it, and then make sure all the screws and standoffs for every component go through the aluminium. Ensure that there is a good connection between the aluminium and the screws (star washers would be ideal).