Wood Computer

When winter hits, things begin to slow down for us, which isn’t a bad thing. It gives us time to recharge and take on some personal projects. Some photography related, others not. About two years ago, I needed a project, so I set out to build a barn wood computer for Stacy. To my surprise, its still plugging along as her photo editing machine and has yet to catch fire.

So, with that, I decided to build another. Rather than working with aged, unforgiving barn wood, I decided to harden things up a bit with some Alder lumber. The end result is what I call a poor-man’s iMac. The computer is built into the monitor, making for a slim machine that blends into your average living room.

The computer is sandwiched between two acrylic sheets, making it easy to show people what a computer looks like on the inside. I integrated both power supplies, the motherboard, and logic-display board all into one, which helps clean things up and reduces the cables needed to just one power cord. Everything else is wireless, either 802.11 or Bluetooth 4.0.

Wood Computer Components

• Intel Core 2 Duo t5300
• 2 GB DDR2 Memory
• 32GB Corsair SSD
• 21″ Dell 1600 x 900 LCD Display
• Windows 7

After a long Super Pi test today, temps held steady and nothing shorted out. Ventilation is actually better than your standard laptop, so the computer is virtually silent. All in all, it was a fun project and another great learning experience. By no means is this a Photoshop beast, but would fit perfect in the living room or office and handle media, browsing, office suites just fine.