Almost a year ago, it occurred to me that everything is better when it rotates (excluding people who mostly get dizzy and hurl). Since PCs are the best thing there is already, how could I pass up the opportunity to make the best thing even better? But first I had to figure out how to do it. I looked at my ceiling fan and wondered...

Why don't the cables get twisted?

This is the first question I get when people see a video of the PC rotating while it operates (slo mo if you have 1:01 to spare). The answer is slip rings. They are used for anything that has an electrically connected rotating component (Merry Go Rounds, Wind Turbines, MRI machines, your friend who's actually a robot, etc.). They are basically just cables that rotate on one side and are stationary on the other. In the middle is a set of rotating brushed connections.

I used 4 slip rings (DisplayPort, Ethernet/Signals, USB 3.0, and Power) to connect the rotating components to the stationary frame. The difference between my use of slip rings and all other designs with slip rings is that mine is a totally backwards and useless application of the technology. Useless, that is, if you think having fun for no reason is useless.

Powertrain

The Rotating PC powertrain (motor, gears, bearings, and center pole/drive shaft) features the awesome spiral bevel mitered gear set. It delivers rotational power to the vertical shaft at a 1:1 ratio from the low speed, high torque motor. The gears are massive overkill for this application, but they were just too cool to pass up when I found them on sale. The top speed is 2mph when the center pole is loaded with components, which sounds slow until you try to spin yourself in a circle that fast while running stress tests at 1440p/85Hz/100fps in your head.

Custom case

I built the frame as a hexagon to reduce the footprint as much as possible without crashing PC components into the case walls. Features include:

  • 300 degree visibility through clear Lexan polycarbonate case sides
  • Strong, light-weight aluminum square pipe frame
  • Magnetically attached rear service case sides
  • Adjustable case feet
  • Scrolled engraving on the frame
  • Stash hiding
  • Custom 120 degree steel angle brackets

Building the rig

Note: If you're a glutton for punishment, I posted daily for the build on Instagram @larbearlair for the 4 months or so it took to complete it.

I was always trying to figure out how to mount parts to the frame or each other. There are at least 100 mounting points in the build. I made and used a lot of hardware. To maintain the tensile strength of the horizontal powertrain support rails, I used the same holes, bolts, and nuts to mount fans, slip ring stops, the mesh filter cloth, spit and bailing wire, and so on. I spent a lot of time figuring out where to drill and attempting to be as precise as possible. I used just about every standard size screw, both metric and SAE.

For the rebar component support arms, I cut threads onto the ends so I could use lock nuts to mount them on the center pole/shaft. It is hard work bending rebar. I did it manually using hicky sticks (orange poles in pics). I found out the hard way that they're called that because, when they suddenly slip off the rebar, they fire back at you giving you a hicky, also known as a concussion.

By far the hardest part of this build was aligning the horizontal and vertical spiral bevel gears, especially since I had basically no experience doing it before. The mounting distance needs to be within 1/100 of an inch, they need to address at a perfect right angle, and they just personally dislike me, or so I thought at the time.

I cut up an old Dell case to make the electronics back plate and the front I/O. Probably the best use for most new Dell PCs also.

PC components

The components are matched for their complementary performance. I used an RTX 2070 Super because the DisplayPort slip ring limits the display to 1440p at 85Hz. (See Temps below for more about the MSI Ventus. Hint: Not good.) Given the card limitation and the fact that this is a gaming system, the Ryzen 3600X has plenty of processing power.

I've had good luck with the Silverstone small form factor power supplies and not many companies make them with that much wattage, so that was an easy choice. The X570i motherboard is overkill but was worth it for the reliability and future proofing.

Noise

On the positive side, gears this large make soothing wheels on cobblestone sounds. However, if you need quiet time or are putting yourself in a time out, it's best to turn them off. I went with the big Noctua fans because they are quiet and move a lot of air. I also love the classic Noctua tan and brown look. Thanks to Noctua for sending me the fans!

Temps

Temps in the PC rotation chamber aren't an issue because of the 8 fans in top (4) to bottom (4) configuration. Six are 150mm Noctua cooler fans (low noise while moving a lot of air) and 2 are 120mm Noctuas (the top 4 are run at higher speeds to create positive pressure in the chamber). The loudspeaker mesh I used for air filtering allows plenty of air flow and the air from the exhaust fans under the system never felt hot.

The little Noctua cooler does an admirable job on the CPU with temps idling around 40C and peaking in the 70s under stress. The graphics card idles in the low 30s and peaks low 80s under the highest benchmarking stress. The Ventus has MSI created issues, including a thick solid plastic backplate that traps heat under the GPU. Also, the VRAM modules are only 1/2 covered by thermal padding, because MSI used a cooling plate that doesn't completely cover them. MS why? Next time I buy a card, I'm going to make sure it has a cooling plate designed for the card.

Performance

The rotation of the components has no effect on the PCs performance. I ran the same bench tests with the PC both rotating and stationary. I didn't spend much time tuning the performance of the CPU or GPU, so the scores in the Cinebench (3600), Heaven (4000), and Time Spy (9500) benchmarks are nothing special.

One cool thing is that the wi-fi signal is stronger when the antenna is rotating. Up to 100 Mb (360 vs. 460, with apologies to those who don't even get 100 Mb total) depending on the position of the antenna in the chamber when it is stationary.

Conclusion

If you actually read all that, you may want to check Ancestry to see if we're related. Thanks again PCPP and to all who took the time to check out my build!