D6 - Deployable Desktop Dicey Digital Dual Display

Background, I have wanted to give D&D a shot for a while now. I watch Critical Role and love it but I haven’t had the time, money or anyone else to play with until now. A couple of friends from work play D&D and have groups they play with regularly. We were talking about digital display tables and there are a few online that look awesome, but what happens if you don’t play at your own house all the time, you can’t exactly pack up the table and take it round your friends house can you? Well you can now.

Everything (apart from my laptop) is either stuff I already owned or stuff that was getting scrapped and I managed to claim. I am happy that for a change one of my ideas has come together for no cost whatsoever! My wife is ecstatic about the no cost build too lol

What you need

2x Monitors (about to be scrapped)

1x Laptop/netbook (portable computing device)

2x VGA to USB adapters (I had them lying around)

Pallet wood

Wood Glue

Screws/nails/catches

Black Tape

Saw (hand/jig/table whatever you have)

Hammer

Screwdriver/drill (again whatever you have)

Sandpaper

Wood stain

Soldering iron (or an actual Pyrography kit lol)

Clamps/ratchet straps

Step 1:

Select your pallets wisely, you may get lucky and not a lot of disassembly required or you have a bit of work to do. When taking pallets apart the longer you take and the more careful you are the better the wood will be after. (I got lucky and found this one which just needed to be cut in half)

Step 2:

Measure everything and cut out channels for cables after all this is supposed to be portable and not too heavy so a massive case is out of the window.

Step 3:

1. Remove all the plastic crap and the stands from the monitors.

2. Build sides of case up and hold all together using clamps or ratchet straps.

3. Decorate the edge of the monitor, I used two handles off of a hessian shopping bag and two pieces of dowel rod cut to size, the centre line will be covered with black tape.

Step 4:

Sand off all the splintery bits I wanted the end result to look a little battle hardened and rough around the edges, so I only lightly sanded (to remove potential splinters) and the broken bit of the lid was lightly torched using a garden weed burner.

Step 5:

Attach lid and handle (with a bit of pyrography design for looks, soldering iron for the burning, google for the image lol)

Step 6:

1. Take it all apart and apply wood stain.

2. Wait for stain to dry, attach all with wood glue, nails and screws (as appropriate), also cut up the metal surrounds from the monitor screen to make some extra support fixings.

3. Add lid catches, simple twist and open.

Step 7:

1. Cover edges of screens with black tape and install screens in case.

2. Setup with any electrical device capable of pushing out to two USB powered screens, and away you go, as I have used two VGA to USB adaptors you will need to install the software on your laptop this can be gotten from the manufacturers website for free. You will also have to mess about with any images you use when you stretch them across the two screens so that it fits nicely.

I had originally planned to make a folding version, but swiftly realised 2 things 1. It would be a pain in the ass to get all the hinges just right and 2. It wouldn’t be much smaller/lighter than this one (which despite its deployability still ways the same as two monitors and a pallet of wood lol). I could’ve used a bigger screen instead of two small ones, but the big screen I have spare is planned for a table I want to make.