Build a Promoterism Media Sideboard With Integrated TV Lift, Cable Ducts and Cooling

This Instructable describes how to build a sideboard, that contains some typical media devices: an AV receiver, a satellite receiver, a Blu-Ray player, a TV and a soundbar. It also serves as a center for a home cinema.

The wood construction contains rooms and ducts for small media devices and cabling. The vertical columns feature ventilation ducts for cooling the devices.

The sideboard is built in promoterism style. This means, it has profiled edges, accentuated horizontal plates, frame and panel doors and ringlet applications.

A classical sideboard has one face looking into the room. This sideboard has two faces - one looking towards the media consumers on a seat group and another in the direction of an adjacent room. But it is also possible to build it for a classical use.

You need a wood workshop - but a small one will be sufficient.

A router and a milling tool suitable for promoterism edges are essential. I lent mine - therefore I cannot show an image - but this one is similar: https://www.boschtools.com/us/en/carbide-tipped-classical-bits-43722-ocs-ac/ .

A bisquit router is very helpful.

And of course, you need the typical wood tools, like mitre saw, jigsaw, tools for sanding and drilling ... and some experience how to use them.

Depending on the TV lift you choose, you may need some basic welding equipment.

Planning is essential for a project involving different disciplines. Everything should have its place and should be functionally integrated.

The first step is to determine what devices you like to have. At this step, you have to pay attention to your use cases, media features, appropriate interfacing and protocols.

In the second step procure the devices and analyze them functionally and mechanically. Do the devices interact as desired? What are the dimensions? How much place do you need for connectors? Are there any particularities for ventilation?

In the third step, try to arrange them and make an outline plan. At this point for me it became clear, that I need a wider section for TV and soundbar on the left and a smaller section for the AV receiver on the right.

In the final step, you can develop a detailed plan and determine the wooden parts.

Of course these steps are mutually dependent and sometimes you have to step back. The whole procedure is more like an iterative optimization and this may take a while. But it is your hobby - or later on - it will be?

It is good to start with the accentuated horizontal plates and first make all cutouts.

In the first image you see the cutout for the TV. As you need the inner part to be the lid, do not drill directly with a (relatively wide) diameter suitable for a (relatively small) jigsaw blade. Better start with a small drill diameter and then widen it with a fretsaw to a small slot suitable for the jigsaw or realize the whole cutout with a fretsaw.

In the second image, you see the holes for the ventilation ducts and the big circle for all cables lead into the room. With this installation, the cables submerge into some underfloor pipework that was installed at the time of house building. You may realize another outlet, e.g. near to some (back-)wall.

The second step is milling the edges. For this design, we have the profile at the lower plate looking upward and the profile at the upper plate looking downward. On opposite sides simple chamfers will suffice.

For my construction, the TV bottom area had to be lowered for a bigger TV in a smaller sideboard (see the realization in the first image of the next step). If you also have to do this, use the router again.

All connections of the glued wood plates are realized with bisquit dowels and glue. Of course, you can also use circular dowels or even dominos. But the bisquits are fine here, because you have to take care, not to work to deep in the thin plates and nevertheless have a relatively big glue surface.

Biscuit dowel connections yield extreme robust connections, but you have to work quite accurately. The front stripes have a 2mm overhang in front of the columns. This means, that you cannot use the milling machines limit stop to realize corresponding slots. Also the slots in the bottom and cover plate have to be adjusted manually. Don't forget to sharpen your pencil ...

First prepare the plates for the columns and make cutouts for the ventilation fans and the cable feedthroughs.

Then glue the columns.

After that glue them to the bottom plate and insert the plywood plate to separate the TV's chamber.

Be sure to sufficiently press the glueing with clamps and if you need higher forces, use lashing straps.

Have your carpenters square at hand. This is the time to care for right angles.

Now it is time to glue the cover plate. Treat yourself to a trial fitting without glue.

After fixing clamps and lashing straps: relax - the sideboard's body is done.

This Project is already some years old and I don't have that much images from the woodworking as I would like to have. Especially the building of the lid, the frame and panel doors and the shelving is missing.

The lid is made from the cutout of the cover plate. For this realization, it is thinned out in the area of the TV.

The lid is truncated for a few millimeters in the long direction. Thereby space emerge for the installation of a furniture hinge band.

The lid is operated by the lifting column. It shuts passively, when the lift retracts and it opens, if the lift extends. In the lids middle, there is a thinned area with a plastic plate enabling sliding on the lifts top plate with less friction.

Two wooden strips prevent the lid falling into the sideboard.

The door frames were made out of tongue and groove boards that were in my stock. I cut the tongues and grooves and milled a notch for the inner plate, which was also milled with a broader face-milling cutter to realize the rectangular elevation in the middle. Then glue everything together. My result looks not that good on the inner side - but these doors are for extraordinary use only. They are held by simple magnetic closures.

Promoterism ringlet applications are easy to glue on. They are available at: e.g.: https://www.antikebeschlaege.eu/antike-beschlaege/holzelemente/applikationen-holz/ah002-208-buc-120-40

The surface finishing was done with white shaded wax.

The 120mm fans are mountet on perforated aluminium plates, which are in turn screwed into the wooden plates.

I used 12V fans and powered them with a 5V supply. It is important to test that the fans start securely with this reduced voltage. But if you have a running combination, you will not hear anything from the fans. If I held my hand under the ventilation ducts, I feel a slight breeze coming down the duct. You may remove the dust from the perforation plates every X years. But thats it - the whole ventilation works fine over the years.

For the TV lift I used Linak components

• The lifting column DL4S: https://www.linak-us.com/products/lifting-columns/dl4s/
• The control box CBD6S: https://www.linak-us.com/products/control-boxes/cbd6s/
• The handset DP1K: https://shop.exalto.com/en-us/assortment/linak-control-dp1k-for-cbd6-control-box/036505
• The DP1K is not on the market anymore - but you can use other ones: https://cdn.linak.com/-/media/files/user-manual-source/en/deskline-controls-handsets-user-manual-eng.pdf
• A switchbox PCPSWT/A030100 for automatically powering the TV.

Linak products have a good quality. In the meantime there are a lot of cheaper Asia products on the market. If you like to use another lift, be sure to take this into account in the planning phase.

The DL4S lifting column has only 4 screws on the top and 4 screws at the bottom. You cannot screw them through wood directly. Under the high forces in a small area, the wood will deform and the lift will bend. To prevent this, realize a support made out of some steel profiles. Just weld something together, that is in your stock. Make sure that it will fit to the 4 bottom screws and realize some planar extent to the bottom wood plate.

For the adapter to the TV, you have to work more accurately. Take 2 rails for Vesa monitor mount. Turn the wood body on the side. Put spacers unter the rails, that simulate the TV's position. Then adapt some struts to fit to a cover plate that is mounted with the 4 screws on top of the lift. Weld all together and iteratively check the dimensions.

Sand the welded parts, paint them black and you are done with this step.

Mounting of the TV is easy after accurate welding. For the TV's cables, I used a spiral band. If I had more space, I would have used an energy chain but the spiral solution keeps the sideboard body small and works without any problems.

Mount the lift control on a door or if you have planned more space in the sideboards body, place it there.

Install all cables and small equipment in the bottom ducts of the sideboards body. On the right side, it has a hole for an underfloor pipe, which leads to a connection panel in a shelf rack for interfacing the house cables.

The satellite receiver and the Blu-Ray player have additional rubber feet for better ventilation.

This is quite easy, because of the media rack has a back door for the AV-receiver that allows wiring comfortably.

The sideboard is also a center for a home cinema. A projector (in an adjacent room), a screen, speakers and home control are also connected.