Step-By-Step assembly guide – OBT V1 & V1.1

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The OBT is so simple to assemble that we never really bothered making a step-by-step assembly guide besides the one available in the box.

If you have an Open Benchtable V2, refer to the dedicated step-by-step guide. The concepts are the same, and this guide should already help you.

So, here we are with our detailed, step-by-step assembly and use guide for the Open Benchtable. The instructions provided here are valid for the Community Edition, v1 and v1.1 of the Open Benchtable. A step-by-step guide for the OBT Mini is available in our how-to section as well.

On the Open Benchtable, there is no limitation on motherboard sizes, as long as they fit some of the ATX mounting holes. There is also no hard limit on the CPU cooler or GPU sizes.

First, remove the OBT from its packaging. If you choose not to keep it, please consider reusing it for something else or recycle it!

Assembling the feet

To release the feet, unscrew the four screws holding the feet to the structure.

Using these screws, assemble the feet directly in the two holes on each side of the benchtable as marked in the picture below. For better compatibility with all PSUs, orient the feet so that the extruded part at the bottom faces outward.

  • Place the screws in the red highlited holes
  • The extrusion can be seen at the center of the foot

Attaching the PSU

The OBT (CE, v1, v1.1) is compatible with the ATX 12V, ATX Large, ATX-EPS and BTX formats.

Note that the screws used for holding the PSU are 6#32 when everything else on the OBT uses M3.

The 6#32 screws can be found on the left side of the table, while spare M3 screws are on the right side.

  • 6#32 screws can be easily recognized because they are the ones with the widest threading

Attach the PSU to the top feet under the handle for better compatibility with the storage (see later). The PSU can be attached with the fan facing up or down, but it is recommended to use your PSU with the fan facing up.

You will only need three screws to hold the PSU to the Open Benchtable foot.

  • Once your PSU is installed, it should look like this!

Attaching the CPU/Cooler/RAM

At this stage, you should mount the CPU, the cooler and the ram as you would for any other case.

Tips from the team: In case you use watercooling radiators or large All-In-One Watercooling kits in a non-conventional approach (see the last step): This is a good time to hook them up to the table for good. We have a blog post with detailed instructions on how to proceed

Tips from the team: Brackets can be used in a wide array of scenarios depending on how you orient them, from 120 mm to 280 mm radiators. 

Securing the motherboard

Now, let’s get our motherboard on the OBT!

You need the standoffs located on the feet. If you take a look at them, you will notice that they are of two different types. Eight of them are the usual screw standoffs that help you secure the motherboard in place. The other eight are our fast mounting push-pin standoffs. You can use whichever type suits your needs best. If you’re still not convinced on how to proceed, we got you covered on our blog!


Tips from the team: we usually go for one conventional standoff in the center and push-pins for the others! (you can mix push-pin and screw-standoffs that you feel comfortable with).

  • Once installed, push-pins standoffs hold your motherboard

Securing the GPU

Next is our GPU!

At the bottom of the OBT frame are four PCI-E thumbscrews. For each PCI-E holder, you will need a screw-type standoff (from the step above).

Pick the quantity needed for securing your GPU and install the standoffs into the OBT’s PCI-E holes.

Attach the PCI-E thumbscrews to the standoffs, and remove the nuts from the top screws.

Insert your GPU into the PCI-E slot, the thumbscrews should line up with the GPU. Once done, tighten the nuts onto the top of the PCI-E standoffs.

  • To unlock the PCIE thumbscrews, loosen the nut from the top screw, then the thumbscrew will unlock from the benchtable.

Our dedicated post will guide you through an even more detailed way to secure your GPU!

Attach storage

You can easily attach up to two storage devices at the bottom part of the OBT. The Open Benchtable supports 2.5″ SSD or HDD of 7mm and 9.5mm z-height (thickness). You can attach a regular 3.5″ HDD as well.

Use the thumbscrews provided with the Open Benchtable to secure them in place.

We recently published an article that features a video on how to mount the drives!

Assembling accessories

To add extra coolers or accessories to your set-up, use the included brackets. These are located at the center of the benchtable. Screw them at the top of your OBT and then mount your accessory or cooler onto it. The brackets can also be used to accommodate all-in-one and custom watercooling. More advanced informations is available on our How-To section  

Tips from the team: Use the OBT screws to attach the bracket to the table, but use the screws provided by your cooler/accessory manufacturer.

You can already add community projects and accessories to your benchtable, mounting instructions will be in their respective projects. 

As an example, if you want to install the OBT debug card. Tighten it on the side with two M3 screws and tadaaa!

  • lpc debug card mounted

If you are interested in mounting Noctua’s VRM Cooling System, we got you covered on our blog.

Cable management

The end is near! You just have to lay the cables around and everything should be working!


Tips from the team: Use cable ties and make use of the space between the motherboard and the OBT to route/attach/guide your cables nicely.

Inspire yourself with some builds from the community

This concludes our Open Benchtable assembly guide.

Feel free to share your builds!

Community Project

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In this blog post we focus on the community project and how you can participate with your ideas.

The philosophy

From the very beginning of the project, the Open Benchtable team aim to create the best possible benchtable. At the genesis of the project: overclocking competitions took place all around the globe. Things have changed but the mission stayed the same. We wanted a product that is slim and compatible with the major form factor without compromising the versatility.

The philosophy behind the product stayed along the project while the use-case evolved. The Open Benchtable is now part of the daily life of leading tech-reviewers and enthusiasts alike. Moreover, as a team of makers, we know how frustrating it can be when products full dimensions aren’t easily available. This is why make the OBT family as open as possible by sharing our CAD (source) files directly with the community.
These files are available on our community page with an abundance of projects put together by the community itself.

Built for the community

Through time and passion, these makers came up with different projects to enhance the open benchtable. Spanning from a 3D printed Cable-Tie Holder to a DIY 360 Radiator Horizontal Stand. All of these projects are available to anybody who wants to use them. Highligths are avaialble on our community page and you can find some on sites like thingiverse .

  • Oromis’ cable tie holder
    Oromis’ cable tie holder
  • OBT Silver with 360 radiator mount
    Luakri’s 360 radiator mount

Industry support commitment

When they were challenged by the VRMs Temperature on a demo platform, NOCTUA chipped-in to the open source project. The creativity of the community and the open standard of the OBT made it a perfect fit for a custom accessory. NOCTUA designed a custom VRM Fan holder for 2x 60mm fans and solved their challenges. The schematics are available to 3D print, CNC or simply order straight from the community page. You can read more about the NOCTUA VRM bracket history on the blog.

  • Noctua VRM Bracket render
    Noctua’s VRM fan bracket

We always try to share all of the projects on our community page and make them available to the widest audience.

Community Edition

The Open Benchtable community aspect is an important part of the project. The first 200 units of the OBT where called and engraved “Community Edition” for that reason. We strive to share the community projects or your build.

If you worked on a project, an accessory or a mod of the Open Benchtable, contact us!

 Finally, we would like to thank every community members who dedicated their time to create these amazing projects!

Open Benchtable Debug Card Now Available

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February 8, 2021 – Open Benchtable is delighted to announce that the Debug Card, developed by ElmorLabs and designed to fit all full size Open Benchtable, is now available for purchase in our store.

The debug card allows you to display motherboard debug information sent to port 80 on the LPC bus, even if there’s no on-board display on your motherboard. Open Benchtable fans may recall last year’s promotion with the debug card. The debug card uses an Altera/Intel Max V CPLD which decodes the LPC bus and displays the debug codes on a 7-segment display. The prerequisite is that there’s a TPM or LPC debug header on the motherboard. Pinouts of the card, cables and standard motherboard headers can be found over at ElmorLabs.com. You can find a list of compatible motherboards on the ElmorLabs forum.

  • Open Benchtable Debug Card
  • lpc debug card mounted

This updated version has an improved full surface mount design with JST PH-headers for simple and reliable connection to the debug card. It also has M4 mounting holes (60 x 20 mm) for attaching to a suitable case. The product dimensions are 69.8 x 29.8 mm.

Included accessories:

  • 30 cm cables for ASUS/Gigabyte motherboards (2×5 2.00mm LPC/TPM header)
  • 30 cm cables for MSI motherboards (2×7 2.0mm JTPM header)
  • 30 cm cables for ASRock motherboards (2×9 2.0mm TMPS header)
  • 30 cm cables for Supermicro motherboards (2×6 2.54mm JTPM1 header)
  • 30 cm cables for power and reset buttons (front panel header)
  • lpc debug card and cables
  • lpc debug card cables packed side
  • lpc debug card cables packed
  • lpc debug card cables

Chinese New Year 2021 from Feb 3 to Feb 18

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As the Chinese New Year 2021 celebrations are about to get underway, we’d like to inform you about the impact the festivities will have on shipments and order processing.

Our China-based partners will not process orders between February 3 and February 18. The online store, customer support and community forum are not affected and will be available throughout the period. Barring any unfortunate circumstances such as a resurgence of the coronavirus, we expect operations to resume gradually after the celebration period. All orders placed during the celebration period will be processed once the logistics team is back in action.

Also, we’d like to inform you that all products are back in stock with sufficient quantity.

The entire Open Benchtable team wishes you Xīnnián kuàilè (新年快樂) (a happy New Year). May the Year of the Ox bring great fortune and prosperity to you and your families!

The ox’s earthly branch, meanwhile, is associated with yin, which is slow, soft and passive. Its element is earth, representing “stability and nourishment. It is believed these additional associations and the characteristics of the ox have great synergy and are mostly favorable.

Kathryn Wortley, Japan Times (https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2021/01/01/lifestyle/2021-year-ox/)
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BC1T Open Benchtable Pre-Order Now Available

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From November 1, 2020, you can pre-order the BC1T Open Benchtable. The pre-orders are expected to start shipping out from mid-November and arrive on your doorstep not much later. The BC1T Open Benchtable is available exclusively through the Open Benchtable web store for the next couple of months.

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Open Benchtable Product Family

The Open Benchtable project set out to create an open testbed platform for PC components, adapting to the evolving needs of PC enthusiasts and IT professionals. The project has now developed a range of benchtable products that are highly suited to the needs of a travelling PC enthusiast, overclocker, or any professional who needs to test components efficiently.

The lightweight BC1 Open Benchtable has received praise from tech enthusiast and reviewer worldwide including prestigious awards from Red Dot and iF Design. Eminently portable and fully integrated, Open Benchtable products contain all the components needed to set up a full system. Blueprints are open-source allowing the platform to grow and evolve.

  • Open Benchtable BC1 Mini Silver Edition
  • Open Benchtable Mini Red Edition
  • Open Benchtable Mini Black Edition

The BC1T Open Benchtable is the seventh addition to the Open Benchtable product family.

The original Silver version launched all the way back in 2016 as a community edition of the Streacom BC1. In 2017 the product family expanded with the popular additional color variants Black and Red. Later that year, the full-size bench tables were joined with a triplet of tiny BC1 Mini for the small form factor fanatics.

This year, we expand the product family In celebration of our partner Streacom’s 10 year anniversary with the Titanium color variant.

Order the OBT Titanium edition Now

Introducing BC1T Open Benchtable, A New Member of the BC1 Open Benchtable Family

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In celebration of our partner Streacom’s 10 year anniversary, the BC1T Open Benchtable adds a new color variant to the product family.

October 15, 2020 – The Open Benchtable Project is today delighted to announce the official arrival of the BC1T, a new color variant of the lightweight, toolless benchtable in celebration of our partner Streacom’s 10 year anniversary. The test bench developed in close collaboration with Streacom, the BC1 Open Benchtable is a community-inspired open pc case that has won awards from Red Dot and iF Design in recognition of its portability, aesthetics and design prowess.

bc1t open benchtable angle

As part of the activities to mark the 10 year anniversary of its founding, Streacom is introducing a new colour option and we are pleased to include the BC1 in this rollout. We call this new colour ‘Titanium’ grey, and it has been carefully selected to complement the existing black and silver colours, offering a midway natural colour choice.

Shimon Simon, Head of Design and Manufacturing at Streacom

We wholeheartedly congratulate Streacom for marking its 10 year anniversary. In today’s fast-moving business world that is no mean feat. Our journey with Streacom started in 2015 and our collaboration gave birth to the world’s best PC test bench. It’s been an honor and real pleasure to work with such a talented team, and we look forward to many more years to come.

Pieter-Jan Plaisier, Co-Founder at Open Benchtable

Open Benchtable Product Family History

Since the launch of the original Open Benchtable in 2016, we have expanded the product family significantly.

In 2017 we introduced additional color variants Black and Red for the full-size BC1. Later that year, we released the tiny BC1 Mini for the small form factor fanatics. In 2018 the BC1 variants were upgraded to V1.1 and included additional features. Somewhere along the way we also helped customers who lost equipment by introducing a Screw Kit.

In celebration of our partner Streacom’s 10 year anniversary, today we expand the family with the Titanium color variant.

The BC1T Open Benchtable offers the same features like the other color variants, including:

  • Support for XL-ATX, E-ATX, ATX, Micro ATX, Mini ATX and Mini ITX motherboards
  • Open Benchtable traveler sleeve
  • Highly portable and toolless design
  • Integrated legs
  • Brackets for radiators and fans
  • Two types of motherboard standoffs
  • Full length PCIe standoffs supporting up to four graphics cards
  • Mounting support for ATX power supplies
  • Support for up to two drives
  • Anti-slip rubber feet
  • Kensington security lock
  • Compatibility with a long list of community-made extensions

The BC1T Open Benchtable Edition is available exclusively on obt.com for pre-order from November 1, 2020, and is expected to start shipping two weeks later. The BC1T Open Benchtable is listed at $199 USD (traveler sleeve and shipping included).

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About the Open Benchtable Project

The Open Benchtable project set out to create an open testbed platform for PC components, adapting to the evolving needs of PC enthusiasts and IT professionals. The project has now developed a range of benchtable products that are highly suited to the needs of a travelling PC enthusiast, overclocker, or any professional who needs to test components efficiently.

The lightweight BC1 Open Benchtable has received praise from tech enthusiast and reviewer worldwide including prestigious awards from Red Dot and iF Design. Eminently portable and fully integrated, Open Benchtable products contain all the components needed to set up a full system. Blueprint of the actual BC1 product are open-source allowing the platform to grow and evolve.

Questions or enquiries related to the Open Benchtable project can be sent to: contact@openbenchtable.com

Mid-Autumn Festival 2020 from Oct 1 to Oct 5 – Shipping Delayed

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As the Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋節) 2020 celebrations are about to get underway, we’d like to inform you about the impact the festivities will have on shipments and order processing.

Our China-based partners will not process orders between October 1st and October 5th. The online store, customer support and community forum are not affected. We expected operations to resume gradually after the celebration period. All orders placed during the celebration period will be processed once the logistics team is back in action.

Also, we’d like to inform you that all products are back in stock with sufficient quantity.

The entire Open Benchtable team wishes you Zhōngqiū jié kuàilè (中秋節快樂) (a happy Mid-Autumn Festival) and may you enjoy the many mooncake pastries!

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LPC Debug Card With Power Buttons Free With Next 50 BC1

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In this limited promotion Open Benchtable is offering a free ElmorLabs LPC Debug Card with every purchase of a full size BC1 Open Benchtable.

With each purchase of any of the BC1 SKUs (Black, Red, Silver) you will receive a code to order an additional Open Benchtable branded Elmorlabs P80DB2 LPC Debug Card. The debug card allows you to display motherboard debug information sent to port 80 on the LPC bus, even if there’s no on-board display on your motherboard. The device also features handy power on and reset buttons.

The debug card can be easily mounted in multiple positions on the Open Benchtable:

  • 2 positions on each of the short ends of the benchtable (near the PSU or the SSD)
  • Multiple positions using the PCIe brackets
  • lpc debug card back
  • lpc debug card front side
  • lpc debug card side
  • lpc debug card front
  • lpc debug card mounted

ElmorLabs P80DB2 LPC Debug Card

The P80DB2 card allows you to display motherboard debug information sent to port 80 on the LPC bus, even if there’s no on-board display on your motherboard. It uses an Altera/Intel Max V CPLD which decodes the LPC bus and displays the debug codes on a 7-segment display. The prerequisite is that there’s a TPM or LPC debug header on the motherboard. Pinouts of the card, cables and standard motherboard headers can be found here.

This updated version has an improved full surface mount design with JST PH-headers for simple and reliable connection to the debug card. It also has M4 mounting holes (60×20 mm) for attaching to a suitable case.

This product comes with:

  • 1x 30cm cables for ASUS/Gigabyte motherboards (2×5 2.00mm LPC/TPM header)
  • 1x 30cm cables for MSI motherboards (2×7 2.0mm JTPM header)
  • 1x 30cm cables for ASRock motherboards (2×9 2.0mm TMPS header)
  • 1x 30cm cables for power and reset buttons (front panel header)
  • lpc debug card and cables
  • lpc debug card cables packed side
  • lpc debug card cables packed
  • lpc debug card cables

The promotion runs from October 1, 2020 (00:01 HK Time), until supply of 50pcs lasts! Please do let us know what you think about this promotion. We’d love to hear from you!

Order your Open Benchtable Now

Free Shipping Continues Despite COVID-19 Freight Cost Impact

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In this blog post we explain why Open Benchtable will continue to offer free shipping despite the COVID-19 impact on freight costs.

Please take note of the updates at the end of this post.

How Does International Shipping Work?

In normal times there are multiple ways of shipping a product from the factory to the customer. The most common methods are shipping by air and shipping by sea. While shipping by sea is much cheaper, it takes a lot longer to get the package to the final destination. Furthermore, to achieve a much lower transportation cost you want to ship out products by container. Since Open Benchtable ships directly to the end-user, this is not an ideal option.

Air freight is typically more expensive than sea freight, in particular when shipping with companies like DHL that have their own fleet. However, the cost can be reduced by working with transportation companies that use the empty cargo space in passenger planes. According to Flexport.com, “More than 50% of airfreight flies in the cargo holds of passenger planes. For Transatlantic lanes, that number rises to about 80%.” Sadly, due to COVID-19 most passenger planes are grounded.

Source: Seabury Global Capacity Update, April 3rd, 2020

According to the April 3 Seabury global capacity report, global air cargo capacity has dropped 35% from last year.

At the same time, the demand for essential personal protective equipment (PPE) has skyrocketed. Especially the Chinese producers have ramped up production as COVID-19 spread globally. The PPE demand is urgent and requires priority shipping, meaning it eats up any space on the sparsely available passenger airlines. According to Neel Jones Shah,EVP, and Global Head of Airfreight at Flexport: “Demand for PPE has ratcheted up the usual level of demand for air.”

The rapid decline in supply of air freight options and rapid increase in demand for PPE shipments has caused a big shock to the logistic cost. According to Flexport.com:

What we see in the air freight market is unprecedented. Pricing is breaking all records and falls well outside the past five years’ range of prices. But nowhere is the exponential increase more dramatic than in the Transpacific trade lane. China to North America spot airfreight pricing is now well north of 10 USD per kilogram, and full freighters are selling above 1M USD per flight—and increasing every week. Looking at the China to Europe airfreight rates, the news is not much better, having seemingly tripled in the past month. On top of that: Some ground-handlers in North America and the EU are imposing COVID-19 emergency support surcharges.

Impact on Open Benchtable Free Shipping Policy

Our own experience is similar to what is reported by Flexport. The transportation costs have increased across the supply chain: from factory to warehouse, from warehouse to forwarder, from forwarder to warehouse, and from warehouse to the final customer. Even for popular routes like China to USA, we’ve seen quotations for logistic double over the past couple of weeks!

Just like any responsible business, we considered how this sudden increase in freight cost has impacted our operational costs. The profit margin per sale will decrease significantly if the logistic prices remain elevated. While we are certainly not happy about the situation, we have decided to continue to offer free shipping to our customers for the foreseeable future* because two main reasons:

  1. We are successful thanks to you, our customer. We feel that in challenging times, it’s up to us to give back to the community and take the hits from increased shipping costs for as long as possible.
  2. We hope that the increased demand in the market will incentivize new players to join the global logistic industry and that logistic prices will come down on the short-term (3 to 6 months)

While we maintain the free shipping for the foreseeable future, we will keep a close eye on the logistic cost. In case the prices increase further we may need to revisit this decision. As per usual, if you’re in the market for a premium benchtable you can check out the variety of options on our Where To Buy page.

We wish everyone who is affected by COVID-19 to stay safe and healthy, and make the best of a bad situation!

(Picture by Dominic Alves)

* Some remote destinations can carry extra cost.

Update December 2020:

While we hope that new comer will disrupt the market (#2) this is of course not happening overnight. The cost of shipping have kept a steady upwards trend that limited our offering of free shipping to specific location. If the Free Shipping offer is not available to your location, a staff will contact you with a solution.

Chinese New Year 2020 from Jan 15 to Feb 2 – Updated #3

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Update 2020-02-21: Shipment resumed couple of days ago. Most packages are on the way. Delivery time might take a few extra days due to limited crew operating at departing facilities.

Update 2020-02-13: Shipments are on-hold until Feb. 19th at best. More information are expected at this date depending on the situation.
Important update: Due to the outbreak of the 2019-nCoV virus in Mainland China, our production and shipping partners informed us that delay will occur in reestablishing business as usual.

As of this update (Feb. 2nd) we do not expect any shipment before February 15th at best. We are monitoring the situation and will be updating this space with new information once shipping will resume.

If you have recently passed an order with us, don’t worry, your orders are secured and it will ship once the situation goes back to normal. Also the virus is not expected to spread on packages.

As the Chinese New Year 2020 celebrations are about to get underway, we’d like to inform you about the impact the festivities will have on shipments and order processing.

Our China-based partners will not process orders between January 15th and February 2nd. The online store, customer support and community forum are not affected. We expected operations to resume gradually after the celebration period. All orders placed during the celebration period will be processed once the logistics team is back in action.

Also, we’d like to inform you that all products are back in stock with sufficient quantity.

The entire Open Benchtable team wishes you Xīnnián kuàilè (新年快樂) (a happy New Year). May the Year of the Rat bring great fortune and prosperity to you and your families!

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