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| Quandary: gotta have a PC at the workbench but what kind of setup is best? |
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| tautech:
Pete, drop by for a coffee and chat and have a squiz at my PC setups not that they’re anything special but there’s a few ideas that might be of interest to you. I will add the bench you are to work with really determines what style of PC suits it best. Wireless keyboard is a must have ! Mouse not so much unless you can find one that doesn’t eat batteries. |
| duckduck:
--- Quote from: Ranayna on July 01, 2021, 06:07:42 am ---If you don't need more than just surfing the web (as if that is not taxing enough nowadays), i would really just go for a Intel NUC or an AsRock Deskmini X300 with AMD CPU. Mount it behind one of your screens or on the wall behind the screens, and it will take essentially no space at all. --- End quote --- Amen to this. Both monitors and mini-PCs can use VESA mounts. Not endorsing this company, but they have a nice description of the standards: https://www.ergotron.com/en-us/support/vesa-standard |
| bd139:
If you mount the monitor and a PC on a VESA mount then it will encroach on your desk footprint and you’ll need to sit further back. Not generally a good win if you ask me. I’ve got a single 27” on a VESA mount stand which is fully articulated and rotates and goes nearly flush to the wall. Knoll Sapper variety. |
| deadlylover:
I like the ultra small PC idea, Serve The Home has done a great series on them. If you look on eBay you should search for "HP Mini", "Lenovo Tiny", "Dell Micro". If your needs are modest then a quad core Skylake era machine is only a few hundred dollars and you can always repurpose them as a media centre PC and such (or give to a relative/friend for a basic office PC). A monitor arm is absolutely fantastic to help reclaim valuable bench space. I used to scoff at the idea of spending say $100 on an arm but it makes a huge difference being able to reposition the monitor if you're working on something huge. You can often find a VESA mount as well for the ultra small PC's. Great thing about those tiny PC's is the low idle power usage, usually in the 8-12W range, so you don't feel that guilty for leaving them on while collecting data or controlling instruments. I do have a load of Z820 workstations and the ~70W idle is just so wasteful. |
| tautech:
--- Quote from: deadlylover on July 03, 2021, 04:23:17 am ---I like the ultra small PC idea, Serve The Home has done a great series on them. If you look on eBay you should search for "HP Mini", "Lenovo Tiny", "Dell Micro". If your needs are modest then a quad core Skylake era machine is only a few hundred dollars and you can always repurpose them as a media centre PC and such (or give to a relative/friend for a basic office PC). A monitor arm is absolutely fantastic to help reclaim valuable bench space. I used to scoff at the idea of spending say $100 on an arm but it makes a huge difference being able to reposition the monitor if you're working on something huge. You can often find a VESA mount as well for the ultra small PC's. Great thing about those tiny PC's is the low idle power usage, usually in the 8-12W range, so you don't feel that guilty for leaving them on while collecting data or controlling instruments. I do have a load of Z820 workstations and the ~70W idle is just so wasteful. --- End quote --- Except they lack enough USB ports. Using 6 of 9 available constantly here yet the MB headers can support another 2. Never underestimate the grunt required when running a decent PCB Cad program like Altium or even the old Protel on something not up to the task and getting 30-60s boot times. ::) Running a 3.4G i3 here and that's sufficient but certainly wouldn't want anything slower however if you just want to surf to find datasheets you can get away much with less. For anything serious you need at least dual monitor support and preferably 3 so you can display CAD schematics, PCB layout and datasheets all at the same time. |
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