New Laser Computers - 9/10/19

Over the weekend we installed two new computers in Laser for Zing and Blitzen. Please let us know if you have any issues or if any software is missing. We’re hoping to iron out issues with these two and then swap out the remaining two once any issues are identified. We know they get used by hundreds of people, so we didn’t want to replace all of them in one go.

15 Likes

Thank you for devoting time and effort to this!

2 Likes

They’re super snapy! Would you mind sharing the build list or if you bought them pre-made, the link where you bought them?

I’m glad they are a noticeable improvement over the old machines! I know there were a few hiccups, but they should be better in the long run. They are built from the following components:

Asrock A300W - Mini case/motherboard combo (from Newegg)
Ryzen 5 3400G CPU w/ Vega 11 GPU (from Newegg)
Samsung 970 EVO M.2 SSD (from B&H)
Crucial 32GB DDR SODIMM Kit (from B&H)
Red Dragon Keyboard (from Amazon)
Logitech G203 Wired Mouse (from Amazon)
Steelseries Mousepad (from Amazon)
StarTech USB 3.0 Extension Pod (from Amazon)
Thermal Grizzly Paste (from Amazon, this was enough for all of the machines and not strictly needed)

Total cost for us was $608.67 each, but might be a little cheaper now. We did not replace monitors, so those are not included.

Thumbs up on the builds. I am especially enamoured of the Red Dragon keyboards. I’ve been wanting to try one for a while, and now will be purchasing one for home.

1 Like

Haven’t seen the computers yet to know what software is installed on it, but I’d like to request that these free software packages be locally hosted on them, if they’re not already there:

  1. Gimp
  2. Solidworks (a student license; we’ve got hundreds available; see Talk)
  3. Acrobat Reader
  4. Inkscape
  5. LibreOffice (its Draw package does svg, pdf, etc)

Thanks! DT

The laser computers are not supposed to be used for design work, so I would question why you would want Solidworks or LibreOffice on them. GIMP and Inkscape would take care of most instances when Adobe is being a cranky @#$&!.

That said, I would LOVE to have full Lightburn licenses (none of this temporary trial stuff that is always expired) so that I can use SVG files and just skip Illustrator…

2 Likes
  1. There have been many times when I’ve lasered something and realized that my dimensions needed adjustment (or a different tiny change was needed), and then I changed it on the fly by remoting into the jump server to access Solidworks for my reprint.

Having to log off the machine, pay for my prints, go into the interactive room, change 1.6mm to 1.7mm in Solidworks, then get back on the waiting list for the laser, then reprint my part for the next iteration, . . . seems inconvenient.

  1. There are hundreds of useful things that Solidworks can do that Gimp and Inkscape can’t – not to mention climbing the learning curve.

  2. There are obvious limits to this. Naturally I wouldn’t tie up the laser when there’s a waiting list to do a 30 minute editing job. On the other hand, if it’s 3:00 am with no list and two other empty machines, why not?

  3. I admit that my case for LibreOffice isn’t as strong. I was mainly thinking that there could be fonts in Writer or features in Draw that would be useful.

  4. I don’t see the harm in having the software tools on the computer. Is using a few extra megabytes for them problematic? (I’m actually asking – not snarking). Tools are like knives; they can be used well or misused.

  5. This isn’t an issue we need to debate here. It’s not our decision. Let the Laser Gods decide our fate . . .

All of those are on the lasers except Solidworks

2 Likes

@sixvolts I may copy that build for my media pc minibuild at home!