Pillar of Solitude updates

DMS General
#1

PXL_20210910_022018990
PXL_20210910_0220189904032Ă—3024 3.07 MB

As of now, we have 5 of 6 computers powered in Pillar of Solitude. All the ones receiving power have had their windows updates run, but only 4 have reach of the switch via cat6 at any time.

PXL_20210910_022027389
PXL_20210910_0220273892016Ă—1512 1.41 MB

Cable management does not currently spark joy, this will be something that needs addressing. We also require at least one more fairly long power strip, and one more long cat6 cable.

Other than that, the lab is more or less up and running. I plan to teach another Blender basics class in the near future after I figure out my new work schedule. Will likely be either on a Saturday or a weekday evening. After we get the software installed, I will also be teaching SOLIDWORKS and Vcarve 11 to get people on the path towards using our various CNCs.

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#2

I’ll be waiting for SolidWorks and VCarve…

#3

Nice work. Thank you.

Any idea when (half of) that room is planned to be demolished for the expansion update? Or has that changed?

#4

It looks great - great job, now to be a wet blanket:

What is the total wattage of all those computers? My guess, if they don’t have upgraded graphics cards, with the monitor they are drawing 600w ~ 800w each, so that would be 3600w-4800w, not sure how many circuits there are in that room. If I recall correctly they are only 15amp @120V circuits. So that equals 30A~40A or 2-3 circuits needed … discounting anything else plugged in, like personal computers, Crash Cart, etc. Lights are usually on separate circuit. @richmeyer Do you know offhand with a SWAG?

I mention this so in any electrical planning in the future it may need to be upgraded. Not sure how many circuits there are, probably at least two since this was originally two offices when we moved in. I number of circuit and load should be checked.

Oh, and FM will spasm when he sees the daisy chaining of the outlets - this something he ALWAYS looks for and catches us on. You may need to custom make the power strips with extra long cords so they can plug in the wall outlet and the computers plug in to the strip. But a power strip cannot plug into another strip and then devices into it,

#5

While you are very correct about Mr. FM, these are the same computers that have been set up in there before the carpet cleaning. And there has been at least one successful class held in there. So the electric concerns may not be an issue.

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#6

There is no daisy chaining, as far as I understand it at least. Unless you are considering the outlets from the ceiling a “power strip”. Otherwise I intentionally did not utilize any daisy chains

#7

Yeah exactly, this is just setting things back up the way they were before.

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#8

For those people reading this…keep in mind that I am no longer a member of the Dallas Makerspace. I moved out of the Dallas area a year ago, I now live near Knoxville, Tennessee. I am only responding because I was the Head of Expansion during the 102 build out. I still monitor DMS from afar, wish I had something like that here. I miss it!

The FM (Fire Marshall) had requested a wider aisle to access the 104 dock and the new proposed Woodshop area from the front of the building. That is why I had proposed the aisle through a part of the Pillar Room. Due to the amount of people in the proposed Woodshop area area at any one time and the potential hazards, the FM noted that the existing aisle was too narrow for safe evacuation during an emergency. It is up to the BoD to accept this FM suggestion. See the original proposed drawing below.
Aisle_Way.pdf (214.9 KB)
This drawing shows a proposed new wall added in the Pillar Room, a 5 foot wide aisle and 3 feet on each side for the storage of the large black and yellow personal storage bins. This was proposed to the BoD when I left Makerspace. It is the BoD decision to proceed or not.

Check with @John_Marlow, Chris had a diagram of all the electrical outlets identified with their circuit breaker numbers, if they are not already labeled. Any changes should be made when the next 102 phase is built out.

Power Strip Suggestion: The electricans made a suggestion as how to prevent one powerstrip from being daisy chained into another powerstrip. A 20 Amp outlet/plug has one of the electrical prongs rotated sideways. Have electricans change out the wall outlets to a 15/20 Amp outlet, it will accept either a 15 Amp or 20 Amp plug. (All of the new electrical outlets in 102 have this configuration.)
Take all of the long powerstrips and change the plugs from a 15 Amp to a 20 Amp plug. By doing this, then a modified powerstrip can only plug directly into a wall outlet and not into another powerstrip. Simple to do!

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#9

My guess is that those load estimates are high. We ought to check with a kill-A-watt meter or similar. I have a true sinewave UPS with a refurbished dell desktop and some other brand 24 inch LCD screen. According to the UPS display, the two of them and a raspberry pi are showing an average consumption of 75W, with a peak displayed value of 90W. So those initial estimates could be right, or they could be rather high.

#10

There are eleven wall receptacles (combination of duplex and quad).

  • Eight are believed to be on M3/13 (20A).
  • The column appears to be on M1/28 (20A) and I couldn’t find anything else sharing that circuit.
  • Two are suspected to be on different breakers but I was unable to verify at the time (cabinets in the way).
  • Four of these receptacles will be lost to the proposed hallway.
  • While these all appear to be on 20A circuits, to the best of my knowledge none of them have 20A sockets in the receptacles.

It looks like there are probably two ceiling receptacles as well, but I do not have circuit information.

This information is dated August 2018 and has not been verified or updated since then.

electrical-pillar room
electrical-pillar room1092Ă—641 101 KB

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#11

Great! Looking forward to the VCarve lessons…