"Tech Station Kit" - exposed shelving?

[bioluminescent]

http://www.xoxide.com/hspc-tech-stat...ard-black.html

I posed this same basic question at one other forum but it seemed fairly dead. I expect I'll have better luck here.

Basically, what do you guys think of this idea? It's attractive to me because it seems extremely utilitarian - I just opened my PC yesterday to discover it was horrifically dusty* - but does anyone actually do this i.r.l.? Who would/why would they; and who wouldn't/why wouldn't they?

*I mean super gross. I want to use a hand vacuum with a chisel extension, but is this the best way? Any suggestions?

[AKA_RA]

air compressor is my weapon of choice when fighting dust bunnies. canned air works rather well too. of course, i suggest scooping out what you can first, lol.

as for the workstation, overpriced for something so simple. i say this for pretty much everything, but i wanna stress it in this case, just make your own. for $80 you could go down to the hardware store, make a few purchases, end up with a nicer end product, and still have leftover cash to get a pizza and a few cold ones. ^_^

personally, i just use the cardboard box the motherboard came in when tweaking a system before putting it in a case. i wouldn't suggest an open "case"(if thats what you wanna call it) for long term use, thats just asking for trouble.

[bioluminescent]

Hmmm...yeah, I'll bet I could make this on my own. It looks rather DIY anyway. With just shelving, brackets and stuff from Home Depot? I mean so long as I keep the motherboard on stand-offs and so forth things should be fine, right?

Neoprene rubber isn't hard to get, though I wonder how I could mount the motherboard to the inside top of the unit all tidily like that. Do you think I'll get laughed at for not having a proper case? What are the hazards here?

[simon275]

One of those would be easy to make. Just get an atx case cut out the back and the side of the case from the rest of it an hey presto instant tect station.

[AKA_RA]

wasn't there a how to or work log somewhere where someone built a very nice workstation, almost identical to? I have horrible memory with that sort of thing, I've read too many guide, how to's, and work logs to remember who did what. -_-

Simon has the right idea, in fact, that might be a future project of mine. ^_^ you'd have something to secure the motherboard and any expansion cards. all you would really need after that is somewhere to put your HDDs, optical drives, and PSU.

[onelegout]

all it takes is dropping a screw or anything conductive on it and bam you've killed your motheboard.
I wouldn't have an open case as my main case.
H

[b4i7]

bit tech did a review on one of these i believe...it didnt sound like this things assembly is all that good...

http://www.bit-tech.net/modding/2006...station/1.html

[chedabob]

Thats some ghetto case

[Airbozo]

I have 2 of these on my test bench. One of the large ones and one of the small ones. I would give the product a 7 out of 10 based on the fact it is a well thought out design, easy to put together (unless you have problems understanding directions, but not that hard anyway), and very useful if you are constantly swapping parts. In fact it makes life easier than a regular case due to the size and accessibility.

Could I have bought the individual parts for cheaper and assembled it myself? Yes. The time that it would take to cut and drill everything and gather the parts together would outweigh the savings though.

The good: Simple, functional, easy to assemble, easy to use and modify.

The bad: Expensive, only good for atx, matx, and btx (I think) boards, and I needed it for SUN and SGI motherboards as well. Could come with longer leads on the power and reset switches as well as the led's. Should come with a few extra screws in case you lose one.

The ugly: The cost.

I used both of these units to flash and test 106 agp video cards and they were time savers. It was fast and simple to install the mobo, PS, drives and get it up and running with no issues. I am happy to have them since it does make life easier. Would I buy one for home? No. No need in my home environment, and if I wanted a totally utilitarian setup I could build a better looking one on my own.