Let's Talk About Your Team's Computers

[CMBrandon]

What kind of computers does your team use? Did the school buy them or did someone make them? Laptop, desktop? Pics of your lab would be great! I am just really curious to see what all of you have to work with.

Who thinks they have the BEST setup?
Who thinks they have the WORST? (Bonus points for anything earlier than Win2K)

[thatprogrammer]

I built my team's current CAD computer using parts from our mentor's company (they were moving over to new PCs).
Specs:
OS: Win 10 64bit
RAM: 16GB 1333MZ (DDR3)
CPU: AMD FX-6300 (with a CoolerMaster 212 )
GPU: AMD 6970
HDD: 1 1TB drive and 1 500 Gig Drive
SSD: Boot Drive and one 64gig CAD drive.
PSU: 800 watts
Case: MASSCOOL CS-ICS8200 (It has a built in AC. That's right, an AC!)

[QuatroDoesGood]

We have 10ish desktops provided by the school. However only 2 of them have the RAM upgrades needed to run Solidworks. Were looking into investing in additional upgrades so we can get them all running. Because we have so few computers that have Solidworks, its been difficult to get everyone involved in learning it. Hoping to change that next year.

[Chris_Ely]

Our programming/driver's station laptop in 2012 had a screen held on with tape, and a battery life of 5 minutes. This was still an improvement over the Classmate E9 that we got our rookie year.

We have since moved into the school's CAD lab where we have about 50 old HP workstation desktops, half of which have dual monitors. They originally ran Vista, now 7. They each have 2, 4 core Xeons (no hyperthreading) with 8GB of RAM and some unknown Quadro GPU. These should be replaced soon with money from a 2015 district infrastructure bond.

We also got some decent Dell business laptops donated for programming and driver's station.

We did at one point have a CNC plasma cutter with a computer that ran Windows Millennium Edition. (However, the last time it was used was probably the early 2000s).

[adciv]

Originally Posted by Chris_Ely

We have since moved into the school's CAD lab where we have about 50 old HP workstation desktops, half of which have dual monitors. They originally ran Vista. They each have 2, 4 core Xeons with 8GB of RAM and some unknown Quadro GPU. These should be replaced soon with money from a 2015 district infrastructure bond.

How do I get those old machines when they're surplused?.

On programming, our machines have typically been my old laptops. Which I'm currently supplying four with to the team all bought in the past six years (don't ask). We recently got some Dell latitude 630s and some surplus desktops in and we'll see what happens with those. For the most part, we've relied on personal laptops of students/mentors.

[Chris_Ely]

Originally Posted by adciv

How do I get those old machines when they're surplused?.

I have no idea, I'm just an alumni. To be honest, you probably don't want them. They have hardware failures all the time. You would spend a ton of time and money replacing stuff when it breaks.

[michaelyork]

We only really have three computers, two Classmate E12's, and an old Lenovo gSeries running Windows XP with a gig of RAM. Let's just say that we're trying to get a new one for this season.

[frcguy]

I love threads like this! They distract me from pulling my hair out over some of the other less fun off-season threads. Anyways, here are the computers we have:

(5) Panasonic ToughBook CF19 MK2

Purpose: Programming/Utility

Specs: Intel Core 2 Duo 1.06GHz, digitizer touchscreen, 2GB RAM, Windows 7, Cellular modems

Story: The ToughBook series is a fully ruggedized laptop for use in harsh environments. We had 5 of these donated by the local ambulance company. In their former lives they were used by ambulance crews and fire department paramedics to write patient care reports after their calls. We are currently refurbishing them (installing hard drives and operating systems). Once that is complete they will be used for the build team (reading manuals while assembling parts, etc.) and potentially programming.

Images: http://imgur.com/a/gXakG

(1) Acer Aspire E11

Purpose: Driver station/Programming

Specs: Intel Celeron 1.83GHz, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, Windows 7

Story: This is the standard netbook/laptop provided in the Rookie Kit of Parts. For us, we used it as our driver station/occasional programming laptop. We aren't huge fans of it because of it's poor compute performance and low battery life, so we're looking at replacing it with a Thinkpad.

(1) Lenovo G50 15.6-inch Laptop

Purpose: Utility

Specs: Intel Pentium N3530 2.16 GHz, 4 GB RAM, 500GB HDD, Windows 8

Story: This laptop was donated by the school when they received a new order of Thinkpads. It was absolutely terrible until we removed all the spyware and junk it came with. At first we used it as our driver station, but we replaced it with the Aspire E11 because of it's size. Currently it powers our parts status display in our shop, but it is also used for email, web browsing, reading manuals, etc.

(1) ASUS K501UX 15.6-inch Laptop

Purpose: Scouting data visualization/CAD

Specs: Intel Core i7-6500U 2.5GHz, NVIDIA GTX 950M GPU; 8GB RAM; 256GB SSD, Windows 10

Story: We wanted to obtain a reasonably powerful laptop for CAD and scouting purposes. This Asus fit the bill. We're pretty happy with it, as it has good battery life and performs really well.

(1) Custom CAD workstation

Purpose: CAD/Compute-intensive tasks

Specs: AMD FX8350 4GHz, 16GB RAM, NVIDIA Quadro 600, Windows 7, Corsair RM750 PSU, NZXT Source 210, 500GB HDD, Hyper 212 EVO , Dell P2414H and E2414H monitors

Story: We quickly realized that we needed a CAD workstation for rendering and such. I was tasked with designing a system to do so. I largely based it off my system at home, with a few modifications. We went with the AMD FX8350 for it's great performance at a low price point and it's high clock speed and 16GB of RAM for CADing and rendering. We have a Hyper 212 EVO from Cooler Master to keep the AMD beast cool. The Quadro 600 was an interesting story. We wanted a workstation card mainly due to driver support in Solidworks, although we knew a new card would be out of reach. One of our students took the Quadro 600 out of his mom's old computer and gave it to us. While it is quite slow (it's a Fermi generation card) it does the job. The monitors were donated by our school because when we moved into our current building the previous owner (the school district) left them behind. We LOVE having dual monitors, as it means whoever's working can be looking at email, Google Drive, a product page, etc. while CADing. The hard drive came out of another one of our student's old MacBook Pro. The case we chose because it was the cheapest aesthetically pleasing case with a large-enough window. The PSU was chosen because we wanted fully modular (for a clean look) and capability to expand the system in the future. All-in-all, the system is a bit of a hodge-podge of parts but it works great for us and we did all our rendering on it this year. The computer, monitors, and peripherals now reside on a converted Harbor Freight workbench so the whole system can move wherever we need it to (see the image gallery for more detail).

Images with captions/more info: http://imgur.com/a/j4CCX

Specs/Parts list (Google Doc with prices/links): https://goo.gl/m0cfMC

Well, there is a list of the main computers we have. We have a few Raspberry Pis here and there that power things like our CheesyParts server but they aren't really worth including. While it may seem like we don't have many computers most of our students bring in personal computers and our school has 1:1 Chromebooks, many of which our students run Ubuntu on. Also, here is an imgur gallery with photos of our shop: http://imgur.com/a/QTDsm.

As far as best or worst, I would say we're middle of the road. We could definitely use more power and computers (who can't!).

Please let me know by PM or posting if you have questions or comments!

[Bkeeneykid]

We have the privilege of having a crap ton of computers provided to the school. The downside is only three of them are technically ours.

We have basically the entire school's CAD lab's worth of computers for using Inventor. These work fine, but, since, they're large desktop, we can't use them at events or when working with other teams. These were literally specced to use Inventor, so these work great.

We also just got five older laptops from the school without wi-fi cards. We've used them in so many cases just to have a spare screen laying around. Slideshow? Check-in? Scouting? It works really well.

We also have three WinXP-era laptops that we use as daily drivers for programming. We upgraded one to Win10, but we didn't upgrade any of the others due to issues with mDNS. These work great, but we really are looking at new ones for this upcoming year.

[JohnFogarty]

Depending on what my team decides to do this year. I was looking at getting a Razor Blade Stealth for the CAD/Video Editing groups.

We currently have a 15.6" ASUS Flip 2in1 with a Core i5 for our Dev team.

[Zac]

I did up 3 computer for 1768 for the 2016 season. Until the 2016 season the team had used the school's computers, the specs were depressing. We were continuously waiting for models to catch up after trying to rotate the model a bit. Frequently we would wait 20 seconds or so every time we rotated a model... not only was this annoying, but the time was adding up quickly. We frequently waited 2-3 minutes to log in, another 3-4 minutes to open our CAD software... you get the idea.

The goal for making some CAD machines was to not only eliminate the lag in model viewing, but to completely decimate it. We wanted quick log ins, quick program loading. Basically we wanted to eliminate all of the waiting and maximize our CAD time. And after a few years of ever increasing aggravation, se set the budget accordingly.

Alright, to the fun part...

The three machines were virtually identical with only one smlight difference between them.

I have included links to the parts we used, as well as the pricing (at the time of purchase which was Fall 2015)

CASE: ($45)
NZXT Source 210 S210-001 Black

This was a cheap case, that offered enough space and wouldn't suck up too much of the budget, leaving more money to be spent where it counts, more power

CPU: ($370)
Intel Core i7-6700K

4.0 GHz out of the box. The fast clock speed was attractive given the linear process nature of CAD. Having a quad-core meant we had the cores to throw around for things like renders, FEA and the like.

CPU Cooling: ($105)
CORSAIR Hydro Series H105 Extreme Performance 240mm Liquid CPU Cooler

We had toyed around with the idea of overclocking the CPU, which we never ended up doing (no need). This CPU cooler has proven performance, and is a favorite by many tech testing sites. With a modest price point, simple install, superior performance it seemed like a no brainer.

RAM: ($195)
CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 32Gb

Not much to say here. I had used Corsair RAM in the past and have always had good experiences with it. Throw one in the bucket for brand loyalty I suppose.

Motherboard: ($150)
MSI Z170A GAMING M3 LGA 1151

Looked at what was available with the features we wanted. This fit the bill.

Storage: ($140)
SAMSUNG 850 PRO 2.5" 256GB SATA III

This drive had excellent reviews. Superior read and write speed. This would certainly play into having quick boot speeds, quick program loading, stable saving. Also it has pro in the name, so it must be good

PSU: ($130)
EVGA 220-G2-0850-XR 80 PLUS GOLD 850 W

Provides plenty of power for the machine, fully modular for ease of neat wiring.

Here is where the differences begin. We built 3 computers. The idea was to have two machines that were well suited (overkill) for designing parts and working on subassemblies. We also wanted one machine that was well suited (overkill) for working within the main robot assembly. This matched our workflow as well which involved having one student in charge of the main robot assembly, and working alongside two other students, each working on portions of the robot.

For our "Subassembly" machines we decided to add use the following graphics card.
Graphics Card: ($430)
PNY Quadro K2200 VCQK2200-PB

The specs for this card made it seem like the perfect solution for our "subassembly" machines. Nvidia Quadro cards are known frontrunner in the professional graphics sector, and the K2200 sits in a beautiful position on the cost vs performance curve. DisplayPort connections were another attractive feature.

For our "Main Assembly" rig we decided to up the game a little bit.
Graphics Card: ($890)
PNY Quadro M4000

All of the same benefits of other Quadro cards with the added benefit of POWER.

Monitors: ($180)
SAMSUNG S24C200BL Matte Black 23.6" (The link I had to these is dead, but I am sure you could find them somewhere if you really wanted them).

Dead simple, minimal bells and whistles. These offered 24" of screen real estate. The only downside we saw to them was their awful stands, which didn't matter to us, as the plan was to mount them to dual monitor arms.

Each machine got two of these monitors which was possible due to their low price point.

We ran Windows 10 on all of the machines. Additionally these machines were used just for CAD and CAM nothing else was run except for an internet browser. (Ironically in downloading Chrome, we ended up downloading a Chrome Clone which was a virus... luckily this was easily fixed, however it really emphasized the reason why we chose to keep the machines so locked down just to CAD)

Each machine was put on custom wooden desks which featured a whiteboard top surface for easy sketching during the design process. They also had shelves for the computers below the work surface to keep the top of the desk clean and open. The desks had large casters which allowed them to be easily stowed in a closet when not in use. Our lead CAD student Greg Woelki demanded black for his desk, so I spray painted his black in below freezing temperatures.

After some networking cables, mice and keyboards, we got out of the build for about $6,300 plus the cost of the desks.

Having these machines was absolutely vital to the 2016 season for 1768. The 2016 season saw the most important CAD model the team had ever undertaken. 4 water jetted plates made up more or less the entire frame and superstructure for the robot, so there was no room for error. Hundreds of hours of CAD went into the robot (One member kept track of work hours for students during the season, Greg and I came in at just over 400 hours each during the 6 week build season. I can say pretty confidently that over 50% of that time was spent with Greg on the main CAD machine).

Additionally, owning our own computer presented an unforeseen benefit to the team. During a New England storm power was lost at the school and the team was asked to evacuate. This would have previously meant downtime for the team. However, owning our own computers meant we were able to pack them up and bring them to an alternative location and continue working.

I attached a few photos of the CAD machines although I never made a huge point of photographing them so I apologize for the lack of quality. The last photo shows a bit of the plate construction I mentioned earlier.

~Zac

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Zac

---

While awesome, this is such absurd overkill pricewise for FRC.

Making sweeping generalizations, most users will be plenty happy with a $100 workstation card for FRC.

I'm a SW snob and have a pretty overkill setup at work and home, but have been CADing for the team primarily with a Lenovo w540 that has a quadro k1100m. While great for a laptop in that price range, it's performance is comparable with a budget desktop. I've been plenty happy with it for FRC however.

[Greg Woelki]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

While awesome, this is such absurd overkill pricewise for FRC.

Having used the machines, for the most part I'd disagree with "absurd" - sure, we got nowhere near using 32GB of RAM, for instance, but the computers can still be made to stutter if one asks enough of them.

However, by design, they are indeed overkill. After spending years treading water with specs as both the requirements of our CAD software and the complexity of our models increased, our lead mentor decided that he wanted a "set it and forget it" CAD solution so that we wouldn't have to worry about computer hardware at all for the foreseeable future. I believe we succeeded in that regard.

The specs of our workstations are by no means a recommendation to all rookie teams as to what one needs in order to do CAD for FRC - given where we were resources wise, it was a good place to spend some money.

One could even say we got out of it cheap - the last major CAD computer Zac built for someone (not FRC related) cost $4000!

[MikLast]

Though the rest of the school has chromeboxes shudders the engineering/ag building lucked out with some 30ish laptops (HP Elitebooks, cant remember model # off the top of my head) 3 Brand new HP Elitebooks, and a computer lab with about 30 desktops that are overpriced and not too good (used for programming/school items) Until this year we have been using the older elitebook for our driving, but used one of the newer ones for this year.

Sorry i cant be more specific, Im unable to really go there and get the models for a while still.

[fargus111111111]

We have quite the assortment of laptops that the team owns and a lab of about 20 desktops at the school which are used during school hours for mechanical and architectural classes, thus they have all the Autodesk products on them and we use them for all our CADing, these computers also have access to a network drive which our lead educator, whose classroom we are working in, can also access, so if we want something 3d printed we can just put it in there and ask him to start the printer. The laptops include one ancient thing running Win XP that had been our programming laptop, we stopped using that after the 2013 season when we were donated 3 newer Dells. Those Dells also pushed our struggling Classmate out of service, needless to say no one was sad to see it go, but it still sits in the cabinet. The Dells were donated by one of our sponsors as they were upgrading many of their office computers. We use them for drive stations primarily, but also we keep one fully up to date with Labview for programming and the most powerful of the 3 has the Autodesk suite loaded on it so we have a portable CAD computer. They are all running Windows 7. We don't usually use personal computers at meetings, mostly because we have the lab. We do also have 1 Windows 8 Toshiba, but that has had its share of problems, the primary one being that we blew up the ethernet port on it because one of our long cords shocked it with static electricity while we were doing some testing on a carpet floor, fortunately the WiFi still works fine so we can use it as a demonstration driver station, that's about all it is. As far as computers are concerned I would say we are in the middle of the pack and we are happy right there.