2012 Mini users, please post a pic of your setup.

Well, here is my setup.

Samsung 27" monitor, cheap pair of logitech speakers (thats the next thing i'd like to upgrade), and a wireless keyboard and trackpad. Under the desk is my mini - per my signature - and a 1TB WD time machine backup.

The desk I made myself out of K'NEX and the glass tabletop is from IKEA. I like it because I can modify the desk however I like to fit my current/future setups. I used to run my old 2007 Macbook in clamshell mode until I finally upgraded to the mini so I moved the shelf down a "block", set up the external drive next to the mini and so far it has worked great. Another bonus is that the mini gets plenty of airflow so it runs relatively cool.

COrocket said:

Well, here is my setup.

Samsung 27" monitor, cheap pair of logitech speakers (thats the next thing i'd like to upgrade), and a wireless keyboard and trackpad. Under the desk is my mini - per my signature - and a 1TB WD time machine backup.

The desk I made myself out of K'NEX and the glass tabletop is from IKEA. I like it because I can modify the desk however I like to fit my current/future setups. I used to run my old 2007 Macbook in clamshell mode until I finally upgraded to the mini so I moved the shelf down a "block", set up the external drive next to the mini and so far it has worked great. Another bonus is that the mini gets plenty of airflow so it runs relatively cool.

Click to expand...

That might be the most creative desk I've seen. Very cool.

COrocket said:

Well, here is my setup.

Samsung 27" monitor, cheap pair of logitech speakers (thats the next thing i'd like to upgrade), and a wireless keyboard and trackpad. Under the desk is my mini - per my signature - and a 1TB WD time machine backup.

The desk I made myself out of K'NEX and the glass tabletop is from IKEA. I like it because I can modify the desk however I like to fit my current/future setups. I used to run my old 2007 Macbook in clamshell mode until I finally upgraded to the mini so I moved the shelf down a "block", set up the external drive next to the mini and so far it has worked great. Another bonus is that the mini gets plenty of airflow so it runs relatively cool.

Click to expand...

This has to be the most awesome thing evar!
How is the structural integrity? Is it at all wobbly? How long did it take, and the cost?
Thanks<3

lucasfer899 said:

This has to be the most awesome thing evar!
How is the structural integrity? Is it at all wobbly? How long did it take, and the cost?
Thanks<3

Click to expand...

The structural integrity is great. I added a picture showing the lower shelf. It is designed so I can have legroom and push my chair in when not in use. I can store stuff on it and it connects all four legs. The second picture is obviously an exaggeration, I haven't really tested the weight bearing capacity until now. You can see a little bit of flex but I'm pretty pleased. If you bump in to it, there is a tiny bit of wiggle, but it is solid when you are working on it. When I was planning it I thought it might need a truss pattern across the back but it does fine as pictured.

One of the things that I think helps with stability is how heavy the tabletop is. The glass is 3/8" thick which allows it to be supported only at the four corners and weighs 61 lbs (I believe it when I pick it up) according to IKEA.
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/70221461/
This isn't the exact product because their styles change every year but its nearly the same. Something neat is that the glass top probably weighs 4-5 times what the structure weighs.

The table itself takes maybe 2-3 hours to assemble/disassemble. However, the design was a continuous process and I was tweaking the design gradually over the past year. When it first was built, it had 3200 parts and would cost around $525 for the parts. Now that I've had some time to refine the design, I'd estimate around 2700 pieces and probably in the mid $400's. Thats if you bought the pieces off the K'NEX website, they are a lot cheaper if the pieces are from kits/ebay etc. I had enough parts laying around from a project I did with the company.

Going back to college, so I'm considering making a few changes to this set up. Here's what I have right now.

Everything is contained in a TV stand with a large, slow-running fan in the back to cool everything. My mini is on World Community Grid running full throttle all the time, provided the UPS hasn't had to kick on (yes, that's 188 events. That thing has earned it's keep many many times) so it needs that thing to keep it cool, and it's very quiet.

In a pinch, if I need a desktop, I fire up splashtop on my ipad2 and just move the bluetooth keyboard and touchpad over to the desk my 24" imac used to occupy. This works very well. The lag is so minimal it's incredible, and mission control makes this pretty practical.

COrocket said:

The structural integrity is great. I added a picture showing the lower shelf. It is designed so I can have legroom and push my chair in when not in use. I can store stuff on it and it connects all four legs. The second picture is obviously an exaggeration, I haven't really tested the weight bearing capacity until now. You can see a little bit of flex but I'm pretty pleased. If you bump in to it, there is a tiny bit of wiggle, but it is solid when you are working on it. When I was planning it I thought it might need a truss pattern across the back but it does fine as pictured.

One of the things that I think helps with stability is how heavy the tabletop is. The glass is 3/8" thick which allows it to be supported only at the four corners and weighs 61 lbs (I believe it when I pick it up) according to IKEA.
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/70221461/
This isn't the exact product because their styles change every year but its nearly the same. Something neat is that the glass top probably weighs 4-5 times what the structure weighs.

The table itself takes maybe 2-3 hours to assemble/disassemble. However, the design was a continuous process and I was tweaking the design gradually over the past year. When it first was built, it had 3200 parts and would cost around $525 for the parts. Now that I've had some time to refine the design, I'd estimate around 2700 pieces and probably in the mid $400's. Thats if you bought the pieces off the K'NEX website, they are a lot cheaper if the pieces are from kits/ebay etc. I had enough parts laying around from a project I did with the company.

Click to expand...

Woah, awesome! Thanks for all the info man!

My Mac Mini 2010 hooked up to a Samsung LED 46". Those are B&W speakers, and you can see I have a Big Jambox for casual audio output (battery life of this thing is incredible). For loud movies and rock/jazz listening, I fire up the speakers which are powered by a Denon amplifier (not pictured but yo can see the cable running underneath the carpeting on the right).

Hleewell, simply amazing set up! I bet you they sound a million dollars!

here2rock said:

Hleewell, simply amazing set up! I bet you they sound a million dollars!

Click to expand...

Mild sarcasm detected

Here's my setup .. added my Dreamcast later and might do the same with my PS3 soon

tufinhas said:

Here's my setup .. added my Dreamcast later and might do the same with my PS3 soon

Click to expand...

nice setup!
what's that menu bar on the left side of your screen?

COrocket said:

The table itself takes maybe 2-3 hours to assemble/disassemble. However, the design was a continuous process and I was tweaking the design gradually over the past year. When it first was built, it had 3200 parts and would cost around $525 for the parts. Now that I've had some time to refine the design, I'd estimate around 2700 pieces and probably in the mid $400's. Thats if you bought the pieces off the K'NEX website, they are a lot cheaper if the pieces are from kits/ebay etc. I had enough parts laying around from a project I did with the company.

Click to expand...

Good stuff, and very creative. My desk is from Ikea as well, total cost for tabletop and 4 legs: $34

Here's my standard 2012 i7 somewhere on one of those racks:

http://www.macstadium.com/datacenter

Really impressed so far, i run a few test VM's and other random apps over a superfast connection.

Ahhh, finally up and running... I have an older cinema screen so I had to order a duel adapter to get the display to look right. Would love to figure out the mass of cords behind it all!

Setup 2012

love the ACD 27" but way too much money so 27" Samsung 3D screen was my second choice.

slickadam said:

nice setup!
what's that menu bar on the left side of your screen?

Click to expand...

Its xScan, version 3.2.7 (mac app store)

T.

ctyrider said:

My setup.. I know you can't see the Mini, but it's there believe me

Image

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Your mini is driving two 27" Apple displays? Wow. That's incredible. In the past you needed a Mac Pro for that.

How smooth are the transitions? That's alot of pixels to be pushing. Don't get me wrong, I think your set up is very cool

Late 2012 2.6 GHz quad-core mini with 1TB Fusion drive and 16 GB Kingston ram. Coupled with some cheap Coby speakers & subwoofer that I had laying around, a Proview 22" monitor that I got for free from a friend (since I only had laptops before this. My 47" Vizio LED 1080p tv acts as my additional monitor and works great for using my mini from the couch (built the TV entertainment center myself to house some of my DVDs/BR Disk, XBox 360, Apple TV3, and BR Player). My old Canon MP470 printer/scanner is connected and able to print to it from my iPad/iphone using Fingerprint. I my Seagate 3TB USB 3 external HDD that has all my iTunes content on it and an older SmartDisk 450 GB external HDD that I use to keep my pictures and home movies on. Looking at getting another Seagate ext HDD, probably 4TB to use as a back up for the 3TB hdd and as Time Machine. The two small desk I had laying around the house from a long time ago so figured I would put them together as one to sit everything on. Haven't used them as desk in ages since we had laptops before and they were usually with us in the living room on our laps or end tables. Keyboard and Magic Trackpad are held together using the Meshwe Blufin. Works well enough and I can still use the click function on the trackpad if I want. I use the mouse mostly for that stuff and the MT for gestures.

I need to sort out some cord management next. As for the purple color on the wall, the original owner of our house was an ESU fan, just never got around to repainting the wall (I know someone was going to ask about that).

zer0tails said:

Your mini is driving two 27" Apple displays? Wow. That's incredible. In the past you needed a Mac Pro for that.

How smooth are the transitions? That's alot of pixels to be pushing. Don't get me wrong, I think your set up is very cool

Click to expand...

The discrete AMD GPU of 2011 Mini has no trouble driving two 27" displays. I don't do anything terribly GPU intensive (like gaming), it's fine for normal computing tasks.

chedda said:

i need rendering power, let's hope the phi is the answer !

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dayum!!!

heres mine



Seldom use the acer monitor, hence chucked away at the back. Speakers only used when watching movies, hence chucked away too

saha-med said:

heres mine

Seldom use the acer monitor, hence chucked away at the back. Speakers only used when watching movies, hence chucked away too

Click to expand...

Is that the 27" AOC monitor from Best Buy? I went to the store specifically to look at it, and guess which one they didn't have hooked up? Yup. Anyway, how is it?

50voltphantom said:

Is that the 27" AOC monitor from Best Buy? I went to the store specifically to look at it, and guess which one they didn't have hooked up? Yup. Anyway, how is it?

Click to expand...

AOC yes. But its the 23inch, E2357fh...

I basically wanted a cheap glossy monitor, was juggling between the dell s2340l and this. Decided to go with this as it had dual hdmi and speakers (although its TN panel)

Sadly I am not a monitor junkie, so i cant advise you on how is its color, luminance and stuff like that.
If you are interested in getting the 27inch (which is very popular), you might take a look at korean 27inch ips displays (support higher resolution) on amazon

Here is mine )) i5 500G 4G late 2012 + Dell U2312HM. Today's my first day with Apple again... Love it ))

I posted this better pic of my set up on my blog today, I decided to buy the file cabinet for storage and to make my desk more manageable. Funny how one purchase turns into several! There are more pics of my entire office which is very girly and groovy. Click the signature link if your interested.