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Comment by DotSauce | Hacker News Reader

I've used an Alvin minimaster drafting table ($129) for the past 4 years: http://www.amazon.com/Alvin-MiniMaster-Adjustable-Drafting-T... I like it so much that I bought a second one for more desk space.

Along with a drafting chair ($150): http://www.amazon.com/LexMod-Office-Drafting-Chair-Leatheret...

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I spend entirely more time than I should being semi-baffled at the way the internet has largely forgotten that you can just buy tall chairs and never have to worry about motors or adjustment speed or weight limits (to say nothing of cost).

I just had a genius revelation: I, like another poster here, don't like resting my feet on a bar all day. I like to have them planted firmly.

What if we had tall desks and tall office chairs with a flat, elevated platform? Then you could easily plant both feet on the platform and it would feel just like a regular chair, but then you could easily stand up and have a standing desk?

Something like this: http://www.lkgoodwin.com/more_info/brio_series_chairs/brio_s...

I swear to god they used to make them with like these two plastic pads like 3"x6" that attached to those rings but I've haven't been able to find one like that for as long as I've been looking. I do admit the bars are crap though it's never been an issue because the when seated my feet are further under the desk than when standing and I've always had a boxes of shit under my desk. Or I just stood up or did the one cheek on one cheek off move.

ETA holy crap you found one</praise jesus hands> I feel like a jack ass now.

I bet you could 3D print those pads for "normal" tall chairs with the bars if you wanted to.

By "3D print" you of course mean going to a home improvement store and buying some wooden boards and metal attachment pieces. 3D printing is totally unsuitable for the task, both because of low durability of printed objects and the time it would take you to print a pad like this (a few days, probably).

This is actually a pretty good application for home 3d printing.

I'd say that you'd be looking at 8-10 hours per print with a consumer FDM (extruded plastic) printer on the default settings.

If the printer is correctly configured it will probably be more durable than you're implying, and even if it only lasts a year you could always cheaply print more.

Really, that's the time it takes to print an object that size with off-the-shelf 3D printers? I have no experience in this area, so my (uncalibrated) expectations for 3D printing were that it might take a couple hours.

Here's a ~6" tall hollow rabbit being printed in roughly 7 hours. 3D printers are still just useless and awful. The promise is clear if they ever improve but for now, especially the cheaper home variety, they just don't do anything useful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx81wv0KRmY&feature=share

> they just don't do anything useful.

We use a cheap 3D printer weekly to make little fixtures, brackets and mounts for robots. These we use for months or years. They are also incredibly great for prototyping: print the doohickey in crappy plastic, check it fits together right, then get it made for real. It's amazing how helpful it is to have a model in your hand for debugging before spending a fortune.

I would amend that to "commercial grade 3D printers are terrible and awful". There are some monsters out there that can pump out amazing stuff quickly, but they come with a hefty price tag. And some use lasers, so that's super cool.

Consumer 3d printing is invaluable for small batch rapid prototyping. I can design and print multiple revisions of a prototype in as many hours. That type of efficiency was previously out of reach(expensive) for tiny, bootstrapped product design teams. It's a huge win.

It is definitely not ready for my Nana to print out a new frame for her eyeglasses after she accidentally sits on them. But it will be one day.

Once you start treating the output as something you can make a mold out of, it makes a lot more sense. Print something out, create a mold, then cast your real parts with that mold in short order.

Print speed depends a lot on the layer height (smaller height = more layers = more time) and infill amount.

We're primarily using a Printrbot Simple Metal at my local makerspace, and I usually expect a solid object the size of my fist, 20% infill, PLA, to run 3-4 hours.

Print times vary enormously for the same object depending on the settings the operator selects. I might be able to print you something in an hour at low detail, low strength settings, but the same object could easily take 30-50 hours if you crank those same settings to the max.

I find the notion of a specialized, adjustable standing desk ridiculous. Why raise and lower the WHOLE DESK, when you could just fix the desk at a high point and raise and lower your chair? It seems so much more efficient and convenient.

Probably so but no one makes chairs that go high, except drafting chairs which are extremely uncomfortable and even more so unergonomic for computer use.

An apple box¹ under the desk would work just fine, and also allow you to put a foot up while standing.

¹That's what they're called in the trade, but they're much sturdier than an actual apple box.

That's what I did with the "shelf" my Ikea Jerker.

Yes! I miss the Jerker...

My first standing desk was similar: http://is.gd/X0JzNu

Our cubicles let you attach shelves or desk tops anywhere along the height of the cube wall. Oh man, I forgot I literally used tape to keep that together. And it wasn't even duct tape, yikes

Explain. What did you modify?

Imagine this desk, but with the two horizontal slabs swapped so that the big surface is at "standing height" while the other is where your feet would be when in a tall office-chair.

http://imgur.com/d94KObO

Oh, nice.

Why not use a stool instead of a specialized chair?

I get your point but being able to place your feet on the floor anywhere in front of you is different than just putting your feet on a metal bar that's attached under your chair. I use a footstool because my desk is too high and even that I don't love. Having a desk at the correct height so you can put your feet flat on the ground is the best.

Totally. I'm pretty short, and it was many years before I realised that part of the reason I like sit cross-legged on office chairs is that my feet aren't comfortable because they're not flat on the ground.

My home desk is at a height which looks strangely low to visitors, but my knees and elbows are at nice right angles with my feet firmly planted on the floor.

Me too, so I built one. Here a photo of it this afternoon: http://is.gd/RcNLct

And here's where I sell them: http://is.gd/1v7H8k

Placing my feet on the bars connected to a tall chair puts tension on my knees and hips due to the angle. Over time that causes joint pain.

I built mine http://i.imgur.com/IpRAW3m.jpg :)

http://imgur.com/a/H7fxb reclaimed scaffolding and a 8x4 cut down to 7x3, offcuts used to make shelf.

Works really well.

I have the exact same Dr. Who poster and same color top on my desk; used to have custom built frame, but switched to an Uplift 900 just because I wanted it to be a bit more sturdy.

Sturdy isnt a problem with mine, moving it might be though, 48mm steel scafold tube and a 28mm structural birch ply top is stable but not light,last desk I'll ever need though :)

Bananas for scale.

http://imgur.com/a/H7fxb

I have a motorized standing desk from Ikea.

It is an advantage to be able to adjust it instantly according to the task, be it sitting or standing: drawing, fixing something, or of course typing on a keyboard. Reading on the computer is not not the same height for me that writing email (standing or sitting).

Once you are used to these sometimes small adjustments, you really want to have them on all desks.

Instant adjusting also works well when you need to show something to a colleague at your desk. Raising the desk is faster and easier than finding a guest chair.

Sorry but I think I'm missing the point. Why would you want a standing desk if in the end you end up sitting anyway? Might as well just get a normal desk and plant your feet on the ground, no?

The idea is that you can switch. Many people need daily breaks from standing, or sometimes just feel like sitting for other reasons.

I built my own standing desk for at home and simply bought a tall, barstool-height chair.

As an early adopter (late 90s), none of my standing desks have been adjustable.

I've settled on using a bar stool. I fidget a lot. Sit, stand, lean, one leg stand, foot rest, dance. Bar stools don't run away.

I bought one like this off craiglist for $30. http://amzn.to/1lYaKgZ

This is my stool of choice, and it's never done me wrong. Cheap as can be, perfect height.

http://www.presalesinc.com/store/media/catalog/product/cache...

I'd be interested in a picture of your setup. How do you have the monitor and keyboard so they don't just slide off of it? Doesn't it feel like you're using your mouse on a hill-side?

You can lay it flat, of course :) Here you go: https://www.instagram.com/p/86XA-dRG1J/?taken-by=markunfilte... Sorry, no pic of the chair.

Totally offtopic: Is your desktop's wallpaper publicly available?

I believe it is from here: http://www.heavymetal.com/news/r2d2-shows-princess-leia-whos...

Thank you!

His wallpaper doesn't strike me as particularly work-appropriate. And let's not forget the blow that Leia's "slave outfit" dealt to feminism and female participation in the arts.

Oh I see. So it is completely flat in your usage, but you can just change the height up and down. Nice!

Thanks for the picture :)

Angle is adjustable, a slight one is no problem.

Interesting. How easy is it to switch between sitting and standing? Does it make sense with a heavy 4K monitor on it?

You adjust the chair so the seat is just slightly lower than your butt then to switch to standing you slide forward off the stool. To switch back you do a little half hop onto your butt.

I think they were asking about adjusting the table's height.

You don't.

That's the point: the table never moves. You buy a table thats tall enough for comfortable standing use then buy a chair tall enough to that you never adjust the table. What's great about this is that there is no conscious effort needed to switch between sitting and standing you don't have to set a timer to remind you to stand up, crank your desk into standing position, nothing. You just flow on and off your chair.

Adjustable standing desk is more than a desk -- it's a multi-use work surface. I can push my monitors out of the way and move it all the way up to have the right height for taking computers apart. I can then move it to writing height and fill out paperwork like it's 1995 and then adjust it again for typing height and pull my monitors back into place.

If I could, every surface I owned would be adjustable height.

The whole point is that you're NOT constantly adjusting the desk, but using a taller chair when you sit.

Oh, then what's the point of comparing it with the Sit/Stand desk in the submission?

I believe the idea is that it is you essentially get the best of both worlds with this setup because 1) switching between sitting and standing is more fluid, as you need only to sit down or get out of your chair to switch (rather than needing to change desk height) 2) it is in general cheaper and longer-lasting because there are not motors, etc. involved.

If all you are trying to accomplish is to move from sitting/standing while working at a computer, they solve the same problem in a way that has been solved for at least a hundred years and is generally cheaper.

There are some merits to adjustable desks above and beyond that though.

What are they?

My motorized adjustable desk and highly adjustable Capisco chair work for both me (6'2") and my wife (5'3") at standard-office-chair height, tall saddle-stool height, or standing. It can easily be slightly tweaked for typing or writing with a pen.

If we wanted to do the same thing with a fixed desk, we would need some kind of platform for her to stand on, plus at least two adjustable-height seats with adjustable foot rests.

Standing work on a computer is different than standing work for a soldering is different for drafting is different for drawing. A moving desk can support all those use cases but a adjustable chair and static desk can't.

Interesting setup. Is the table deep enough? Seems like when sitting, your knees could hit that shelf under the table.

First time I've seen this model. I take the angle is variable ?

Also, more than the desk, a decent chair is of great importance.

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