Hacker News Reader

Comment by Avshalom | Hacker News Reader

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).

View on HN

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...

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

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.

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

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).

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.

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.

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

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.

> 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Bananas for scale.

http://imgur.com/a/H7fxb

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 :)

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com