17 ms·

I love to use professional-grade items where i can, but sometimes "overkill" means a worse product. like the professional-grade fan - it's not just designed fo

I love to use professional-grade items where i can, but sometimes "overkill" means a worse product. like the professional-grade fan - it's not just designed for a high duty cycle, it's also probably designed to be operated in an environment where people regularly use hearing protection, so quiet operation is not a consideration.

tschwimmer 5y ago
Agreed 1000x. There is rarely a single best in all categories good for something. Instead, you have to pay attention to what you’re optimizing for. The industrial/commercial cookware he lists is definitely durable but also it’s huge, may consume a ton of energy and will not match the decor of the rest of your kitchen.
- hirsin 5y ago
  Yup. First thought on the shopping bag was "how heavy is that empty?". Designers were not worried about over burdening whatever carried it, necessarily. That mixer likely won't handle a small load (as in, a single family sized loaf). Spot on though about some of the stuff. That knife is nice, although being edged on both sides is a liability.
  - sp332 5y ago
    The mixer paddle goes all the way to the bottom of the bowl, and so does the whisk attachment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYBxEyzqUY0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYBxEyzqUY0
- 1996 5y ago
  > The industrial/commercial cookware he lists is definitely durable No, it is plain wrong. He recommends borosilicate beakers for beer. I think he never worked in a lab: borosilicate beakers break. Their thermal expansion tolerance is a non feature for cold beer: when did one of your beer mug broke because you served yourself boiling beer? > Does your glassware meet ASTM Specification E960, Type II requirements? Is it manufactured from 33 expansion, low extractable borosilicate glass conforming to USP Type I and ASTM E438, Type I, Class A requirements? I didn't think so. I call that hacker syndrome, when the typical hacker thinks a long line of impressive specs and numbers matter, because he has no idea of the customer requirements. > Used to contain a life raft. Now, my groceries. How easy it is to clean when there is a spill? How easy it is to replace? I have carried BRICKS inside the nylon woven bags some supermarket sell for $1.99. Rinced with water, ready in 5 minutes. > For less than $100, I can buy a short USMC Short KA-BAR or a real M9 from Ontario for $150. This is the real thing, used by the US military. Show off!! If you want something to bring in a fight, get a Mark 1 trench knife: has brass knuckles for punching (and limit the risk of dropping your knife), a long thin blade for more lethality (easier puncture wound regardless of angle than with a wider blade). And in the kitchen it is ideal to break walnuts :) Of course it does not look "nice" - like carrying bricks in a nylon supermarket bag. It is about knowing the needs you optimize for.
  - Grustaf 5y ago
    I think you're missing the point. Nobody cares what ASTM Specification E960 is, it just sounds cool. Some people like industrial/military stuff for its own sake.
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    The beaker example is the worst one, because the shape of the beaker is meant for controlled pouring out one point and no spills anywhere else around the perimeter. A drinking glass is designed for sipping which is completely different. If you tried drinking out of a beaker the flanged opening would tend to make the beverage pour down either side of your mouth.
    - throwawayboise 5y ago
      It's also sort of a bad idea to normalize drinking out of laboratory glassware. Granted your home is different from a real lab, but lab workers have died drinking something they thought was water. In my dad's lab in the 1970s, they used to make coffee in a large Erlenmeyer flask and filter it under vaccuum with a Buchner funnel. The safety director eventually banned it and made them buy a Mr. Coffee.
      - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
        I wonder how many undergrads will disassemble their bongs made from spare bits of chemistry glassware after reading your warning about drinking from lab equipment.
villasv 5y ago
I agree. “Worse” considering the scenarios where your needs are not exactly the ones that guided project development. A simple example would be gloves. What would be the pro version of a glove? The ones used in steel mills? If you want a glove for riding a bike, you’re better of with regular biker gloves. If it’s a glove for winter, maybe skier gloves and so on.
- kube-system 5y ago
  Work/utility gloves are a good example where the commercial-grade options are awesome compared to what is at Home Depot. For example, Ansell HyFlex gloves are standard issue in Amazon warehouses and they’re awesome for chores around the house too. They fit really well (and come in more sizes), they’re durable, and they are comfortable to wear for extended periods of time.
  - criddell 5y ago
    https://www.homedepot.com/p/Ansell-Glove-HyFlex-11-542-Lightest-Weight-High-Cut-Size-8-ASL11542080/311136605 https://www.homedepot.com/p/Ansell-Glove-HyFlex-11-542-Light...
    - CamperBob2 5y ago
      Interesting, had no idea that work gloves not designed for use by NASA could cost almost $300/pair. What kind of work are these used for? Safecracking?
      - sparselogic 5y ago
        That’s for 12 pairs.
        CamperBob2 5y ago
        I see what you mean now -- they certainly don't make that obvious.
adrianmonk 5y ago
Also, that stand mixer isn't going to fit in my kitchen cabinet. Compare that to my consumer-grade Sunbeam. It's smaller, and the top part (motor, etc.) separates from the stand part via a quick-release button, so it fits on a shelf which isn't very tall at all.
- cobalt 5y ago
  the one you'd want to get is the kitchenaid commercial, which is a reasonable size and NSF rated
- dan-robertson 5y ago
  And it probably doesn’t work so well if you aren’t making enormous quantities of dough.
  - convolvatron 5y ago
    eh. the 5 quart hobart is the same capacity as the 5 qt plastic gear break the first time you knead machine. and it really is a joy to use and break down. it does stand a bit taller and weight about twice as much.
  - ReptileMan 5y ago
    Those Hobarts are usually rated for 1 kg of water. So this gives around 2.5 kg doughball. But they are rated for it so you can do it reliably. Without worry. But this is like 3 loaves of challah or 4 artisan breads. For dedicated dough makers - spiral, fork or diving arm mixers are the standard. But planetary mixers are good if your dough is side affair or you need to whip some eggwhites from time to time.
- pengaru 5y ago
  We made the mistake of ordering a Sunbeam set of chef knives w/wood storage block off Amazon for the kitchen at my last startup. Every knife was dull and identically serrated like a budget steak knife, despite presenting as a comprehensive set of chef knives. The whole set was almost completely useless. Sunbeam is not the reasonable quality brand it once was back in the Sears days, stay away.
dan-robertson 5y ago
Dishwashers are another example. You could buy a commercial one but it will come with no roll-out trays (you load up different plastic racks for different things and you can load a rack while the dishwasher is running) and it’s designed for an environment with lots of ventilation (you just open it when it is done and let the steam get ventilated away) which people are unlikely to have in their own kitchens. Other items tend to be designed for people who can put more work in regular cleaning and maintenance. You could buy a commercial espresso machine and coffee grinder to make yourself coffee every morning but the machine is designed to warm up at the start of the day, pull a lot of shots, and get thoroughly cleaned later. You will still need to warm it up and make sure it is behaving well before your coffee and you’ll still need to properly clean it afterwards.
- user3939382 5y ago
  Tangentially related: if you do want an amazing electric coffee grinder, feel free to piggy back on my countless hours of research and go with this: Baratza Virtuoso+ It is excellent.
  - faeyanpiraat 5y ago
    I’m suspicious.
  - birdyrooster 5y ago
    How much static electricity does it generate? That is my biggest complaint on burr grinders, they act like Van de Graaff generators and then the grounds get stuck all over the machine.
    - tailspin2019 5y ago
      In my two days of usage so far…. not much. I read about other grinders having issues with grounds being stuck in the container but this one doesn’t appear to have that problem. I think I read that the + model has a redesigned ground container to tackle the static issue - had seen some mention that static was more of an issue with the older “non +” model
tootie 5y ago
I used to love browsing McMaster-Carr but pretty quickly realized there is nothing worth buying as a consumer. Anything remotely practical for personal use is cheaper on Amazon.
- s5300 5y ago
  McMaster is pretty good as a consumer for fastener hardware, a good assortment of various geometries of various metals, and mixing supplies in sense of both availability, exotics (such as aluminum flake 12.9 screws), and absolute zero bullshit with regards to knowing what you're actually getting, the fact it's always there, and that it's same day-next morning delivery in most parts of the US. I've had my fair share of actual 12.9 steel screws from Amazon that are actually 12.9 steel, and my fair share of 12.9 steel screws that were actually made of cheese. Plus... this is something maybe only a CAD user can understand - McMaster Carr provides an outright sex bible of importable 3D CAD objects. Like, I really thought my CAD instructor in University was joking when they said McMaster would be your Bible if you're ever designing in CAD for hobby/industry. Then I got a job, and holy shit were they right. So I like to think whenever I pay slightly more on McMaster for what I could get on Amazon or eBay, I'm supporting the bible for all of the goodness it's given me for my hobby designing and in making actual work less stressful as well.
  - akiselev 5y ago
    > Plus... this is something maybe only a CAD user can understand - McMaster Carr provides an outright sex bible of importable 3D CAD objects. Luckily many suppliers are doing this. Misumi for example has plugins for CAD packages like Solidworks that even generate CAD parts for parts with custom configurations (like aluminum extrusion cut to size) so going from assembly to BOM to purchase order is a few clicks.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - tootie 5y ago
    Oh yeah, I got turned on to McMaster while doing some fabrication projects with industrial designers. We needed bags of machine screws, cable carriers, aluminum extrusions, lubricant, random brackets, rubber tubing and such it was truly miraculous.
macNchz 5y ago
You’re totally correct about the noise, however I actually use a commercial all-metal box fan to ventilate my apartment and it’s really awesome. I only run it at night, and I put it in a window in another room, facing out with some material around it to make a snug fit. The result is a steady breeze coming in the bedroom windows at night and a muted hum from the other room. It makes regular plastic box fans look like a joke. It easily moves 10x the air on low as a plastic one on high. This approach greatly reduces the number of nights we need to use the AC in early summer/early fall in NYC, when it’s warm but not so humid as in July and August. I’ve tried the same thing with a plastic fan and it’s way less effective...we can come home to a hot stuffy apartment on a Sunday night after a weekend away and have it totally comfortable inside in a matter of minutes.
- notatoad 5y ago
  yeah, i don't mean to say that no commercial-grade products are suitable for home use, just that you need to be a lot more careful if you're buying products for a use they aren't intended for. if you buy a product designed for home use, you can be reasonably sure that it will work in a home setting if you buy a commercial-grade product, you just need to pay close attention to what trade-offs have been made that might be a poor fit for home usage. it's almost always a good idea to buy the professional-grade items you've used at work and know are awesome, it's almost never a good idea to buy a professional-grade item sight-unseen unless you know there's a local used market for it.
  - Wistar 5y ago
    I have been, over-time, retro-fitting my home with pro/commercial-grade infrastructure items such as: quarter-turn marine-grade ball valves for the water-main; toilets, clothes washer, fridge and dishwasher; recessed sillcock valves; outdoor hose reels and hoses; sprinklers (this is a biggie as so many sprinklers are one-season junk); heavy-duty light switches; ceiling fans (the wonderful Big-Ass fans stuff); locks and latches, fencing hardware; outdoor lighting, and so on. Stuff that is fairly invisible but which offer high utility and, especially, durability and trust without being inconvenient or weird. At one point, years ago, my brother and I considered creating a web site that explored these kinds of high-integrity options, and acted as a directory and maybe a review site as well. A site that evangelizes high-quality, well-engineered items that are easily integrated into a home and provide much greater longevity without costing a fortune. "Overkill" is probably too strong a term for the idea.
JJMcJ 5y ago
Fans - did some work on a 19 inch rack mountable system. Had four I think 12,000 RPM fans. The fans were about 1 inch on a side but between them they sounded like a fully loaded 747 spinning up.
- dsr_ 5y ago
  The test units for the first generation of AMD Opteron 1U servers we bought were immediately named pratt, whitney, rolls and royce.
  - JJMcJ 5y ago
    Quite correctly, I would assume.
  - jrockway 5y ago
    GE feels left out!
yongjik 5y ago
Hmm, there's a lesson hidden somewhere here about junior developers itching to implement everything in multi-region distributed services, because Google does it that way.
gnarbarian 5y ago
I purchased a 30-in steel barrel fan from home Depot 3 years ago and I maintain it is the best fan I've ever owned. I put it in a different part of my house entirely pointing out a window and I open a window in my bedroom and it sucks that air right in. It's not even That loud though
- winrid 5y ago
  And that's probably not even commercial grade, more like pro-sumer.
  - gnarbarian 5y ago
    probably. I just know I'm sick of buying plastic shit that doesn't last.
crooked-v 5y ago
Another obvious example here given the people on this website is servers: if you're going to have a home server, unless you can go put it in a soundproofed room in the basement, you're going to want to use consumer-grade fans that aren't inherently screamingly loud.
- drewzero1 5y ago
  I found this out the hard way. Picked up a cheap surplus ProLiant to mess around with, and quickly realized it would be far better for my use case to use a business-class desktop or laptop and avoid the unnecessary noise, space, and power draw of pro server hardware. It sure looked cool, though.
  - fomine3 5y ago
    Then you miss ECC if you need reliability. Only workstations equip ECC RAM even for business.
    - drewzero1 5y ago
      That's true, but for my use case I found it wasn't necessary (though it would be nice to have, in general.)
  - stordoff 5y ago
    I went for a tower server for those exact reasons - sensible idle power draw and quiet even under full load (I've got an x265 encode running at the moment, and it's not quite silent but there's just a very gentle hum) without losing ECC. Some of the older dual Xeon servers on eBay were tempting, but the noise/power draw made it a non-starter.
- neilv 5y ago
  Your home server can be a RasPi or a NUC or similar. Or it's possible to make/convert rackmount server to be quiet. Right now, I have a silent 4U rackmount GPU server running 24/7 in my living room, cooled just fine by a 120mm Noctua fan (plus a silent consumer ATX PSU fan). I also have a commercial 1U Atom server that I've adapted for living room. The Atom and mirrored HDDs are passively-cooled (though you can also get Xeons in the same chassis). The Flex-ATX PSU was loud, but I opened it up and soldered in an effectively silent Noctua. The noise-no-object jet engine servers are a problem, especially full-depth 1U ones with a phalanx of jet engine fans. But people have had some luck removing fans and replacing some of them with quieter fans, or liquid cooling.
totesraunch 5y ago
Interestingly the Dyson fan is significantly louder than a cheap WalMart fan. https://youtu.be/dS0oFmzU06g https://youtu.be/dS0oFmzU06g
- petewailes 5y ago
  There's a few problems with that review. It's confusing air speed at a point with volume of air displaced, and assuming that volume at all frequencies is perceptually the same, which it isn't. Psychoacoustically, something with a sound profile at ~80Hz sounds quieter than the same dB noise at 250Hz, which is quieter than at 1000 Hz. The Dyson fans tend to have a particularly quiet sounding noise profile compared to their volume of air displaced at low to mid power in particular, and also are far quieter and low powers than traditional fans. They're not worth the money they cost, but there's a lot more nuance than this presents.
valec 5y ago
Another example is weight. The average consumer Rogue or Titan power rack or machine will outlive the one or two people using it. It is completely sufficient even for light-commercial use while still being light enough to move around with only a couple people. Commercial gym equipment, on the other hand is more expensive, much heavier, and doesn't bring many advantages over a high quality consumer product. If you're running a gym where thousands of people use it every year the extra weight and cost makes sense but for a single person it's just a pain.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Ekaros 5y ago
Also there is question of scale. Like the mixer, the capacity is just too big for regular use. It would be massive waste for me to make much anything with it. As I don't think it scales to small enough amounts.

tschwimmer 5y ago

Agreed 1000x. There is rarely a single best in all categories good for something. Instead, you have to pay attention to what you’re optimizing for. The industrial/commercial cookware he lists is definitely durable but also it’s huge, may consume a ton of energy and will not match the decor of the rest of your kitchen.

hirsin 5y ago
Yup. First thought on the shopping bag was "how heavy is that empty?". Designers were not worried about over burdening whatever carried it, necessarily. That mixer likely won't handle a small load (as in, a single family sized loaf). Spot on though about some of the stuff. That knife is nice, although being edged on both sides is a liability.
- sp332 5y ago
  The mixer paddle goes all the way to the bottom of the bowl, and so does the whisk attachment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYBxEyzqUY0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYBxEyzqUY0
1996 5y ago
> The industrial/commercial cookware he lists is definitely durable No, it is plain wrong. He recommends borosilicate beakers for beer. I think he never worked in a lab: borosilicate beakers break. Their thermal expansion tolerance is a non feature for cold beer: when did one of your beer mug broke because you served yourself boiling beer? > Does your glassware meet ASTM Specification E960, Type II requirements? Is it manufactured from 33 expansion, low extractable borosilicate glass conforming to USP Type I and ASTM E438, Type I, Class A requirements? I didn't think so. I call that hacker syndrome, when the typical hacker thinks a long line of impressive specs and numbers matter, because he has no idea of the customer requirements. > Used to contain a life raft. Now, my groceries. How easy it is to clean when there is a spill? How easy it is to replace? I have carried BRICKS inside the nylon woven bags some supermarket sell for $1.99. Rinced with water, ready in 5 minutes. > For less than $100, I can buy a short USMC Short KA-BAR or a real M9 from Ontario for $150. This is the real thing, used by the US military. Show off!! If you want something to bring in a fight, get a Mark 1 trench knife: has brass knuckles for punching (and limit the risk of dropping your knife), a long thin blade for more lethality (easier puncture wound regardless of angle than with a wider blade). And in the kitchen it is ideal to break walnuts :) Of course it does not look "nice" - like carrying bricks in a nylon supermarket bag. It is about knowing the needs you optimize for.
- Grustaf 5y ago
  I think you're missing the point. Nobody cares what ASTM Specification E960 is, it just sounds cool. Some people like industrial/military stuff for its own sake.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  The beaker example is the worst one, because the shape of the beaker is meant for controlled pouring out one point and no spills anywhere else around the perimeter. A drinking glass is designed for sipping which is completely different. If you tried drinking out of a beaker the flanged opening would tend to make the beverage pour down either side of your mouth.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    It's also sort of a bad idea to normalize drinking out of laboratory glassware. Granted your home is different from a real lab, but lab workers have died drinking something they thought was water. In my dad's lab in the 1970s, they used to make coffee in a large Erlenmeyer flask and filter it under vaccuum with a Buchner funnel. The safety director eventually banned it and made them buy a Mr. Coffee.
    - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
      I wonder how many undergrads will disassemble their bongs made from spare bits of chemistry glassware after reading your warning about drinking from lab equipment.

villasv 5y ago

I agree. “Worse” considering the scenarios where your needs are not exactly the ones that guided project development. A simple example would be gloves. What would be the pro version of a glove? The ones used in steel mills? If you want a glove for riding a bike, you’re better of with regular biker gloves. If it’s a glove for winter, maybe skier gloves and so on.

kube-system 5y ago
Work/utility gloves are a good example where the commercial-grade options are awesome compared to what is at Home Depot. For example, Ansell HyFlex gloves are standard issue in Amazon warehouses and they’re awesome for chores around the house too. They fit really well (and come in more sizes), they’re durable, and they are comfortable to wear for extended periods of time.
- criddell 5y ago
  https://www.homedepot.com/p/Ansell-Glove-HyFlex-11-542-Lightest-Weight-High-Cut-Size-8-ASL11542080/311136605 https://www.homedepot.com/p/Ansell-Glove-HyFlex-11-542-Light...
  - CamperBob2 5y ago
    Interesting, had no idea that work gloves not designed for use by NASA could cost almost $300/pair. What kind of work are these used for? Safecracking?
    - sparselogic 5y ago
      That’s for 12 pairs.
      - CamperBob2 5y ago
        I see what you mean now -- they certainly don't make that obvious.

adrianmonk 5y ago

Also, that stand mixer isn't going to fit in my kitchen cabinet. Compare that to my consumer-grade Sunbeam. It's smaller, and the top part (motor, etc.) separates from the stand part via a quick-release button, so it fits on a shelf which isn't very tall at all.

cobalt 5y ago
the one you'd want to get is the kitchenaid commercial, which is a reasonable size and NSF rated
dan-robertson 5y ago
And it probably doesn’t work so well if you aren’t making enormous quantities of dough.
- convolvatron 5y ago
  eh. the 5 quart hobart is the same capacity as the 5 qt plastic gear break the first time you knead machine. and it really is a joy to use and break down. it does stand a bit taller and weight about twice as much.
- ReptileMan 5y ago
  Those Hobarts are usually rated for 1 kg of water. So this gives around 2.5 kg doughball. But they are rated for it so you can do it reliably. Without worry. But this is like 3 loaves of challah or 4 artisan breads. For dedicated dough makers - spiral, fork or diving arm mixers are the standard. But planetary mixers are good if your dough is side affair or you need to whip some eggwhites from time to time.
pengaru 5y ago
We made the mistake of ordering a Sunbeam set of chef knives w/wood storage block off Amazon for the kitchen at my last startup. Every knife was dull and identically serrated like a budget steak knife, despite presenting as a comprehensive set of chef knives. The whole set was almost completely useless. Sunbeam is not the reasonable quality brand it once was back in the Sears days, stay away.

dan-robertson 5y ago

Dishwashers are another example. You could buy a commercial one but it will come with no roll-out trays (you load up different plastic racks for different things and you can load a rack while the dishwasher is running) and it’s designed for an environment with lots of ventilation (you just open it when it is done and let the steam get ventilated away) which people are unlikely to have in their own kitchens. Other items tend to be designed for people who can put more work in regular cleaning and maintenance. You could buy a commercial espresso machine and coffee grinder to make yourself coffee every morning but the machine is designed to warm up at the start of the day, pull a lot of shots, and get thoroughly cleaned later. You will still need to warm it up and make sure it is behaving well before your coffee and you’ll still need to properly clean it afterwards.

user3939382 5y ago
Tangentially related: if you do want an amazing electric coffee grinder, feel free to piggy back on my countless hours of research and go with this: Baratza Virtuoso+ It is excellent.
- faeyanpiraat 5y ago
  I’m suspicious.
- birdyrooster 5y ago
  How much static electricity does it generate? That is my biggest complaint on burr grinders, they act like Van de Graaff generators and then the grounds get stuck all over the machine.
  - tailspin2019 5y ago
    In my two days of usage so far…. not much. I read about other grinders having issues with grounds being stuck in the container but this one doesn’t appear to have that problem. I think I read that the + model has a redesigned ground container to tackle the static issue - had seen some mention that static was more of an issue with the older “non +” model

tootie 5y ago

I used to love browsing McMaster-Carr but pretty quickly realized there is nothing worth buying as a consumer. Anything remotely practical for personal use is cheaper on Amazon.

s5300 5y ago
McMaster is pretty good as a consumer for fastener hardware, a good assortment of various geometries of various metals, and mixing supplies in sense of both availability, exotics (such as aluminum flake 12.9 screws), and absolute zero bullshit with regards to knowing what you're actually getting, the fact it's always there, and that it's same day-next morning delivery in most parts of the US. I've had my fair share of actual 12.9 steel screws from Amazon that are actually 12.9 steel, and my fair share of 12.9 steel screws that were actually made of cheese. Plus... this is something maybe only a CAD user can understand - McMaster Carr provides an outright sex bible of importable 3D CAD objects. Like, I really thought my CAD instructor in University was joking when they said McMaster would be your Bible if you're ever designing in CAD for hobby/industry. Then I got a job, and holy shit were they right. So I like to think whenever I pay slightly more on McMaster for what I could get on Amazon or eBay, I'm supporting the bible for all of the goodness it's given me for my hobby designing and in making actual work less stressful as well.
- akiselev 5y ago
  > Plus... this is something maybe only a CAD user can understand - McMaster Carr provides an outright sex bible of importable 3D CAD objects. Luckily many suppliers are doing this. Misumi for example has plugins for CAD packages like Solidworks that even generate CAD parts for parts with custom configurations (like aluminum extrusion cut to size) so going from assembly to BOM to purchase order is a few clicks.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tootie 5y ago
  Oh yeah, I got turned on to McMaster while doing some fabrication projects with industrial designers. We needed bags of machine screws, cable carriers, aluminum extrusions, lubricant, random brackets, rubber tubing and such it was truly miraculous.

macNchz 5y ago

You’re totally correct about the noise, however I actually use a commercial all-metal box fan to ventilate my apartment and it’s really awesome. I only run it at night, and I put it in a window in another room, facing out with some material around it to make a snug fit. The result is a steady breeze coming in the bedroom windows at night and a muted hum from the other room. It makes regular plastic box fans look like a joke. It easily moves 10x the air on low as a plastic one on high. This approach greatly reduces the number of nights we need to use the AC in early summer/early fall in NYC, when it’s warm but not so humid as in July and August. I’ve tried the same thing with a plastic fan and it’s way less effective...we can come home to a hot stuffy apartment on a Sunday night after a weekend away and have it totally comfortable inside in a matter of minutes.

notatoad 5y ago
yeah, i don't mean to say that no commercial-grade products are suitable for home use, just that you need to be a lot more careful if you're buying products for a use they aren't intended for. if you buy a product designed for home use, you can be reasonably sure that it will work in a home setting if you buy a commercial-grade product, you just need to pay close attention to what trade-offs have been made that might be a poor fit for home usage. it's almost always a good idea to buy the professional-grade items you've used at work and know are awesome, it's almost never a good idea to buy a professional-grade item sight-unseen unless you know there's a local used market for it.
- Wistar 5y ago
  I have been, over-time, retro-fitting my home with pro/commercial-grade infrastructure items such as: quarter-turn marine-grade ball valves for the water-main; toilets, clothes washer, fridge and dishwasher; recessed sillcock valves; outdoor hose reels and hoses; sprinklers (this is a biggie as so many sprinklers are one-season junk); heavy-duty light switches; ceiling fans (the wonderful Big-Ass fans stuff); locks and latches, fencing hardware; outdoor lighting, and so on. Stuff that is fairly invisible but which offer high utility and, especially, durability and trust without being inconvenient or weird. At one point, years ago, my brother and I considered creating a web site that explored these kinds of high-integrity options, and acted as a directory and maybe a review site as well. A site that evangelizes high-quality, well-engineered items that are easily integrated into a home and provide much greater longevity without costing a fortune. "Overkill" is probably too strong a term for the idea.

JJMcJ 5y ago

Fans - did some work on a 19 inch rack mountable system. Had four I think 12,000 RPM fans. The fans were about 1 inch on a side but between them they sounded like a fully loaded 747 spinning up.

dsr_ 5y ago
The test units for the first generation of AMD Opteron 1U servers we bought were immediately named pratt, whitney, rolls and royce.
- JJMcJ 5y ago
  Quite correctly, I would assume.
- jrockway 5y ago
  GE feels left out!

yongjik 5y ago

Hmm, there's a lesson hidden somewhere here about junior developers itching to implement everything in multi-region distributed services, because Google does it that way.

gnarbarian 5y ago

I purchased a 30-in steel barrel fan from home Depot 3 years ago and I maintain it is the best fan I've ever owned. I put it in a different part of my house entirely pointing out a window and I open a window in my bedroom and it sucks that air right in. It's not even That loud though

winrid 5y ago
And that's probably not even commercial grade, more like pro-sumer.
- gnarbarian 5y ago
  probably. I just know I'm sick of buying plastic shit that doesn't last.

crooked-v 5y ago

Another obvious example here given the people on this website is servers: if you're going to have a home server, unless you can go put it in a soundproofed room in the basement, you're going to want to use consumer-grade fans that aren't inherently screamingly loud.

drewzero1 5y ago
I found this out the hard way. Picked up a cheap surplus ProLiant to mess around with, and quickly realized it would be far better for my use case to use a business-class desktop or laptop and avoid the unnecessary noise, space, and power draw of pro server hardware. It sure looked cool, though.
- fomine3 5y ago
  Then you miss ECC if you need reliability. Only workstations equip ECC RAM even for business.
  - drewzero1 5y ago
    That's true, but for my use case I found it wasn't necessary (though it would be nice to have, in general.)
- stordoff 5y ago
  I went for a tower server for those exact reasons - sensible idle power draw and quiet even under full load (I've got an x265 encode running at the moment, and it's not quite silent but there's just a very gentle hum) without losing ECC. Some of the older dual Xeon servers on eBay were tempting, but the noise/power draw made it a non-starter.
neilv 5y ago
Your home server can be a RasPi or a NUC or similar. Or it's possible to make/convert rackmount server to be quiet. Right now, I have a silent 4U rackmount GPU server running 24/7 in my living room, cooled just fine by a 120mm Noctua fan (plus a silent consumer ATX PSU fan). I also have a commercial 1U Atom server that I've adapted for living room. The Atom and mirrored HDDs are passively-cooled (though you can also get Xeons in the same chassis). The Flex-ATX PSU was loud, but I opened it up and soldered in an effectively silent Noctua. The noise-no-object jet engine servers are a problem, especially full-depth 1U ones with a phalanx of jet engine fans. But people have had some luck removing fans and replacing some of them with quieter fans, or liquid cooling.

totesraunch 5y ago

Interestingly the Dyson fan is significantly louder than a cheap WalMart fan. https://youtu.be/dS0oFmzU06g https://youtu.be/dS0oFmzU06g

petewailes 5y ago
There's a few problems with that review. It's confusing air speed at a point with volume of air displaced, and assuming that volume at all frequencies is perceptually the same, which it isn't. Psychoacoustically, something with a sound profile at ~80Hz sounds quieter than the same dB noise at 250Hz, which is quieter than at 1000 Hz. The Dyson fans tend to have a particularly quiet sounding noise profile compared to their volume of air displaced at low to mid power in particular, and also are far quieter and low powers than traditional fans. They're not worth the money they cost, but there's a lot more nuance than this presents.

valec 5y ago

Another example is weight. The average consumer Rogue or Titan power rack or machine will outlive the one or two people using it. It is completely sufficient even for light-commercial use while still being light enough to move around with only a couple people. Commercial gym equipment, on the other hand is more expensive, much heavier, and doesn't bring many advantages over a high quality consumer product. If you're running a gym where thousands of people use it every year the extra weight and cost makes sense but for a single person it's just a pain.

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Ekaros 5y ago

Also there is question of scale. Like the mixer, the capacity is just too big for regular use. It would be massive waste for me to make much anything with it. As I don't think it scales to small enough amounts.