Axel AX3000 m70 for Lesson Monitor

[SwedishChef]

Just a quick note to say thanks to Matt at Axel for some great technical advice, and some feedback for you all.

 

In two days 2 techincians were able to distribute 50... yes 50!!! terminals/monitor/mouse/keyboard to classrooms, the terminal mounts on the back of the monitor.

 

I made a template terminal config, sucked up the config and used the AUTO config service to deploy this to new terminals plugged onto the network.

 

I have setup DHCP vendor to identify the auto config server so when the device boots up we didn't have to setup per terminal, we just got one out of the box plugged it all in and switched it on.

 

I also made the RDP connection start sims.net upon startup so it is only used as a lesson monitor/sims.net terminal which is now used for electronic registration.

 

Works like a charm, now just need to figure out how the jocks in PE take their registers!!!

 

Any questions, don't hesitate to ask or PM.

 

Gary

[Butuz]

Sounds like a good setup matey! Should be darned easy to maintain - SIMS update? What sims update? I just updated 50 clients in 2 minutes

 

Butuz

[ICTNUT]

Hi All,

 

Just thght I would give a little bit of feedback and priase for these guys.

 

I have ordered 26 of these little units which I got wednesday last week pre 10:30am and by 3:30pm on that day they were installed, confirgured, secured, tagged and connected to our Server 2008 TS without an issue.

 

The config of the boxes is REALLY easy, there is also an auto config option where you can have the config file sat centrally and the units simply pull it down but to be honest it took us around 20 secs per box to do the config.

 

Well done chaps, I am currently considering another 20 of these for other areas of the school I am that happy with them.

 

If there is only one suggestion I would make and that would be to have a facility to lock the unit to the back of the monitor. There is a VESA compliant mount that comes with this unit but once in place the unit simply sits on the mount and can be removed by anyone, I got around this by using some heavy duty cable ties which will put people off but it would be nice to have this.

Edited February 9, 2009 by ICTNUT
typo

[Butuz]

If there is only one suggestion I would make and that would be to have a facility to lock the unit to the back of the monitor. There is a VESA compliant mount that comes with this unit but once in place the unit simply sits on the mount and can be removed by anyone, I got around this by using some heavy duty cable ties which will put people off but it would be nice to have this.

 

Yep agree with this - would be real handy to be able to actually bolt/screw the units to the VESA mount.

 

Butuz

[plexer]

What backend setup are you people using with these I saw 2008 Terminal Server mentioned.

 

Ben

[ICTNUT]

Yes we are using Server 2008 TS but you have to remember to trun off the new Network Authentication method in2008 as these units do not yet support this, however, I have been told that they are working on this. Edited February 9, 2009 by ICTNUT
typo

[Butuz]

2003 Here

 

Butuz

[Paul10k]

Just put in a class room full of the latest M80F Axel clients. So far so good - really fast, neat with them screwing to the monitor and £100 less than a Wyse.

[KWestos]

Just put in a class room full of the latest M80F Axel clients. So far so good - really fast, neat with them screwing to the monitor and £100 less than a Wyse.

 

Hi, could you give me an idea as to how much these clients are. I am in the process of looking at the moment. I need a good reason NOT to use the old PC's

[Paul10k]

They cost us £150 each for the new 80F models. So far so good no complaints from the abusers.

[Axel]

It's hard to mount an arguement against using old pcs as tcs if you already have them....One point to consider is power consuption, PCs typically take about 200 watts (a typical linux or WinCE terminal about 20 watts), and the Axel 5watts. if you do the maths the Axel device will have paid for itself in energy savings alone before its warranty expires when compared to a PC! Thin clients are also totally silent having no hd or fans. You would also expect to spend a lot less time configuring and supporting. Thin clients also boot much quicker, in about three seconds.......

[Voodoo]

Just to add that we have also decided to diversify our desktop a bit, and are adopting Axel terminals in some roles (with TS 2008 backend).

 

Only a small number (5) to start with, initially to replace PC's in Admin and Management locations. We spent some time testing out a couple of different models with the help of Axel and were very impressed with the M80F model...ideal for the role and scored highly on all counts (price, performance, ease of management, TCO).

 

On top of that Axel themselves provided us with exceptional support at our evaluation stage when we were having some local technical problems. So if these first 5 shape up as we expect, I hope to see a lot more of them on site in the future.

[SpuffMonkey]

I just want to add that as a company, they have been a pleasure to deal with. We've just deployed 60 of the MF80 boxes - and they were so easy to setup it was a breeze.

 

We previously used Wyse TC units - not bad in themselves, but in a like for like comparison, the Axel box blew them away. The graphics on the Axels were much faster - and while you can't really watch video on them, the frame rate was significantly better than the Wyse boxes.

 

A big plus for us was the ease of management - they come with a management console program where you can fully manage all the boxes and set individual settings - an improvement on the Wyse which had to be all set alike - annoying when you have different monitor sizes in different rooms - they can also be fully locked down from the console - the Wyse were set as all or nothing - so to implement a change, they all had to be unlocked, and change done then all locked up again.

 

Another "nice" feature was the short VGA cables that can be bought with them - when VESA mounting - it makes for a very tidy desk deployment.

 

Matthew from Axel was very helpful, as we had some initial problems getting the appro box to work, due to some settings on our Citrix environment - but these were all dealt with, even though we hadn't committed to buy anything at that stage - he also gave my Senior Tech plenty of help in optimising the build and use of the management soft.

 

So - top marks - well worth considering if you are looking to get some TCs.

[Paul10k]

Wish I'd known about the short vga cables

 

Pity the mains cables are so long as well.

[Axel]

Paul,

 

Give me a call, I am sure we can sort something out regarding the little VGA cables. They didn't exist on our pricelist when you bought your terminals. Since then we have introduced a few school specific options as more schools have begun using Axel terminals and have given us helpful feedback.

 

The power cable is 180cm long, which is the same length as a standard 'kettle type' computer mains cable. We had to select a length, and this seemed a suitable choice....

Edited August 10, 2009 by Axel

[cookie_monster]

I think the power cable is a good lenth and it's thin so you can roll it up and cable tie it quite easily.

[Paul10k]

We've put all of the Axles' in now so no need for shorted cables - amazing what you can do with ty-wraps:eek:

 

So far - all Axels' gone in with no failures at all.

[cookie_monster]

Well we rolled out 40 Axel units over the summer holiday and we've had no issues so far. Well I say rolled out all you do is install the control software on one station or server add a DNS entry pointing to it then turn the Axels on they download the config and that's it, ace.

 

Matthew from Axel was very helpful and supplied us with plenty of information on setting up the initial config exactly as we wanted it.

[joe90bass]

We've deployed 20 of the M80 in a room for our PE dept to use for coursework. As has been mentioned above, there is a central management console but as it takes less than a minute to setup each one manually I didn't even give it a look. We ordered the VESA mount kits for each one, I seem to recall a locakable VESA mount as well which I would recommend to anyone else thinking of these as I have found a few off the mounts.

 

As also mentioned above, Matthew's support is great to, and if anyone is thinking of getting one on eval, it really is no obligation, and there seems to be no time limit as well!!

 

I do wish I'd found these earlier, as we also have 100 Samsung SM711NTs which have been nothing but trouble. Apart from them not supporting USB drives, when I specifically stated it as a requirement when ordering (they run CE5), we also have trouble with the image corrupting on them. Our supplier is not much help, and Samsung will only replace them on a one by one basis, and so far their fix hasn't worked... I now use them with Thinstation which fixes the issues, until the SM711NT resets itself and goes back to booting from local storage not PXE..............

 

All Thin Clients run from a 2008R2 farm, though we only use DNS Round Robin not load balancing

[Jamoire]

Just deployed 30 of the M80F model to a Business Studies suite, so far they are fantastic. Very quiet, generate hardly any heat (which is handy in the weather we have been having!), look neat and tidy using the VESA mount and take hardly any time to set up.

 

Installed the remote management software on a server, setup a DNS entry, made a template setup on the loan unit we had and then it took about 20 seconds to automatically download and configure each unit on power on.

 

Using it to connect to a Citrix XenApp 5 farm and had no problems.

[Axel]

A quick notice for Axel users - we have released dual monitor f/w for the M80 thin client. (So you can use your existing M80 hardware).

 

For further details please get in touch.

 

Thanks

 

[email protected]

[Axel]

A quick note to all the happy Axel thin client users out there - we are looking for beta testers to test either RDP or Citrix Gateway.

 

This function will provide the ability for working securely from home connecting to corporate/school servers, over the internet.

 

The connection to the (BT) home router can be either Ethernet or wifi, depending on terminal (M80/M85).

 

(A firmware upgrade will be required to include Gateway support (free))

[Axel]

Though I'd just highlight this school's video...

 

...and let you all know there is a (free) f/w upgrade for Axel M80 terminals to for support for W2012.

 

(Microsoft beefed up the security - so all thin clients will have to be upgraded to reflect these changes)

 

 

(On his Blog is also described using a Raspberry PI as a thin-client - which is interesting ! wpsit.blogspot.co.uk )

[jamesfed]

Though I'd just highlight this school's video...

 

...and let you all know there is a (free) f/w upgrade for Axel M80 terminals to for support for W2012.

 

(Microsoft beefed up the security - so all thin clients will have to be upgraded to reflect these changes)

 

 

(On his Blog is also described using a Raspberry PI as a thin-client - which is interesting ! wpsit.blogspot.co.uk )

 

Nice to see more School IT Techs blogging about what they are getting up to

[ozydave]

As with others on this thread. These little devices are great and Matthew has been very helpful. Wish I could get these into more areas but the timetable is not tied down enough here.

Matthew & Axel thanks great product