Maclocks Secure Space Enclosure Wall Mount for Surface Pro 3/4 (540GEB)

Well, this was a fight until the end, and I'm not completely happy with it, but it's the only game in town, and I've gotten it to work. Let me take you back.It's very light weight, which is a plus! It has an optional keyboard tray:  Maclocks SRFCTRAY Keyboard Tray for Surface Enclosures (Black)  (which I require) that you can attach to use your surface keyboard (cannot be folded back up) with it, mine is the Type Cover Pro with fingerprint reader. And it's all basically light enough to mount on a monitor arm (rated for ~20Lb load should be fine). So a floating Surface with keyboard. That's what I need.Well that sounds great, right? No competition in this space, no other mount on the market can do this, so this has to work!First issue that's the only one you're warned about in the product description. Someone at CompuLocks decided that this mount was going to hold a future 30lbs+ MS Surface 12" tablet (wow, can't wait to see that), so they decided to drill VESA 100mm x 100mm holes, OK...mounts for 20" monitors use VESA 75mm x 75mm mounts to hold like 22Lbs. They had lots of room, did they also drill the correct VESA 75mm x 75mm holes along with the VESA 100mm x 100mm holes, nope. So that's one design issue they need to address, a monitor below 15" uses a smaller mount pattern, both sets of holes could have been drilled at no loss of functionality.Because it was wrong for this size, my monitor arm's mount was wrong and I had to buy an incredibly large and heavy adapter plate ( RiteAV - VESA Adapter Mount ) that risked throwing off the balance of my mount (luckily it didn't). But that mount adapter was pure steel and weighed as much as the entire surface bracket! Not cool.But OK, if you had read the product description you were prepared for this. So, be warned.Now the problems that aren't described, The screws it comes with are too long and will damage your surface, whatever you do, you'll need to replace them.Since I have an arm mount, adapter plate, and keyboard tray plate and main housing bracket all stacked up, I ended up using a M4 x 16 (i think) with two washers, once locking washer, and one Nyloc nut to secure each of the VESA 100mm x 100mm holes through everything. I had to get this at a hardware store, but the length ended up being correct for me and not injuring the back of my surface tablet.Great, I have it all together, I try to lay in the tablet and connect the typing cover...and I cannot. The typing cover interface has a cut-out for it, and it's like 1/8" too SHORT! All that assembly, now I have to undo it all. I Thought perhaps it was supposed to be held inside the metal bracket and fit around the indents of the Surface type cover interface to prevent someone from pulling the keyboard out, nope, when the interface is attached the plastic lip of the keyboard connector increases the tablet height and the entire assembly no longer fits into the housing bracket. So that means the cut out MUST support the plastic connector's full length on the type cover.Break out your band saw, and carefully notch out an additional 1/8" or so. Mine ended up perfect just by chance.Ok, now the basic machine fits and is all reattached, OK, power isn't a huge deal, there's lots of room for the power connector. However the display port is completely blocked by a security lock, so no external video for you, I don't like that. They should have placed the two locks on the extreme top and bottom of the brackets to allow clear access to the right-side ports. They could have developed a blank you install to prevent access to ports you don't need. I needed power and USB...ahh USB...there's another fight!. Since this setup was going to run a piece of lab equipment, it needs it's USB plugged into the lab device, the bracket cut out for USB (using a normal straight USB 3.0 A connector, that the Surface Pro 3 has) is shifted, like 1/16" of an inch, down. Meaning unless you break out the bandsaw again, you cannot plug in a straight USB connector correctly.I wasn't planning on a straight plug due to the chance of damage, so I needed to find a left-angled plug on Amazon that worked, only ONE current product worked (all others were too long and hit the metal bracket. The product that fit is the  StarTech.com 91cm (3 ft.) / 91cm A Right Angle to B Right Angle USB Cable .And with that, everything came together, lots of time and extra costs due to design problems with this. Now I'll agree that my usage was unusual, but the company itself advertises this usage, so I'm not the first here. But this bracket is configured more like an anti-theft device.But the vast majority of the access holes are wrong or barely fit, I know surface buttons change every revision, but no one tested this for a Surface Pro 3 before production. I wish they had just included banks you screw in to hide ports you didn't want, these cutouts are wrong, so worse that not being there.Anyway, the job is done, I'd have preferred a smaller front bezel (why it's so big, I do not know), but since it doesn't block the actual screen, I'm fine. The touch seems to work fine as does a pen, so the pressure from the front bracket doesn't seem to affect the screen (which is great, as I didn't see any padding whatsoever on the face bracket, just the rear bracket).With this warning, hopefully you'll be prepared if you decide to use this bracket for a Surface pro 3 application.

VESA mount secure enclosure, does what it is supposed to do. Seems simple, rugged, and well made. I’m taking one star off because I think they could have done a better job with cable routing. It’s a tight fit getting the power cable and a USB cable hooked up and fed back through to the back end. Partly that’s do to how Surface Pro has that funky magnetic power cable attachment, and the fact that the USB port is on the same side and requires a right angle adapter to fit in the enclosure. Comes with 4 keys.

Perfect solution to turn an old MS Surface into a kiosk for my home automation system. Very sturdy, all metal construction. Slim to the wall, all around impressed.