Hello everyone!

[cvriv]

My name is Charles and I live in the United States of America:) I love EEVBLOG so much. I can't stop watching the video's on youtube. LOL. Anyways. I'm an electronics engineering student and I'm doing very well. I love so much. Here's the deal. I am receiving a decent amount of money through my job as benefit time they owe me. I already received most of it and I have more coming. I want to use this money to build my own personal lab. The equipment I am thinking about purchasing is based on equipment Dave Jones has reviewed. The only questions I have right now are, how do most of you have your equipment arranged? I mean Dave has his stuff on shelves on the wall. How does everyone else have their stuff setup? I will be building a lab from the ground up so literally I am first going to build a pretty substantial work bench. I can build whatever the hell I want so I want to make sure im set on a design before building it. The work benches at the school are kind of nice. They are big, sturdy, and have second level which all the equipment is stacked up. I dont know if Im ok with stacking equipment like that?!?! I just want to know how everyone else has their gear. Also, I want to buy a used pc to dedicate to this work bench as well. At my school there is a pc on the bench off to the side and I like that. It might be a stupid question, but... laptop of desktop? I like laptop because it's all contained into one thing on the bench, but... I dont know. What do you all think? Any reason why I should go with a desktop over a laptop for the work bench? Thanks in advance.

[IanB]

Have you watched any of the Signal Path blog videos by Shahriar (Hugoneous on the forum)?

Take a look at how he has his kit arranged and stacked on shelves. He does a good job of keeping a clear work surface and maximizing work space. A small, but important, detail is to have long enough test leads that you can leave equipment where it sits and not have to move it around.

[logictom]

At my school there is a pc on the bench off to the side and I like that. It might be a stupid question, but... laptop of desktop? I like laptop because it's all contained into one thing on the bench, but... I dont know. What do you all think? Any reason why I should go with a desktop over a laptop for the work bench? Thanks in advance.

Desktop any day of the week! USB ports - you can never have enough USB ports (hubs don't always cut it), easily run two monitors (two 24" 1920x1080 screens can be had for cheap these days) - if you're doing sch/pcb design it's almost a must, you can mount your monitors on arms so you can move them around to where you're working.
A laptop ends up taking up desk space, you can move it around but usually have that many things plugged in it may as well be a desktop.

What IanB said. Get as much stuff off your work surface as possible, as soon as you start working on a project it will all disappear so start with as much as you can 

[cvriv]

@ IanB - I will check out the videos you have mentioned.

@ logictom - I just figured with a laptop there would be less clutter; less wires, no desktop sitting on floor, no having to mount a display somehow... overall it would be easier. Also, a laptop takes up about as much space as a full qwerty keyboard and a mouse as well. The one thing I wasn't sure of was whether or not I would have to add hardware to the PC to do something with project or something. You mentioned USB ports, thats a good example. That I do understand. So ill look into getting a desktop. Also, you use more than one monitor to do what you do EE wise? I didnt think I would need more than a 22" widescreen that I already have waiting to be used, but ok. I think that's it for now. I plan on building a pretty huge bench too. I am one to know that bench space gets used up quick. So i plan on building a bench with a table top of about 7" x 36" x 2". I figured that I would mount shelving on the wall above the bench for all my gear. I have to plan this out well.

[IanB]

For me, a laptop keyboard and display is no substitute for a full size keyboard and large monitor.

There are solutions now where you can mount a monitor on a swivel arm fixed to a shelf or the back of the desk so it takes up no surface space. Similarly, if the keyboard and mouse are wireless you can easily move those around and put them out of the way when not being used. Put the PC itself under the desk and you have a very space efficient solution.

If you want access to USB ports you can put a USB hub up on the desk or use the USB ports built into the monitor.

That said, a laptop as a second computer can often be handy when you want to take the computer to the project rather than bring the project to the computer.

A key question is whether your work bench is also your office desk? If not, a laptop in the lab and a desktop at your desk might work out fine.

[alsetalokin4017]

So i plan on building a bench with a table top of about 7" x 36" x 2".

Perfect for those tiny little long skinny boards using all SMDs.   

[cvriv]

At my school there is a pc on the bench off to the side and I like that. It might be a stupid question, but... laptop of desktop? I like laptop because it's all contained into one thing on the bench, but... I dont know. What do you all think? Any reason why I should go with a desktop over a laptop for the work bench? Thanks in advance.

Desktop any day of the week! USB ports - you can never have enough USB ports (hubs don't always cut it), easily run two monitors (two 24" 1920x1080 screens can be had for cheap these days) - if you're doing sch/pcb design it's almost a must, you can mount your monitors on arms so you can move them around to where you're working.
A laptop ends up taking up desk space, you can move it around but usually have that many things plugged in it may as well be a desktop.

What IanB said. Get as much stuff off your work surface as possible, as soon as you start working on a project it will all disappear so start with as much as you can 

I saw some videos from signal path and see exactly what you mean. His work space is setup pretty much the same way we have it set up at the college. I know what I have to do about work space now. Thanks.

[logictom]

@ logictom - I just figured with a laptop there would be less clutter; less wires, no desktop sitting on floor, no having to mount a display somehow... overall it would be easier. Also, a laptop takes up about as much space as a full qwerty keyboard and a mouse as well. The one thing I wasn't sure of was whether or not I would have to add hardware to the PC to do something with project or something. You mentioned USB ports, thats a good example. That I do understand. So ill look into getting a desktop. Also, you use more than one monitor to do what you do EE wise?

All comes down to what you're going to be working on I guess, the main example would be sch/pcb design, when working on sch you can have the datasheet open and when working on the pcb you can have the sch open.
When working on code/debugging again it can be useful to have code open on one screen, serial terminal the other, datasheet, spreadsheet with some calcs etc.
Where I work the user interface to our product is the browser so when working I usually have the IDE on one screen then switch between the browser and excel on the other (data downloaded from the product), I find it it's just much easier to work with two screens than one.

If you are coding/sch/pcb with a laptop just remember to think about the screen resolution, a lot of laptops are 1366x768 which, believe me, doesn't usually leave much working room in a lot of IDEs, don't even try and use Altium, closing all the side menus doesn't buy you much more room. If you are going to be coding/sch/pcb I would recommend you get 1920x1080 what ever platform you go with.

I didnt think I would need more than a 22" widescreen that I already have waiting to be used, but ok. I think that's it for now.

I was talking if buying new without any existing monitors - there's not much difference between 22" and 24" providing they are the same resolution - just gives you a little extra working distance if you mount towards the back of your bench, 22" will do the job

[cvriv]

Excellent advice. I won't have to bring the laptop to any project any time soon. I'll be doing all my work at this workbench I'm going to build. I can see what you mean about having more than one display. My desktop now, that I really only use for making music, has 3 22" wides and a 65" TV on the wall above. It all comes down to multitasking and I can see what you mean, so I'll get a desktop with a few displays. Makes sense. The laptops I have now have resolutions of 1920x1080 and they are not all that special, what laptops are you using that only support 1366x768? I couldn't even use a laptop with a display like that. Anyways, I have some planning to do. I'm going to start buying gear within the next few weeks and wont be able to start building the workbench till my semester is over. I'll have a few weeks after that to get everything built and running for my next semester. I really want my lab up and running before next semester for my next EE class. Also, the workbench will be only for blowing stuff up. I do my homework at my kitchen table.

[cvriv]

Ugh, so im browsing used desktops... A lot of the used pc's only have about one pci slot and a lot of them are of the small form factor. What are the chances i will need to install some sort of pci devise for something i might need to do down the road? Because if im to run multiple displays, ill need the one and only pci slot for a video card. That wont leave me with any extra pci slots. There are a lot of cheap small form factor pcs out there. Im wondering if these are good enough.