Cleaning Your Lab/Workshop

[TheSteve]

Keeping your lab clean is more fun if you own a ManVac(tm) - everyone should own a black ESD safe vacuum made by 3M - http://www.amazon.com/3M-Service-Vacuum-Cleaner-SV-497AJM/dp/B0000WU8I2

[alanb]

Reminds me of the old joke about the town with one barber shop with two barbers. You go in for a haircut, and you see one barber is neatly groomed and clean, has a well-swept station and soft music playing, while the other barber looks like he's slept in his clothes, hair is all raggedy and unshaven and has hair all over the floor, with rap music on his radio. Which barber do you choose for your shave-and-a-haircut?

Its less of a problem than the town with one barber who shaves everyone who doesn't shave themselves.

[bitseeker]

Vacuuming is where you hear the tinkle in the vacuum tube of that small screw or part you spent half an hour on you knees searching for without luck.

Perhaps a ring of neodymium magnets around the hose is in order. Put those dead hard drives to a new use.

[helius]

A surprising tip for finding dropped screws on carpet is to look with a blacklight. They appear with very high contrast.
(remember to wear glasses when using UV lamps)

[VK3DRB]

Use the Japanese 5S system and you are off to a great start.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5S_(methodology)

It takes a lot to get there initially, but it only takes some discipline and minimal effort after that to keep your lab in excellent condition.

[ez24]

    Remove unnecessary items and dispose of them properly
    Make work easier by eliminating obstacles.
    Reduce chance of being disturbed with unnecessary items
    Prevent accumulation of unnecessary items
    Evaluate necessary items with regard to cost or other factors
    Remove all parts not in use
    Segregate unwanted material from the workplace
    Need fully skilled supervisor for checking on regular basis  (ie significant other)
    Don't put unnecessary items at the workplace & define a red-tagged area to keep  those unnecessary items
    Arrange all necessary items so they can be easily selected for use
    Make it easy to find and pick up necessary items
    Ensure first-come-first-served basis
    Make workflow smooth and easy
    All above work should be done on regular basis
    Clean your workplace completely
    Use cleaning as inspection
    Prevent machinery and equipment deterioration
    Keep workplace safe and easy to work
    Keep work place clean
    Standardize the best practices in the work area.
    Everything in its right place.
    Every process has a standard.
    Perform regular audits

Anything left out?   Now I will see if I can do one of them 

[nowlan]

These only make sense if you have room to store and keep crap off your desk. Piling stuff in boxes under table etc just makes life hard.

[Gribo]

I sweep my lab every two weeks, and try, without much success, to get rid of any stuff I don't use. Hoarding is not good for your health

[KL27x]

I continue to work on a tidy bench; I can find everything easily, and have plenty space to work.

It doesn't matter how tidy you keep it or how often you clean it. Some projects take so many parts and specialized tools. Sometimes you need to use nearly all of your equipment at the same time. Wires, tools, parts, everywhere. It's good to be clean, but it's not possible to do a complex project and remain clean, short of setting up an entire assembly line in your workshop. I dunno, but my workshop isn't large enough to stay clean.

[MikeW]

    Remove unnecessary items and dispose of them properly
    Make work easier by eliminating obstacles.
    Reduce chance of being disturbed with unnecessary items
    Prevent accumulation of unnecessary items
    Evaluate necessary items with regard to cost or other factors
    Remove all parts not in use
    Segregate unwanted material from the workplace
    Need fully skilled supervisor for checking on regular basis  (ie significant other)
    Don't put unnecessary items at the workplace & define a red-tagged area to keep  those unnecessary items
    Arrange all necessary items so they can be easily selected for use
    Make it easy to find and pick up necessary items
    Ensure first-come-first-served basis
    Make workflow smooth and easy
    All above work should be done on regular basis
    Clean your workplace completely
    Use cleaning as inspection
    Prevent machinery and equipment deterioration
    Keep workplace safe and easy to work
    Keep work place clean
    Standardize the best practices in the work area.
    Everything in its right place.
    Every process has a standard.
    Perform regular audits

Anything left out?   Now I will see if I can do one of them 

You need to have workflow diagrams displayed if you want to conform to ISO 9000 standards.

[VK3DRB]

    Remove unnecessary items and dispose of them properly
    Make work easier by eliminating obstacles.
    Reduce chance of being disturbed with unnecessary items
    Prevent accumulation of unnecessary items
    Evaluate necessary items with regard to cost or other factors
    Remove all parts not in use
    Segregate unwanted material from the workplace
    Need fully skilled supervisor for checking on regular basis  (ie significant other)
    Don't put unnecessary items at the workplace & define a red-tagged area to keep  those unnecessary items
    Arrange all necessary items so they can be easily selected for use
    Make it easy to find and pick up necessary items
    Ensure first-come-first-served basis
    Make workflow smooth and easy
    All above work should be done on regular basis
    Clean your workplace completely
    Use cleaning as inspection
    Prevent machinery and equipment deterioration
    Keep workplace safe and easy to work
    Keep work place clean
    Standardize the best practices in the work area.
    Everything in its right place.
    Every process has a standard.
    Perform regular audits

Anything left out?   Now I will see if I can do one of them 

You missed out: Rinse. Repeat.

Seriously, label where everything goes. "Everything in its place and a place for everything."

I once worked for a Japanese electronics company. The went nuts over 5S and recycling employees mobile phones and recycling and zero defects, but they did not care much about the welfare of their employees, as long hours and being on call 24/7 was expected in spite of their crappy salary. The Japanese were 30 years behind in their management style. I quit after 2 years. But I did learn about 5S amongst other things whilst I was there, and made some good friends.

[nfmax]

A place for everything and everything in its place: https://www.adafruit.com/images/galleries/4/4-27.jpg

[dexters_lab]

i usually have a tidy when i have to step over things to get in the lab 

[rickselectricalprojects]

when do i tidy my work bench?
i tidy my work bench when my parents force me to!!!

[GreyWoolfe]

when do i tidy my work bench?
i tidy my work bench when my parents force me to!!!

SWMBO doesn't like coming out into my office/workshop space so I get no hassles about cleaning up after myself   The most time she spends out here is to drop off the paid bills into a box on the filing cabinet for filing.  She tells everyone that it is a scary place.   Right now there is a soldering project going on so the workbench is pretty messy and it will be that way for awhile until I get some replacement parts next week for some company equipment that needs repair, then everything will get packed up only to come out again when that project is done.

[rickselectricalprojects]

when do i tidy my work bench?
i tidy my work bench when my parents force me to!!!

SWMBO doesn't like coming out into my office/workshop space so I get no hassles about cleaning up after myself   The most time she spends out here is to drop off the paid bills into a box on the filing cabinet for filing.  She tells everyone that it is a scary place.   Right now there is a soldering project going on so the workbench is pretty messy and it will be that way for awhile until I get some replacement parts next week for some company equipment that needs repair, then everything will get packed up only to come out again when that project is done.

unfortunately for me my bench is where my mum parks her car which is her pride and joy so she always makes me tidy up my workbench so i spend more time tidying than i do actually making things

[ez24]

when do i tidy my work bench?
i tidy my work bench when my parents force me to!!!

 

[bitseeker]

A surprising tip for finding dropped screws on carpet is to look with a blacklight. They appear with very high contrast.

Thanks, helius. Hadn't heard of using blacklight for that before.

[LektroiD]

A surprising tip for finding dropped screws on carpet is to look with a blacklight. They appear with very high contrast.

Thanks, helius. Hadn't heard of using blacklight for that before.

My bare feet usually find them quicker.

[felixd]

Just started to clean my lab today. When I'm going to finish it? I have not idea

----

Pictures can be found in below album
https://goo.gl/photos/HXmewnCtsexgZ6Mz9

----

Movie from today's cleaning


Cleaning Time Lapse - bench still needs to be cleaned, but this was left for tomorrow

 

[Cubdriver]

My schedule follows something like a roughly sawtooth shaped curve with mess level as the y axis and time as the x.  The mess builds up at varying rates until it reaches critical mass at some point. I then snap, lose my patience for looking for things I had in hand moments earlier, and go on a cleaning spree.  Everything gets put away/neatend up, and then the process starts over again from a 'clean' beginning.

-Pat

[felixd]

Some photos - Before and After
https://goo.gl/photos/HXmewnCtsexgZ6Mz9

[SLJ]

My main bench gets a through cleaning a couple times a year. Just a general pick-up between restoration projects.

It bugs me when I can't find tools or parts.

However my micro/SMD soldering station is always kept spotless.


The room though gets piled high with projects at times to the point where I trouble moving around. 

[TerraHertz]

As usual, anything I try to do turns into a cascade of interlocking sidetrack projects, usually non-electronic. This includes just trying to 'tidy up'. Like this:
 * Start another cycle of optimizing what goes where, in two areas - the electronics lab and the machine shop. A lot of the current placement is poor, due to being an evolution that involved a house-building.
 * Realize it's time to clear out a pile of stuff up one end of the machine shop, add extra bench and shelves. Also insulate wall at the same time.
 * But that means the sheet metal guillotine and folder (sitting on top of some of the junk) now needs a roller base. Which I'd been putting off making for ages. But till the bench, shelves and other stuff are done, don't have the free space to make it.
 * After finishing the shelves and some extra wiring, now constructing the heavy duty steel base. Which incidentally is also going to be a storage space for some big heavy objects (anvil, swage block, big transformers, rotary table etc)  that currently really get in the way.

Still not going to have enough room. But it's an improvement. Most importantly by clearing out a fair bit of stuff from the electronics lab, that didn't belong there.

1st pic is part of the original mess. I can't find a photo angled more to the left. It was worse.
2nd pic: the sheet metal folder. This *has* to be mounted on a roller base; it's way too heavy to move around otherwise. I can barely even drag it.
Then a few pics of ongoing base construction. Finally a view of the work area, 'much improved' but still some work to do after the metal folder base is finished.

[Cubdriver]

As usual, anything I try to do turns into a cascade of interlocking sidetrack projects, usually non-electronic. This includes just trying to 'tidy up'. Like this:
 * Start another cycle of optimizing what goes where, in two areas - the electronics lab and the machine shop. A lot of the current placement is poor, due to being an evolution that involved a house-building.
 * Realize it's time to clear out a pile of stuff up one end of the machine shop, add extra bench and shelves. Also insulate wall at the same time.
 * But that means the sheet metal guillotine and folder (sitting on top of some of the junk) now needs a roller base. Which I'd been putting off making for ages. But till the bench, shelves and other stuff are done, don't have the free space to make it.
 * After finishing the shelves and some extra wiring, now constructing the heavy duty steel base. Which incidentally is also going to be a storage space for some big heavy objects (anvil, swage block, big transformers, rotary table etc)  that currently really get in the way.

Still not going to have enough room. But it's an improvement. Most importantly by clearing out a fair bit of stuff from the electronics lab, that didn't belong there.

1st pic is part of the original mess. I can't find a photo angled more to the left. It was worse.
2nd pic: the sheet metal folder. This *has* to be mounted on a roller base; it's way too heavy to move around otherwise. I can barely even drag it.
Then a few pics of ongoing base construction. Finally a view of the work area, 'much improved' but still some work to do after the metal folder base is finished.

Do you have some sort of rotary jig there that you're using to make the welds attaching the nuts to the tubes?  If so, I'd be interested in seeing a photo of it.  That's got to be the neatest MIG weld I've ever seen - they usually look like a dog's dinner!  I'd have thought it was done with a TIG machine if I didn't see the picture with the wire feed gun in it.

And I can totally relate to trying to do something and winding up going off on all manner of tangents then seeming to get nothing accomplished!

-Pat