Author Topic: What material is your working surface made of?  (Read 10812 times)

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Offline technixTopic starter

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What material is your working surface made of?
« on: June 06, 2017, 08:42:06 am »
For me I am doing EE job on my usual hardwood desk (still a combo CS/EE home lab set up) with a pane of tempered glass on it, unless I need hot air gun action which I would move to the stainless steel surface of my kitchen. I have an antistatic strap hooked to my server rack, which grounds me from my left ankle. I also have a strict wash hands before EE work rule, discharging myself before touching ESD-sensitive components.

What material is your working surface made of? ESD mat?

Edit: Are most of you guys using bare wood or ESD mat on wood?
« Last Edit: June 06, 2017, 01:11:27 pm by technix »
 

Offline BradC

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Re: What material is your working surface made of?
« Reply #1 on: June 06, 2017, 10:47:17 am »
Masonite.
 

Offline Jeroen3

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Re: What material is your working surface made of?
« Reply #2 on: June 06, 2017, 11:07:59 am »
Wood. 15 layers with laminate. When using hot-air a sheet of fiberglass material is put on. Otherwise the wood burns.
 

Offline technixTopic starter

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Re: What material is your working surface made of?
« Reply #3 on: June 06, 2017, 11:29:32 am »
Masonite.
Don’t it have problems with the heat of soldering parts and hot air guns?
 

Offline GreyWoolfe

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Re: What material is your working surface made of?
« Reply #4 on: June 06, 2017, 12:09:13 pm »
Work surface is 3/4" MDF with a proper ESD mat on top.
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Online Berni

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Re: What material is your working surface made of?
« Reply #5 on: June 06, 2017, 12:49:30 pm »
A painted hardwood surface on my workbench. I don't realyl take any precautions against static but wood does not build a charge that easily anyway.

As for hot air i simply prop up the board on some aluminum extrusion to hold it up off the bench. Lifting it like that also makes it easier to heat up the board since the surface its on is not taking away heat as much.
« Last Edit: June 06, 2017, 12:52:32 pm by Berni »
 

Online xrunner

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Re: What material is your working surface made of?
« Reply #6 on: June 06, 2017, 01:03:36 pm »
Attached.
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Offline jonovid

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Re: What material is your working surface made of?
« Reply #7 on: June 06, 2017, 01:21:07 pm »
non conducive and fire resistant i hope  :phew:
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Offline technixTopic starter

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Re: What material is your working surface made of?
« Reply #8 on: June 06, 2017, 01:40:48 pm »
non conducive and fire resistant i hope  :phew:
What is it? I believe tempered glass fits this bill.
 

Offline P90

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Re: What material is your working surface made of?
« Reply #9 on: June 06, 2017, 03:00:06 pm »
 wood... well, if you can call MDF wood.  lol
 

Offline rdl

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Re: What material is your working surface made of?
« Reply #10 on: June 06, 2017, 03:29:26 pm »
I use a cheap, but sturdy, folding leg table from the office super store. The top is some kind of wood-based particle board. When new it had fake vinyl wood grain on the surface, but that didn't hold up and I eventually peeled it all off. Now it has an ESD mat on top.
 

Offline capt bullshot

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Re: What material is your working surface made of?
« Reply #11 on: June 06, 2017, 03:38:11 pm »
A wooden (simple MDF, i guess) table with some artificial veneer. Then I put a block of large paper sheets on it (the kind of blocks that you receive as a giveaway, usually with a printed calendar and a large sketch area). Once it is messed up, I simply remove the top sheet and throw it away. Paper isolates and isn't too static, so you can put a bare PCB on it to test it, and it prevents the table from burn marks (when something goes wrong with the circuit or whatever). I don't like ESD mats, since you cannot simply remove the top layer once it is burned/melted from hot stuff or messed up.
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Offline BradC

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Re: What material is your working surface made of?
« Reply #12 on: June 06, 2017, 06:05:21 pm »
Masonite.
Don’t it have problems with the heat of soldering parts and hot air guns?

No, it really doesn't. I've even heat gunned a small bga with lead-free balls off. Not so much as a mark.
The bench is actually ply and I just tack the Masonite on top with the idea I can cheaply and easliy replace it if it gets damaged. 4 years in and I haven't had to replace it yet.
 

Offline tablatronix

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Re: What material is your working surface made of?
« Reply #13 on: June 06, 2017, 06:30:53 pm »
Also masonite, it will burn (darken) if you leave something directly on it. But I find it to be a nice surface as it is not too hard, hot solder doesn't bounce off it but doesn't stick either.
 

Offline SeanB

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Re: What material is your working surface made of?
« Reply #14 on: June 06, 2017, 06:38:27 pm »
Plywood, and then a nice bit of conveyor belting as a pliable surface. The belting is pretty resistant to heat, abuse and solvents, and with the carbon loading it is definitely non static holding, though I can only see any static in winter with difficulty ( At school we could never get a Van de Graaf generator to work summer, and even in winter it was not capable of more than a small spark), and the other worktop is a small computer desk with similar belting cover.

Belting was free scraps from a local belting supplier, I just raided the bin of scrap when getting a belt I had ordered. Too thick and inflexible for thin belts so to them just waste.
 

Offline nanofrog

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Re: What material is your working surface made of?
« Reply #15 on: June 06, 2017, 07:24:15 pm »
1.25" laminated MDF with an ESD mat.
 

Online T3sl4co1l

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Re: What material is your working surface made of?
« Reply #16 on: June 06, 2017, 08:59:14 pm »
Varnished plywood*.

*I used water based polyurethane to avoid the smell / fumes, but it really sucks as a coating, for several reasons.  Wouldn't recommend.

Not at all ideal, but I don't care about charring it.  It's cheap and, ah, "distressed" as they say. ;)

I've somewhat lusted over soapstone.  Lightly greased or waxed or varnished.  Probably glued to a base like plywood so it's easy to move.  ESD might not be the best, but that can be dealt with by additives I think (a very slightly conductive grease, perhaps something with an ionic detergent in it?).  (No, no worries about asbestos.  The coating keeps dust down.)

The same can even be used for everything up to brazing steel!  You'd use a thicker block and no grease or additive, but it wouldn't be very visually appealing after use, so it seems kind of an expensive/extravagant waste there.

Or less rustically, anything with a lot of polyimide or teflon or silicone (in a plastic, rubber or resin form -- take your pick) would serve excellently.  Again, give or take ESD, and surface treatment.

(By the way, no, it's not good enough to simply, say, lay down a bunch of Kapton(R) tape on a wood surface -- that stuff more than handles the temperature where wood pyrolyzes, so it would just char and bubble up under the tape.)

Tim
« Last Edit: June 06, 2017, 09:01:45 pm by T3sl4co1l »
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Offline usagi

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Re: What material is your working surface made of?
« Reply #17 on: June 06, 2017, 09:14:39 pm »
Attached.

harbor freight workbench. one of the best bargains there.

Offline chickenHeadKnob

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Re: What material is your working surface made of?
« Reply #18 on: June 07, 2017, 01:21:38 am »
Varnished plywood*.

*I used water based polyurethane to avoid the smell / fumes, but it really sucks as a coating, for several reasons.  Wouldn't recommend.

Not at all ideal, but I don't care about charring it.  It's cheap and, ah, "distressed" as they say. ;)


I love acrylic (water based) polyurethane finishes, they have almost no polyurethane in them though. The ease of application, the resulting appearance, and the wash-ability is what I like. Is it just the heat resistance you find a problem?

In the working/ hot areas I have the rubber esd mats  scientific americas brand from canvu0_0: http://stores.ebay.ca/canvu0-0?_trksid=p2047675.l2563 a canadian seller. I further protect the rubber with an aluminum plate if playing with open flame.

As for the actual benches and shelves I use furniture grade maple veneer plywood. Which in my neck of the woods must be locally produced as it is cheaper than baltic birch and  surprisingly also cheaper than the horrific MDF (shudder) per sheet.
 

Offline Gary.M

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Re: What material is your working surface made of?
« Reply #19 on: June 07, 2017, 01:35:51 am »
Neoprene sheet with esd mat on top.

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Offline technogeeky

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Re: What material is your working surface made of?
« Reply #20 on: June 07, 2017, 02:05:55 am »
Glass.

Just glass.

Nobody has told me I'm an idiot yet, so I welcome the instruction.
 

Offline technixTopic starter

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Re: What material is your working surface made of?
« Reply #21 on: June 07, 2017, 02:20:37 am »
How good a working surface stainless steel make?
 

Offline technixTopic starter

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Re: What material is your working surface made of?
« Reply #22 on: June 07, 2017, 02:21:56 am »
Glass.

Just glass.

Nobody has told me I'm an idiot yet, so I welcome the instruction.
Normal plane glass? Can it stand the heat gradient caused by the soldering iron? I used tempered glass for its heat resistance.
 

Offline Keicar

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Re: What material is your working surface made of?
« Reply #23 on: June 07, 2017, 02:41:13 am »
So far as I can tell, my working surface consists of a stratigraphic layering of the remains of my previous projects - as I recall there's a wooden table under there somewhere...

Karl.
 
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Offline rdl

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Re: What material is your working surface made of?
« Reply #24 on: June 07, 2017, 02:55:22 am »
Varnished plywood*.

*I used water based polyurethane to avoid the smell / fumes, but it really sucks as a coating, for several reasons.  Wouldn't recommend.
...

I was too lazy to type the same thing again...

...
I was a formulator at one of the big paint companies for a long time. Years ago the guys in their consumer division came up with what they thought was a great formula for a water-base clear wood finish. They sold it in two versions. One used 100% acrylic  for the resin part, the other was 90% (the same) acrylic, with 10% polyurethane. This was so they could print labels with 2 inch tall letters that advertised "Polyurethane" (and charge a considerably higher price). The actual performance of the two versions was nearly identical.

 


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