Whats your Work-Bench/lab look like? Post some pictures of your Lab.

[Aodhan145]

Just moved to a new place, and finally got room for a proper workbench.

2400x800mm of lovely cnc'ed plywood, and I still need more room 

Very nice, nice scope as well.

[nanofrog]

2400x800mm of lovely cnc'ed plywood, and I still need more room 

Some shelves would work wonders to help keep the table surface clear. 

[Kjetil]

Some shelves would work wonders to help keep the table surface clear. 

Yeah, shelves will be appearing where the printer is (to the left) quite soon I considered building shelves to put on top of the desk as well, but that would take up a bit more CNC-time than I'm comfortable with borrowing from work, so these will be off-the shelf shelves instead.

The main reason I chose this location for the desk is the active ventilation in the vent above the computer. It has an adjustable and quite powerful fan, so I might run a duct down to the solder station.

[Radio Tech]

Kjetil,
Very clean setup 

For those that have not seen I posted a video of all my junk here in this thread.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/other-blog-specific/a-video-tour-around-my-old-time-shop-and-ham-shack/

But since this is the official "What's your workbench/lab looks like"
Here it is for those that missed that thread:

[Kjetil]

That's lots of cool gear Radio Tech 

I did some rearranging of the desk.

Added some LED-tape (5050 smd's) to give a nice illumination both from above and the sides of the work area, as well as a shelf for storing gear I use less often.

[felixd]

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

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My new lab:


Tables were made out of old windows frames


More 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

 

And my old lab

[nctnico]

I have just finished a major overhaul of my desks + mains distribution. Almost 20 years ago my father build a large U shaped desk for me. When I moved I took it apart and tailored it to fit my new house in an L configuration (still 720cm long in total!). One of the problems with it was that the desk tops where screwed onto the frame from the top side leaving screw heads bare and after the move several holes where not longer needed. At the underside of the desks I had fitted cable trunking and mains outlets (about 110 in total in several strings). Because the edges of the desktops started to deteriorate (sharp edges), the outlets started to wear out and some projects require more power than I felt comfortable running through the strings of outlets I decided to upgrade my desks.

The first order of business was to get more power. So besides the outlet already available in my office I also brought the mains group the washing machine is on into my office to have 2 mains groups in total which could theoretically allow me to consume up to 7kW. Because the washing machine isn't behind a GFI I bought an extra breaker box and GFI for my protection:

The next step was to order new desk tops. This took a couple of months due to the summer holiday. This did give me time to get rid of most excess junk. I still needed to move a lot of stuff though. Getting there with moving stuff out:


More holes than Swiss cheese:


Desktops removed and cable trunking kept at the right position:


Nico's top tip: keep a slit at the end of the desk so you can run cables from the rear of the desk instead of from the front:

By the way: I did contemplate to put the outlets on the wall so the desktops would be easier to replace but decided not to do that because it would make the wall look cluttered. Besides that I hope the new desk tops will last 20 years as well.

Electric gear (excluding 14 extension blocks with 6 outlets each). I opted to use the heavy duty wire connectors because these are more reliable under high loads. The original wiring of my house has been fitted with these as well.


The black outlets are intended for use with the washing machine group so I can divide the load without having the guess which is which.

Fitting and mounting as much as possible with the desktop turned upside down. Everything I don't mount now I have to mount while lying on my back with my arms stretched to the sky.


Yeah lets put some glue on those extension blocks before mounting them:


The electricity back on:


Some of the wiring:


All in all this job took me little over two days (with some little things to finish though). Hopefully it will last another 20 years. Hauling three 240cm x 80cm 25mm thick desk tops up two stairs isn't fun.

edit: fixed picture!

[nowlan]

Nico's top tip: keep a slit at the end of the desk so you can run cables from the rear of the desk instead of from the front:

If you put a lip just before the back, it will stop screws and things falling down the back.
Would be nice to chamfer the front edge, easier to lean on.
Not sure I like the power sockets upside down under the desk. Seems like a pain to get at.

[nctnico]

Nico's top tip: keep a slit at the end of the desk so you can run cables from the rear of the desk instead of from the front:

If you put a lip just before the back, it will stop screws and things falling down the back.

That is much less of a problem that you'd expect. It is very rare for something to fall off at the back of my desk.

Would be nice to chamfer the front edge, easier to lean on.
Not sure I like the power sockets upside down under the desk. Seems like a pain to get at.

This is why I have some mains chords hanging over the frame. I can grab them quickly to connect a device. There are so many outlets that they would barely fit on the wall in one row (over the length of the desk).

[GreyWoolfe]

Since I have risers bolted to the back of my bench for the adjustable shelves, I added a couple of cross braces to attach 3 of the four 6 outlet surge protectors to them.  The 4th is attached to the front of the bench.  Mine have 2 rows of 3 so not nearly as long and the spacing is enough for wall warts.  Nctnico, it appears to me that the legs are attached with only 1 screw.  Is that my vision going bad?  If not, why only 1 screw?   I used 2 at each attachment point of the frame for mine so there is no movement.  Mine is actually built with glue and framing nails from a framing nail gun.  It is not meant to be taken apart.

[nctnico]

There are 2 screws in each leg (or an L shaped brace in the corner). The screws go in from 2 different sides. The legs can move around a little because the frame is not high enough to provide enough stiffness to prevent movement. One of my requirements was that the frame stayed as thin as possible so a big tower PC casing would fit under it. The desktop keeps the leg from pushing through the frame. The screws which hold the legs are only serving to keep the legs in place. My dad and I traditionally use screws in any wooden structure 

[felixd]

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

[nctnico]

That particle board is likely to go bad real quick. Maybe it helps to paint it if you need a cheap fix.

[rx8pilot]

Updated bench - sort of.

I got a few new pieces and had to re-arrange the bench to accomodate.

1. Keithley 2700 DMM with 20 channel input card
2. Chroma 6314 DC Electronic Load Mainframe. I got two of these and will be configuring one to do 8 channels of DC load.
3. DIY Banana breakouts for the power supplies and DC loads. I cut these with a laser to get the power IO close to my projects with sense lines and all. I can push them off to the side when they are not in use.

This is the last update of this bench. I will be building a 500ft2 room with separate design and assembly benches.

This is my daily (10 hours/day) bench. It gets the job done but just barely. Looking forward to tearing this down and building more of a proper task specific set of benches.


My color coded manual assembly system. This has been a great way to organize manual built PCB's. It is getting retired as I get my P&P machine closer to full speed. I built many 100's of tough PCB's this way. Something like 80k parts in the last year hand placed. I will not miss it.


I am always build little fixtures to make assembly and testing faster, better, easier. These little guys have been great. My power supplies and DC loads have screw terminals. These consolidate the them into easy clusters that I can plug into.

[nctnico]

That looks like a crammed bench.
What I notice in general is that people try to cram all their test equipment and PC(s) in a very small space. In most cases you don't need all the test equipment together. Most of my test equipment is stored on a shelve or a cabinet and I only put the equipment I need on my bench. This also makes it easy to have 2 or 3 work areas with seperate projects and their specific equipment needs.

[rx8pilot]

That looks like a crammed bench.
What I notice in general is that people try to cram all their test equipment and PC(s) in a very small space. In most cases you don't need all the test equipment together. Most of my test equipment is stored on a shelve or a cabinet and I only put the equipment I need on my bench. This also makes it easy to have 2 or 3 work areas with seperate projects and their specific equipment needs.

It is definitely crammed, but I use all the pieces every day. Plus those PSU's, DC load, scope, etc. are VERY big and heavy. They are all GPIB connected. Moving the pieces around is a massive pain. All the extra gear is on a shelf - what you see is the minimum daily requirement.

I have enough room to get through the day - but the only way for more space is to get more space. That is why I am building 3 benches that will be more task oriented. I have to wait until the room is built first though. It is nice to have all options at the ready when I am shaking down a design and writing code. I have the DUT, PC, and all the test gear going full speed during those missions. For assembly mode, the PC is critical. During start-up and programming all the gear gets some action. When a problem is discovered, I have the paste dispenser, hot air, and soldering gear a mere hand movement away which saves time.

Obviously lots of possible improvements are possible but only incremental since I have to keep the PCB's shipping daily. Two years ago, it was the same bench with a Fluke 87 and a Weller WES51 soldering station.

[SLJ]

That looks like a crammed bench.
What I notice in general is that people try to cram all their test equipment and PC(s) in a very small space. In most cases you don't need all the test equipment together. Most of my test equipment is stored on a shelve or a cabinet and I only put the equipment I need on my bench. This also makes it easy to have 2 or 3 work areas with seperate projects and their specific equipment needs.

It would drive me nuts having to move and plug equipment in for every different project. My bench has enough workspace for most projects and deep enough to allow smaller equipment along the back with heavier and larger gear I would never want to move going above.  Anything requiring the use of a microscope is done at a separate workstation.


Still have plenty of other equipment that is not used as often that gets pulled out once in a while like breadboards, hand held meters, etc.

[med6753]

When you live in an apartment space is at a premium so my bench is dual use. The laptop can easily be removed when working on a project.

[AF6LJ]

Really nice both of you, good looking benches.

[Daniel_Reyes]

Rearranged my bench since i acquired a ds1054z and a fluke 116. Really happy with the setup.

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk

[med6753]

Really nice both of you, good looking benches.

Thank you! 

[Rerouter]

Finally able to add my own to the list,

I start this with the premise that i was asked to get a shed to work in, But i wanted something semi mobile, moderately air tight when closed, and with walls strong enough to hang anything i pleased off, with a preference to something already built, Which leads to the image...

So off I drive to another state to pick this up because I'm enough of a cheap bastard to do a 2 day road trip if it means i save a few thousand dollars,

Spent last weekend adding the power and skylights, 5 dual outlets spaced roughly 1m apart from one another and because i am very paranoid about getting electrocuted when no one else is around, all power runs through 2 RCD's, a per outlet one, and a master, on the middle of the left hand wall we have all my component draws, filled with just about any resistor capacitor transistor or logic family you could dream of,

There is a front and rear bench, yet to divy up there roles, and have been trying to work around the wheel gauge to push them side by side, Also yet to add most of my gear, but happy to have it so want to show it off,

[PTR_1275]

3. DIY Banana breakouts for the power supplies and DC loads. I cut these with a laser to get the power IO close to my projects with sense lines and all. I can push them off to the side when they are not in use.


I am always build little fixtures to make assembly and testing faster, better, easier. These little guys have been great. My power supplies and DC loads have screw terminals. These consolidate the them into easy clusters that I can plug into.

These look fantastic.
I have a hp 6050 load mainframe high in a rack on my bench and having something like this with multi core cable to break out the different channels would be brilliant.

My bench is still undergoing changes so I've not posted anything in here. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and put some photos up and then keep rearranging to see the difference.

This thread has given me so many ideas / tips and tricks for organizing benches. There is no "standard" solution, just whatever works from lots of different ideas.

[hamster_nz]

My FPGA lab just got high end... A new Kintex-7 board in the middle...

[OiD]

Well, lots of really great work benches and lots of neat tricks and ideas to make one!