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

[ChristofferB]

So I have finally gotten an 19" rack for my bench!

Here's a tip: If your bottom 19" rack box is massive and boat-anchory enough, you only need the uprights!

I found a 42 unit rack cabinet at my university scrapyard. Seeing as I take the bus and train, just taking it was out of the question. But I really, REALLY wanted to be able to mount up some rack units, so I spent 40 min in the pouring rain unbolting everything and freeing the two front rack uprights. And took them on the bus home.

It was a bizzarre day 

Anyway, Ive sold off all of my vintage computer gear; PDP-11, punch-tape punch, reader, racks, CRT terminal, and is now focussing on electronics for physics experiments. On the other side of the bench is a small, very sturdy table for my ultrahigh vacuum system. So far I have everything but the vacuum chamber..

[netdudeuk]

Hi There,
Most of the equipment in my home lab I purchased damaged and then repaired myself such as curve tracers, bench power supplies, custom design high voltage power supply and loads of other things, however the Rigol scope, Rigol multimeter and Rigol power supply, LCR meter and Fluke multimeter I purchased brand new. 3D printer I designed and built myself. 3D printer is in Grabcad for download https://grabcad.com/xgentec.jason-1
 

Thanks for sharing. I’d be interested in hearing more about what seems to be three homebrew instruments next to the 3D printer please.

[Xgentec Jason]

Hi netdudeuk,
These were some of my first ever projects:

The top one is a simple component curve tracer.
The middle one is a transistor and component curve tracer. the internal board was an ebay from china and I just gave it an enclosure. nothing special.
The bottom one I designed myself. It is a programmable high low side driver with adjustable delay time and voltage sense. If I remember correctly I used an STM32 microcontroller controlling a IR2301 ic. This was one of my first ever designs where I got the PCB manufactured.

The other side of the 3D printer is a robotic sketcher I designed to sketch out PCB designs. This is on my grabcad for download: https://grabcad.com/xgentec.jason-1
The others in the corner are micron winding machines I designed myself for winding coils and transformers. this is also on grabcad for download.

[netdudeuk]

Nice gear.  Thanks for sharing.

[Mr.B]

My new lab assistant starts on Monday...

[xrunner]

Looks like he/she is being worked to the bone!

(sorry had to do it) 

[Ed.Kloonk]

And I thought I kept my guys hungry.

[McBryce]

That's Corona for you. Many companies have been reduced to a skeleton crew.

McBryce.

[djos]

I got a new assistant a couple of days ago*, the kids named him Freddy.

He’s already been clobbered by my desoldering gun after pulling it down on himself! Lucky for him it wasn’t hot at the time.

*he’s a chocolate Labrador.

https://imgur.com/gallery/ZD7NpMC

[Nominal Animal]

The next time you have a bath, give your towel for Freddy to nap on.  He'll appreciate it, being a puppy: your scent will make him feel very safe and protected.

(That's also the reason puppies sometimes chew shoes, or steal socks.  They have your scent.)

[ChristofferB]

Finally got a nice 19" rack and made my dream signal recovery cart - NIM bin, multichannel analyzer, lock-in amplifier, chart recorder, and auxiliary gear!

I think it turned out marvelously!

[Simon_RL]

My work bench is in our old laundry, that became a storage room when the house was extended and a bigger laundry was added. So I have a total area of 2.5m x 1.9m, including the alcove where I have my soldering bench. Please note my home made fume extractor in the upper left of the photo of my soldering bench, it was inspired by a video I saw on YouTube.

Having very limited space I have had to be creative with my shelving, but am happy as everything is in easy reach. My little room has been labelled Pa's Cave by the family and they even bought me a sign to put on the door.

These photos were taken to prove to my wife that my work benches do get tided, occasionally . The photos are in order going from the left and around. As the room is so small I had to stand outside the door to get a photo of my main work bench.

[Howardlong]

My work bench is in our old laundry, that became a storage room when the house was extended and a bigger laundry was added. So I have a total area of 2.5m x 1.9m,

Mine's a very similar size, it was originally a walk in wardrobe, I did some negotiations ;-)

The biggest problem is lack of storage, I have a further separate room dedicated to most of it.



(Sorry for the heavy breathing, I've had a nasty dose of sinusitis so became a bit of a mouth breather[not covid!]).

[Simon_RL]

My work bench is in our old laundry, that became a storage room when the house was extended and a bigger laundry was added. So I have a total area of 2.5m x 1.9m,

Mine's a very similar size, it was originally a walk in wardrobe, I did some negotiations ;-)

The biggest problem is lack of storage, I have a further separate room dedicated to most of it.



(Sorry for the heavy breathing, I've had a nasty dose of sinusitis so became a bit of a mouth breather[not covid!]).

I feel your pain when it comes to sinus, being spring here in Oz my sinuses are driving me round the twist.

I am glad to see I am not the only person with a “cosy”.

I am really impressed given you have at least times the gear I have .

My biggest mistake is building my bench too high. I will be building a better one soon at desk height, which will give me another room for more shelves. Which I will need as I have an old HP jitter analyser and W&G SPM-19 that are both in the process of being repaired and will need to fit somewhere.

[Howardlong]

My biggest mistake is building my bench too high. I will be building a better one soon at desk height, which will give me another room for more shelves. Which I will need as I have an old HP jitter analyser and W&G SPM-19 that are both in the process of being repaired and will need to fit somewhere.

I very strongly recommend a height adjustable chair on castors, one with a gas spring height adjustment you can adjust while you're sitting on it, and can move between benches with ease.

For some time, I used to have an office style chair, but it took up a lot of space, and I realised that I never actually use the arms or the leaning back function. Basic armless cushioned chairs perfectly fine for me. Because of the limited space in the lab itself, I use a tattoo/salon style chair where the castor base is narrower, and the height adjustment is greater.

The castors on this one aren't great, but it's cheap. it certainly does the job, and I find it comfortable enough for long stints at the bench: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B074FTZD53/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The other thing I'm quite a fan of if you use a PC at the bench is an desk keyboard drawer, so it takes up no space. For some functions requiring mouse only, you don't even need to pull the drawer out. Again, the height adjustable chair helps here.

[bd139]

Yep. Good trick is get a Herman Miller Aeron (eBay) and take the arms off it. The size A and B ones are quite compact.

[Miti]

Hi There,
Most of the equipment in my home lab I purchased damaged and then repaired myself such as curve tracers, bench power supplies, custom design high voltage power supply and loads of other things, however the Rigol scope, Rigol multimeter and Rigol power supply, LCR meter and Fluke multimeter I purchased brand new.

Same here, except that I’ve got quite a bit of decommissioned equipment from work, mostly defective, but in general small defects like dry caps, cracked cases, broken knobs. The most challenging one was a Fluke 8845 with an inguard/outguard comm issue. An old IR remote came to the rescue, I used the IR LED to replace the one in the meter that was intermittent. I sold some of the equipment to buy a new Rigol scope.

[djos]

I have a raspberry Pi computer and screen mounted to the wall above my workbench and have a Logitech K400 plus wireless keyboard / trackpad combo.

It’s very compact so when not in use it sits on my bench power supply.

This setup is mainly used for when I’m building things and need to refer to my BoM’s.

Design work is done on my 2018 i5 Mac mini in my study (KiCad).

[TerraHertz]

Hi There,
Most of the equipment in my home lab I purchased damaged and then repaired myself such as curve tracers, bench power supplies, custom design high voltage power supply and loads of other things, however the Rigol scope, Rigol multimeter and Rigol power supply, LCR meter and Fluke multimeter I purchased brand new. 3D printer I designed and built myself. 3D printer is in Grabcad for download https://grabcad.com/xgentec.jason-1

Nice setup there. But that looks like a dry powder type fire extinguisher. Have you ever let one of those loose? Near electronics? The powder is pretty corrosive and gets into everything. Probably will do more damage than a small fire.

If you can, find a CO2 extinguisher for the lab and move that small powder one to the kitchen or somewhere without a lot of expensive electronics.

[McBryce]

Woah, bad advice. The label is blue, so it's an ABC powder extinguisher. You should never have these in the kitchen or try to extinguish anything with burning fats or oil. Kitchen extinguishers need to be the wet chemical type F (yellow label). For electrical fires you use ABC Powder or CO2. You can use CO2 in the kitchen too, but it won't put out burning fat.

McBryce.

[BU508A]

For electronics: CO₂ fire extinguisher. NO ABC-powder extinguisher! Never! This thing will cause more havoc than doing any good.

For the kitchen I'd recommend a "Löschdecke", something like this:
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B009HSQ5P0

[nfmax]

For electronics: CO₂ fire extinguisher. NO ABC-powder extinguisher! Never! This thing will cause more havoc than doing any good.

For the kitchen I'd recommend a "Löschdecke", something like this:
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B009HSQ5P0

Yes. A "Fire Blanket"

[coppice]

Yes. A "Fire Blanket"

To keep the fire cosy and warm.

[TerraHertz]

Woah, bad advice. The label is blue, so it's an ABC powder extinguisher. You should never have these in the kitchen or try to extinguish anything with burning fats or oil. Kitchen extinguishers need to be the wet chemical type F (yellow label). For electrical fires you use ABC Powder or CO2. You can use CO2 in the kitchen too, but it won't put out burning fat.

McBryce.

Hmm, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABC_dry_chemical    says ABC powder extinguishers can be used on flammable liquids.
It also says:  "ABC dry chemical is usually a mix of monoammonium phosphate and ammonium sulfate. ... Due to the corrosive properties of ABC dry chemical, it is not recommended for use around aircraft or sensitive equipment."

[McBryce]

Yes, and on that linked page they also say that it can be used on electrical fires and that type K is for oils and fat, in fact the "K" even stands for Kitchens.

McBryce.