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

[System Error Message]

A new challenge, can you eat and solder at the same time? or prepare and make food while working on an electronics project

[FireFlower]

A new challenge, can you eat and solder at the same time? or prepare and make food while working on an electronics project

Actually we baked ginger bread men in a re-flow oven,good enough?

Anyway Farnell delived today a new power supply, a few components and an ESD bench mat.

[rrinker]

A new challenge, can you eat and solder at the same time? or prepare and make food while working on an electronics project

 If the tea or coffee gets cold, just dip the soldering iron in for a bit....

[macboy]

A few weeks ago:

What's going on with the foil on that Metcal iron?

[FireFlower]

DIY stand for tweezer solder and regular hand piece made from old barcode reader stand and bicycle lock cable holder. When I bought that metcal used it didn't come with stand so had to improvise. Foil is just to protect plastic from melting on iron when I put or take iron in or out.

Anyway Tenma 3 channel power supply arrived (0-31V/3.1A + 0-31V/3.1A + 5V/3.0A) and new ESD bench mat. Then a little bit photo shooting and uploading pics to server.

[FireFlower]

And here is how it looks at this moment 

[McBryce]

So what happens if you pull the plug labeled "STOP!" ?

McBryce.

[FireFlower]

So what happens if you pull the plug labeled "STOP!" ?

McBryce.

It is the emergency stop plug. The problem is emergency stop button doesn't cut power from both line and neutral cords so you might end up with line being energized still and neutral only got cut. Thus creating a problem where power might go trough earth. It is just to remind me to check line will come to emergency stop button when I connect it to power outlet. Also should make unaware people to wonder why there is stop sign.

[McBryce]

Ah, ok. I use the opposite method. If I'm working on HV stuff, especially DC, then the power is turned on through a non-latching footswitch. If I get a whack my foot comes off the pedal and cuts the power.

McBryce.

[Smokey]

Ah, ok. I use the opposite method. If I'm working on HV stuff, especially DC, then the power is turned on through a non-latching footswitch. If I get a whack my foot comes off the pedal and cuts the power.

McBryce.

How high voltage is your high voltage?

[McBryce]

Just tube / nixie stuff = 220V tops, but that's more than I'd want to be holding for more than a few milliseconds.

McBryce.

[bitseeker]

Good idea, that footswitch.

[Cubdriver]

Ah, ok. I use the opposite method. If I'm working on HV stuff, especially DC, then the power is turned on through a non-latching footswitch. If I get a whack my foot comes off the pedal and cuts the power.

McBryce.

So basically, a deadman switch.  Excellent idea, and something to look into for the bench.

-Pat

[bitseeker]

Yeah, I was trying to avoid the word "dead" there.

[nowlan]

@fireflower

4,000 x 3,000 pixels
5mb+
hxxp://www.garde.fi/~fireflower/kuvia/projektit/kotostyspoyta/kotostyspoyta5.JPG
^ ridiculous file size.

[MarvinTheMartian]

Fireflower - lab bench is coming along nicely 

I think the chair needs some remedial work though! 

PS Could you make your pictures a smaller size please? 

[FireFlower]

@fireflower

4,000 x 3,000 pixels
5mb+
hxxp://www.garde.fi/~fireflower/kuvia/projektit/kotostyspoyta/kotostyspoyta5.JPG
^ ridiculous file size.

I tend to forget people might not have 100/100 connection so I often don't resize pictures. They should be now more compact.

[SeanB]

Just buy the extra 2 NC contact blocks and put then in the enclosure, then you can break both line and neutral with it safely.  3 blocks because I have found that a lot of Telemechanique and KM switch blocks are very unhappy with having 2 contact blocks attached, and do not like having the centre empty either. So 3 blocks with one being unused are fine, and as well you can also wire the centre with a NO block and have a red LED lamp ( use a 3 station button housing, very common) to indicate button pressed, and a green LED to indicate power on.

If you want extra safety use a bigger housing ( deeper, but you lose the extra holding that the switches get from the base there) and use 2 switches in series on each phase. That way a welded contact will still be disconnected. Those contact blocks, while rated to carry 16A, are not really rated for long life making or breaking 16A though. They will fail, and there are very few 25A rated switch blocks available any more, you have to go with a low power contactor ( with the 9VA power consumption) to get that.

[McBryce]

Yeah, I was trying to avoid the word "dead" there.

The footswitches main purpose is also to avoid "dead"

The one I use is a heavy diecast footswitch which originally came from a dictaphone system from the 60's. They're actually quite easy to find on a certain junk selling website. Something like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Ojiden-Foot-Switch-Dictation-DFL-RV-S3-Osaka-Jidodenki-Works-Fine-/391465450429

McBryce.

[bitseeker]

Ah, yes, the good ol' dication machine...also dead.

[SeanB]

Ah, yes, the good ol' dication machine...also dead.

Don't know, they are still used by transcription services, as there is no machine that can transcribe spoken language as well and as accurate.  Especially here, where we have 11 official languages, and you might have a legal case which is being heard in at least 3 languages by the assorted parties, or where you have poor audio quality in the recording that makes it hard for a machine to transcribe. This is something you really need a good result from. Not like the auto generated subtitles on the videos Dave makes, which often have little connection to the actual speech he is speaking at all.

[McBryce]

Many lawyers still use dictaphones. My pedal came from a law office that was upgrading their system. The footpedal wasn't from their current system, it was just in a box of junk that had been decommissioned during the last update sometime in the 80's.

McBryce.

[Howardlong]

My field lab this weekend. This time I've been helping out some postgrad students with the command, control and telemetry on their ESA satellite project. Amazing amount of progress made in just two days. Nice that an old fart engineer like me with just a bachelors from 30 years ago but with the benefits of the university of life gets asked to help out on space related projects like these, and they aren't covered by security clauses and NDAs!

[bitseeker]

That sounds like great fun, Howard. And what a smorgasbord of oscilloscopes.

[HighVoltage]

Howard, what a nice looking field lab that is and a very interesting project.