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

[med6753]

Do I see a RCA scope from the middle 70's under the table ?

Yep, good eye. An RCA WO-505A I restored last year.

We had some WO-505 and WO-535 in the technical university when I was a student 

RCA Institutes in NYC used these which are basically rebranded EICO scopes with some modifications.

[llopis]

Since we're stuck indoors and this thread is still going strong, here's a video of my work area :-)

[TERRA Operative]

One small part of my room. I just bought a 25U rack to stack my gear in (I still need to source side rails and mounting ears).
I have at least 1/2 to 2/3 of a rack worth of gear still to rack though... My wife likes how neat it is and sent me some links to buy another one. Now I'm the one telling her to wait until next payday! 



I should sell some gear....

.....

Naaaahhh! 

[Tom45]

Since we're stuck indoors and this thread is still going strong, here's a video of my work area :-)

I really like the area to hold data sheets and schematics with magnets. That idea never occurred to me. I will have to see if I can do something like that.

[llopis]

That was more of an accident because my workbench is an Ikea desk that my wife didn't want anymore. It's not deep enough for my tastes, but the magnetic whiteboard is really great.

[6h8c]

And this is my place ...

I fix 4 pieces LDM-853A

[JustSquareEnough]

And this is my place ...

Is that a DIY power supply, if so, any details on your build?

[6h8c]

https://www.conrad.pl/p/zasilacz-laboratoryjny-regulowany-voltcraft-psp-1405-0-40-vdc-0-5-a-200-w-ilosc-wyjsc-1-x-512411

[BFX]

My bench during calibrating Agilent 53181A with new ultra stable OCXO option installed. 10MHz calibrating signal from my GPSDO.

[TerraHertz]

One small part of my room. I just bought a 25U rack to stack my gear in (I still need to source side rails and mounting ears).
I have at least 1/2 to 2/3 of a rack worth of gear still to rack though... My wife likes how neat it is and sent me some links to buy another one. Now I'm the one telling her to wait until next payday! 

Racks with solid castor wheels are the best! Also, go taller. 39U (1733.55) is good, if your floor can take the weight. Just be sure to make/fit anti-tilt bars at the front.

For rails, you can use plain plated steel L section. Buy full length, cut to lengths and drill holes to match the rack support holes so instruments sit on the slides, and still have their rack flanges front holes aligned with the strut holes. Never leave a full rack with everything just sitting on slides. Good way to kill someone (admittedly Darwin would approve.)

Another factor often ignored, is the total width of the rack. The amount of dead-space at the sides varies with different racks, and if you are considering putting racks side by side that dead space adds up fast. My present woe is that I want to add one more rack in a row, and the gap is about 5mm smaller than the rack I hoped to use. As a result I'm going to have to do a major reorganize of most of the room, switching racks around to shift one 'wide' rack out of that row.

How much did your 4140B cost? Any problems with it?
I'm considering buying one. After I check that the service manual I have on the way does include ALL the schematics. And a source for those tri-axial BNC connectors & cable.

The 8180A pulse gen - I can't express my annoyance to find that HP left about half the boards out of their 'service manual', with that lame 'blue stripe replacement service' concept. Yeah right, till the company ceased to exist. So now my 8180A can't be repaired. Does anyone know of a _complete_ schematics & service manual for it?

[bitseeker]

Oh, my! That's sounds like quite a project. Missed it by 5mm! I suppose it's better than missing it by only 2mm.

[TerraHertz]

    Tell me about it. The ultimate blame is some arsehole local council building permits official 20 years ago, who's responsible for the whole workshop being 1m shorter than the original plans I submitted. He red-penned the plans, claiming that the reduced size was necessary to conform to the '70 square meters outbuildings' limit. Unfortunately I only found out AFTER building it, that he was full of shit. The 70 sq m rule refers to floorspace, NOT the outside dimensions. So my original plans did conform, and I could have told him where to shove his red pen... Grrr... He was just screwing me around because he could.

Anyway, that wall does easily fit six of the HP green racks, which are 535mm wide. I have 4 there now, plus one wasteful 600mm wide rack (black and pale blue panels in the photo.) 
Result: a spare space that is 510mm wide, with all racks in the row pushed tightly together. But a bit of clearance would be preferable.
The black rack (DEC PDP style) is 520mm wide.  I do have one other HP green rack I can swap in. But then I have to move almost everything in the room to make a space for the wide black & pale blue rack.

I'm looking for another of the green HP racks. They look like this (pic below.) If anyone in Sydney has a spare they'd sell.

[Cubdriver]

Unfortunately the little Mussolini types seem drawn to that sort of position - lets them exercise their inner dictator without the danger of the beat down they so richly deserve for doing that kind of thing.   

I lucked out with my building inspector here - he was awesome and offered advice and suggestions (like doing the hydronically heated floors - made for a crap ton of extra work, but ohhh how sweet in the winter!).  Former father-in-law dealt with one years earlier in another city who was a total ball buster, so it's apparently the luck of the draw.  I do seem to hear a lot of stories of the latter type there down under, so perhaps there's something in the water there.

Sucks that you got screwed out of much needed floor space - guy sounds like a right prick.

-Pat

[Nominal Animal]

So my original plans did conform, and I could have told him where to shove his red pen... Grrr... He was just screwing me around because he could.

Reminds me of the inspector who kept complaining about vapor barriers when my parents built their three-story house in the 1980s, above the Arctic Circle.  That house has never had any mold issues, but the inspectors' own house built around the same time was deemed uninhabitable due to mold and demolished a decade ago.

Sometimes there is no malice, just utter incompetence.  Due to Dunning-Kruger, these idiots truly believe they know best.

[micbsv]

Here is my setup.

[Sredni]

So my original plans did conform, and I could have told him where to shove his red pen... Grrr... He was just screwing me around because he could.

Reminds me of the inspector who kept complaining about vapor barriers when my parents built their three-story house in the 1980s, above the Arctic Circle.  That house has never had any mold issues, but the inspectors' own house built around the same time was deemed uninhabitable due to mold and demolished a decade ago.

 

Do you happen to know a good link explaining the correct use of vapor barriers? I understand the correct deployment depends on the climate. Hong Kong will have a different way to do it with respect to Narvik.
I mean who could understand vapor better than a Finn?

[Nominal Animal]

Do you happen to know a good link explaining the correct use of vapor barriers?

No, sorry.  But the basic idea is very simple: when you have a surface (especially vapor barriers) cooler than the ambient air, you need to have an air gap for the surface consensation to be ventilated away.   If there is no air gap on the warmer side of the vapor barrier, you will get mold on it, because moisture will condense to the cooler-than-ambient-air barrier surface; this is what the inspector didn't believe then.  ("If it was so, don't you think the experts would have told us?")

I mean who could understand vapor better than a Finn?

We are quite fond of our saunas, yeah.. and when the sauna is heated to +80°C at least once per week, with indoors around +20°C, and outdoors temperatures swing between +25°C in late summer down to -45°C in some winters (although -20°C to -30°C is more typical winter temp), you do need to build the walls properly.

For what it is worth, we had a peek in the 15cm thick wall between the sauna and the bathroom, the wall also having a shower mounted on the bathroom side, roughly about thirty years after it was built.  The structure was made from 2×2 pine, and it looked like new inside.  The paneling on the sauna side has a ~ 1.5cm air gap, then some kind of sauna sheeting material (includes vapor barrier), then studding and rock wool, then another vapor barrier sheeting material (intended for bathroom walls that can get wet), then an air gap, and then sheeting and tiles.  The two air gaps ensure that when moisture condenses on the vapor barrier, either due to temperature difference (on the sauna side) or through the tiles (bathroom side), they are soon ventilated dry.

Also, 35-year old abachi (Triplochiton scleroxylon), after at least 3000 cycles between +20°C and +80°C, is amazing to work with.  Extremely light for a hardwood, a bit soft and perhaps a little bit splintery when split, but it stays utterly stable, and cutting cross-grain it feels more like MDF than wood.  (I deconstructed the sauna stepstool, and reused the parts into a handrail and as the step surfaces for a much better three-step stepstool; the benches in that sauna are a bit higher than traditional.)  Anyone who wants to do some hand-tool woodworking should definitely look into heat-treated hardwoods like European aspen; they're lovely to work with, IMO.

[MadTux]

I think I suffer from TEA.....

[coppice]

I mean who could understand vapor better than a Finn?

Most startups?

[med6753]

I think I suffer from TEA.....

Ya think?      You should join us in the TEA thread. 

[jord4231]

My Bench / Electronics room 

[6h8c]

This question is interesting to me. Did anyone really count how much money they spent on their entire home lab? 
And the wife doesn't know that. In my opinion it's better not to know ...

[jogri]

This question is interesting to me. Did anyone really count how much money they spent on their entire home lab? 
And the wife doesn't know that. In my opinion it's better not to know ...

My guesstimate is around 1100€, but it is only that low because i bought ~75% of my stuff as broken or got it for free because it was "broken". Got me a 200Mhz DSO, 6.5digit DMM, 4 lab (+1 HV) PSUs, a AFG, electrometer and a few other nice toys. Still not done collecting "usefull" equipment (i swear, i really need that spectrum analyzer & LCR meter^^).

[Yansi]

1100€?  Didn't you actually mean 11000€?

[M0HZH]

Home office / amateur radio station / hobby electronics lab. Gotta love the tapestry.