My workbench: the perfect is the enemy of the good enough

[soldar]

So my workroom workbench in my apartment is an old wood office desk and it has grown over the years to support weight it was never intended to. Decades ago I shoddily built some shelves with scraps of particle board. The shelves just rested on top of the desk and the weight grew and grew as instruments and books added their weight.  The whole thing needed a good do-over because the center of the desk was sagging and there was risk that the whole thing would collapse.

Finally I decided to get started. First everything on the shelves had to come down (and go somewhere). Then I took down the shelves and inspected the desk which, sure enough, was very saggy and near to giving way. So I repaired the desk. I brought it back to square, reinforced it with some particle board, glue, etc. OK, looking good.

When I go to place it back in place I realize there was always a space between the desk and the two walls it was up against because the corner of the desk is square and the corner of the walls is rounded. I thought this was the perfect moment to remedy that situation. I could cut the corner of the desk to make it rounded or dig a hole in the corner of the wall so the corner of the desk could go in there.  I did the latter as it was easier to do and easier to undo in the future.

Great, the desk now goes right up next to the walls. I put the shelves back up (although they should be replaced too) and start putting all the instruments in place. After I am half done I realize there is a good reason I had the desk about an inch away from the walls and that is that I could have cables go down.

In the back I had power cables but that is not so bad. But in the right hand side, it was very convenient to have a space there as I could just let the cables from the oscilloscope and other instruments hang down there without disconnecting them.  I found this very convenient and had grown accustomed to it.

So now I have to stop assembling and start undoing again so I can move the table away from the wall again. A lot of time wasted for nothing.

While I am in the mood I think I should just get rid of those shelves that rest on the desk and get some shelves that hang from the wall. This will relieve the desk of all that weight. The good thing about these shelves is they are separated from the wall and it is easy to pass cables. If I hang shelves from the walls they will be right up against the wall and I will have to provide holes for cables.

I can't believe I have been so lazy about getting onto this job that I have not done it until the desk was close to collapsing. And I would have waited longer if it weren't for that.

Comments, ideas, suggestions, constructive criticism, all welcome.

[coppercone2]

refinish that bench. thats just bad

Then read the manuals and see if you are causing any thermal violations with spacing around the vents of the equipment. I.e. you should probably have some kind of spacers between different gears. If there is a convection cooled power supply under something it will heat whats on top of it. *

And low cost improvements:

1) use raceways for cables, tons of different options (you put them on the underside of the shelf above the one your equipment is on
2) get cable hooks or clips (many options)
3) bench lights. What you can do is on the bottom shelf put a wooden flashing then make a 45 degree angle bit out of wood, then attach a aluminum strip to it, then glue a decent high brightness LED strip to that. The flashing will prevent your eyes from being exposed to the LED strip but most of the light should get through. It will still blind you if you get down to lower the bench (I recommend a switch on the side of your bench). Overhead lighting is better but its still a good addon if you are working with a breadboard or something. 


*everyone does this wrong, myself included.

My recommendation is always to use a equipment library. Have gear that you use normally setup and have a bookshelf with other gear that you can connect (and leave power cables that are in holders). This way you have a clean shelf and good cooling most of the time. I kind of do this. Personally I want to migrate to equipment racks of various flavors (already did this with a microwave amplifier tower). I.e. bookshelf items: keithley low current amplifier, power supply #5 (I personally don't really need more then 4 rails at the moment), tone generators, amplifiers. Like a seperate book shelf (deeper then a real book shelf) that you need to stand up to get to, not like a endless vertical stack of equipment. Do I do this? Not yet. But its my plan after doing this for near a decade. Like a empty space right infront of me that I can set down 4-6 pieces of auxiliary equipment for an experiment then put them away.

Also if your not super cluttered you can use shorter cable lengths and get better electronic performance and less cross talk and better cooling and all that shit.

I find that the clutter (especially with hooked up cables) makes it such a bastard to clean that it causes stress. '

And keep that floor clean, I think a big problem is people deciding the floor is a shelf.

Separate work benches come to mind: For instance, while good in theory, I have yet to hook up a complicated single circuit PCB to a high current power supply, logic analyzer, VNA, spectrum analyzer and electrometer at the same time. I feel like if I had to do that, it would take quite a bit of planning and it would be a rather unique situation. A beast like that should probably have its own separate table to where all the equipment is brought to for categorization/testing then moved back to areas where it is used practically. I almost feel like the VNA should be brought into its own area, I am thinking other then power amplifiers you don't really need to connect anything to a VNA unless your measuring power supply impedance. Maybe I just work on boring ass shit? :-/

[coppercone2]

this is what I meant with the lights

Also a back-plane for the shelf (rather then being exposed to the wall), even if partial, would strengthen it (like 1/4 inch wood panels), but keep ventillation in mind. And you can mount the raceways to that also if not on the bottom shelf.

[soldar]

As I said, the perfect is the enemy of the good.

Clutter causes stress. I know.

Trying to get rid of clutter also causes stress. I know even better.

This is my apartment but in my other home the garage is just such a mess that the only solution I find is to try to not go down there. Just seeing it causes me stress. I don't know how it got to be that bad, just gradually over the years. Now I do not know how or where to start. It is a royal mess.

Lighting has never been a problem for me. Usually I have a flourescent fixture overhead (now I would install LEDs) and a pantograph lamp that I can move around.

Regarding the shelves I need to give it some thought. This is a workshop and I do not care that it looks nice, my main concern is that it is practical. I like using particle board and other wood scraps because I can make it exactly like I want and make holes etc. The only cost is my labor and if I want to change it I can throw it all away and start over again.

I need to make a new design for the shelves from scratch. Probably go with hanging from the wall. Probably use French cleats. I need to start thinking.

[coppercone2]

lol clutter can be dangerous too (don't work on a cluttered bench with high voltages because its visually distracting), for low voltages you just get smoke

but yes its expensive to get rid of clutter because you often need to buy shelves and organizers. i find what works is to think about clean ability and see if you can realistically break up a cleaning job without interrupting anything (like if you wanna clean in 2 weeks can you divide up the job into 14 daily sessions in such a way that you don't disrupt the work enviroment if you stop in the middle of cleaning. means you don't have enough free surfaces. if you can comfortably do that then your in good shape (and it most likely looks decent)

there was a thread recently where someones bench crapped out and bombarded him with boat anchors, don't go cheap with strength

I find things get dirty because there is not enough space to do a cleaning job and you psychologically know its going to be a 'overtime' pain in the ass job  to get things done, usually has to do with either tons of little objects on a surface (means you need boxes/organizers) or stuff thats too bulky for the room (I call this 'playing tetris'). I think about it like states, can the room be shifted into cleaning state easily. I had a table knocked out for a YEAR because it had too many fucking miscellaneous do-dads on it. Magnet wire, key chains, pen refil ink cartilages, a few bolts, a few nuts.. hard to accept it will take 2 hours of being meticulous to free up 1 square foot of shit.

You wanna take a storage container out of commission? put a plastic battery cover inside of it for something unknown 

Every time you go near it: fuck, i am going to have to go through EVERYTHING to see where this goes. maybe I will stumble upon it later *does nothing*... two years later...fuck, i am going to have to go through EVERYTHING to see where this goes. maybe I will stumble upon it later *does nothing*

If you keep distilling those boxes eventually you will be left with a particularly EVIL one. God help you if there is precision mechanical things in there (like a gear). may be with you until you die. Yea are you gonna throw out that box that has a loose gauge block with just a dash of rust on it? 


Tetris would be like a basement with a spare boiler, toilet, bicycle, so you need to clean around them, then move one thing, clean under it, dry it off, move it back, etc..... i have this problem now

Sometimes dealing with a hoard-crap box I almost imagine that you need to be some kind of priest or mage to keep the temptation from keeping it away. It's like the ring from LOTR. y

yes.... just let me sit on that shelf until you die..... yesssssssss

then 5 years after you throw it out you wanna hang yourself because it was the perfect part for some pain in the ass repair or whatever...............................

[KL27x]

While I am in the mood I think I should just get rid of those shelves that rest on the desk and get some shelves that hang from the wall.

What I did is to build a skinny extension table that goes behind my bench. But I wanted more depth after getting a microscope. It's stable, because it is against a wall, and the legs extend forwards a foot or two in a spot where they are out of the way. Then I moved my hutch/shelves from the back of my bench onto this extension table. I purposely built this table to be a few inched taller than my bench, so the surfaces don't meet. The edge of the extension has a lip that extends in the front, an inch or so, so I can set a small gap between between the back of the bench and the front of the extension table runner, and the front lip of this extension table still overhangs the back of my bench just a hair. My o-scope is on the shelving and I just drop the probes down into this gap when I'm not using them. More specifically, I added a hook to the edge of the shelf, so the 4 probes leads run horizontally, even with shelf, over the hook, and down into the gap in one bundle, neat and tidy.

Actually, I added a raised extension directly to the back of my bench, prior to that. So I have 3 "tiers" to my bench, now, like a stadium. The two additional tiers are both a bit higher than the last, and there are gaps between each for running wires and cable. This produces places for things to roll off the back of the bench, but some of the first gap is closed up with thin drawers and for cable holders, and I don't have enough issue with the remaining gap to make me bother with closing it up.

The way I built my bench, it has shallow front-less drawers with even shallower sides for support (enough to keep things from rolling out the sides of the drawers, but only an inch and a half tall), directly under the bench surface. I figured I wouldn't be pounding on it, too much, so the box frame for the top of the bench is actually below the drawers, and the supports between drawers are enough to keep my bench flat for the last decade. I occasionally pull out (and clear out) a drawer for additional place to set things I'm working on. So that makes 4 tiers.

[Berni]

If that is a good solid brick wall then yes its best to attach it to the wall. I recommend adjustable systems like this: http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx?c=&p=40003&cat=1,43326   They sell these in most hardware stores.

You can easily leave a bit of a gap between the wall and shelf and this lets you run cables behind it. These things are also adjustable to any height you would want so you can later on tweak your shelf spacing to fit your needs. Evenly spaced shelves tend to work the best for storing lots of the same sized thing (Like books or binders etc). When you start putting a mix of things on it you can sometimes get into situations where some stuff wastes space while other stuff doesn't fit.

If heavy test equipment will be on it i would recommend using more than just 2 rails. The rails are pretty darn strong (If you buy the proper ones) but the shelf itself might start bowing in under the weight.

For really big and heavy equipment this shelving doesn't work well anymore. The big test gear can be 60cm deep and weigh 30kg a piece. For that id recommend looking trough your local ebay-like sites for anyone throwing out a old server rack. The large test gear is all designed to fit into a standard rack and these racks are made with thick metal frames capable of supporting a literal metric ton of equipment. Often the racks also come with caster wheels under them so you can easily move the whole thing around (Or they will often have a way to screw wheels onto it if there are none)

[GlennSprigg]

If that is a good solid brick wall then yes its best to attach it to the wall. I recommend adjustable systems like this: http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx?c=&p=40003&cat=1,43326   They sell these in most hardware stores.     ....etc....etc....

Exactly !!  Also then, there is NO bottom board of the shelf-unit, and you have more desk-space 

P.S.  I love watching "Mr. Carlson's Lab" on YouTube. Here's HIS workbench 

[Berni]

Yep he sure has an impressive setup.

I sure hope those shelves are solid enough for hold those heavy boat anchors. I wouldn't want a heavy tube scope falling on the brilliant guy.

[Electro Detective]

I reckon he's rigged those shelves to hold stacked anvils   

There's a Youtube suggestion/question to pop at Mr. Carlson's Lab,

ask how he set up those shelves, materials used, type of wall etc   

[AlanS]

If that is a good solid brick wall then yes its best to attach it to the wall. I recommend adjustable systems like this: http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx?c=&p=40003&cat=1,43326   They sell these in most hardware stores.     ....etc....etc....

Exactly !!  Also then, there is NO bottom board of the shelf-unit, and you have more desk-space 

P.S.  I love watching "Mr. Carlson's Lab" on YouTube. Here's HIS workbench 

Can you imagine the power consumption? The heat? The feeling that someone is looking at you?

[soldar]

This was supposed to be a minor repair and leave everything like it was but, as often happens, it has turned into a major renovation project and now I have to design the entire thing.

Kinda like yesterday in Linux I gave in to Google Earth bugging me to update. It should have been a minor thing but the update broke Google Earth and it is no longer working

At any rate, I think I will go with shelves hanging from the wall because that makes the desk underneath independent of them and it does not bear the weight. Long project ahead.

[GlennSprigg]

Re:-   "Mr. Carlson's Lab".
Yea...  He doesn't seem too worried about heat/ventilation, especially with the older equipment ?
And he keeps his 'Anvils' on a lighter-duty shelf-system just out of shot !   
Yea, I will post him, about his shelving, and 'heat' issues !!

P.S.    Also just out of shot, near his feet, I think he has a bank of these, for Master-Isolation !! 

[tautech]

Lots of good bench ideas here:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/whats-your-work-benchlab-look-like-post-some-pictures-of-your-lab/

[Ian.M]

Desk top space, without overhangs below your seated head hight, is *VALUABLE*.  Unless the room is particularly narrow, I would suggest floor-standing shelves behind the desk, with brackets holding them to the wall at the top for stability.  Standing off the shelves from the wall to leave a gap behind them for power leads and ventilation is worth doing.   As you are in the EU, if you want reasonably heavy duty modular shelving that doesn't look industrial, it may be worth looking at the IKEA IVAR range.

[soldar]

Desk top space, without overhangs below your seated head hight, is *VALUABLE*.  Unless the room is particularly narrow, I would suggest floor-standing shelves behind the desk, with brackets holding them to the wall at the top for stability.  Standing off the shelves from the wall to leave a gap behind them for power leads and ventilation is worth doing.   As you are in the EU, if you want reasonably heavy duty modular shelving that doesn't look industrial, it may be worth looking at the IKEA IVAR range.

Thanks for the suggestion. I have used this arrangement before but I feel the shelving space at lower level than the bench is wasted.

What maybe could work would be shelves that straddle the work bench so that the shelves are supported by the floor (and, as you say, held to the wall for stability) but the lowest shelf is above the working surface and the vertical sides of the shelving straddle the desk.

I could build the whole thing with particle board and one side could be directly fixed to the side wall.

I need to think some more about this.


Another issue is that I used to put electrical power outlets in the back wall but the desk is so cluttered i can hardly reach them. I have had outlets installed in the front rail or apron and the advantage is that it takes much more clutter to obstruct them

[Ian.M]

Shelf space behind and below the desk is always mostly wasted so  live with it and get over it!    Put a bottom shelf a couple of inches off the floor to tie the side frames together and use it for long-term storage.  Another shelf a bit below the one level with the desk top can be useful if your equipment runs off a lot of wallwarts, but only if there's more of them than can be accommodated by a couple of socket strips socket screwed to the back of the desk just below the top.

Particle board is absolutely horrible and guarantees long-term sagging and failure if heavily loaded.  Any 'engineered' wood product other than good quality WBP exterior ply of at least 18mm thickness,  or oriented grain factory block glued shelving boards is just asking for trouble, especially if you intend to span the whole desk width.

Outlets along the front rail guarantee overhanging cables, which will sooner or later get snagged and dump expensive kit on the floor when you get up in a hurry.     You don't need quick access to the sockets powering the test equipment as long as there is a single accessible cutoff switch for them (or two - one for kit that's best left powered on for long-term stability and possibly for a bench PC^*, the other for everything else).   If you mount a socket strip at approx 18" height above the desk top on the side wall it will be above most desktop clutter and easily accessible for day to day use.

* Tower PC under the bench, keyboard in keyboard draw with room to stow  a wireless mouse, monitor with multiple inputs on back wall under the shelves or at back of desktop level shelf.   Spare input cables left connected at the monitor end and hung on hooks next to it.  Fit other unused ports with extension cables and a powered USB hub to bring them up to desk top level.  If you are soldering with datasheets open on the PC, the ability to close the keyboard draw to keep flux and solder dross out of the keyboard and just keep the mouse on the bench top for navigation is invaluable.

[soldar]

Yes, I know particle board is terrible and I don't like it except that it is very cheap and often free if recycled from cheap furniture. Generally I will reinforce it with cheap pine strips or even build the structure with regular pine and then use particle board only for the surfaces.

I wish plywood was cheaper here but it is very expensive.

I might build a structure with regular pine, maybe from pallets, and then use particle board which I already have, for the shelves.

Another option is to use steel shelves and I could go that way too as I have plenty of scraps.

I will be thinking about all this because I do not want to rush into something and then change my mind.

[KL27x]

Yea...  He doesn't seem too worried about heat/ventilation, especially with the older equipment ?

This is obviously for show. It's claustrophobic seeing his little talking head at the bottom of the frame with all this equipment being the the center, lol.

What the point of having 5 scopes, esp all facing different directions so you can't see them at the same time? I can't hardly remember how to use the controls of one scope. How you get your work in and out of that crowded little space?

Buy a new scope and move some of the boat anchors to the boat shed.

I rather have some open flat space to configure to the project. When I need a specific set of boat anchors, I take them out of the shed and set them up for this specific problem. Then put boat anchors back in the shed. I bet he hasn't powered half those things on in the last 10 years. In all that mess... where's the computer monitor and keyboard?  This IS his boat shed. He must do 99% of his work in a different area.

[KC0PPH]

If that is a good solid brick wall then yes its best to attach it to the wall. I recommend adjustable systems like this: http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx?c=&p=40003&cat=1,43326   They sell these in most hardware stores.     ....etc....etc....

Exactly !!  Also then, there is NO bottom board of the shelf-unit, and you have more desk-space 

P.S.  I love watching "Mr. Carlson's Lab" on YouTube. Here's HIS workbench 

How many Plug Strips does have have daisy chained together to power all that? Suppose its all on a single 15A circuit too (Assuming USA).

[Electro Detective]

How many Plug Strips does have have daisy chained together to power all that?

Suppose its all on a single 15A circuit too (Assuming USA).

AFAIK I believe he's in Canada somewhere ? 

I'll bet he most likely has a thick or multiple cable feed coming directly into the lab, to cater for multiple devices running and avoid voltage sag and turn on brown out,   

with plenty of cheap generic plug strips (some daisy chained perhaps) to cater for all the gear.

A separate transformer welder circuit (or two) say 30 to 50 amps in Canada/US would handle that lab easily if all the gear was turned on

I am assuming the gent has taken into account the breaking force of that shelving and gradual stress flex over time,
and not just the immediate hold weight

[KL27x]

^When would you ever need to use more than half a dozen of those instruments at the same time?

This is the woodworking version of Calson's lab.

I'm sure he uses every one of those hand planes. Not.

He removed and rebuilt the shop a bit back, and one of the viewers was surprised. He assumed this wall of planes was a photoshopped background/wallpaper. It's hoarding/collecting in both cases.

[soldar]

Speaking of power strips, ever since my very beginnings I realized having a lot of instruments made for a mess of cables and I developed the idea of daisy-chaining them. Any instrument I built would have a couple of female outlets in the back. Any instrument I bought I would fit it with outlets if it was possible. This simplifies cabling greatly as it keeps cables behind the instruments and out of the way. At 220 volts most instruments draw little current and can be daisy chained without problem.

The problem has started when they started changing plugs here. Old plugs had 4 mm prongs. Newer plugs have 4.8 mm prongs and will not go into the old outlets without an adapter. Not a big deal but still...

[Berni]

I like using power splitter cables like this.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/IEC-320-C14-Male-Plug-to-3x-C13-Female-Plug-Y-Split-Power-Splitter-Cord/183641578202?hash=item2ac1e41ada:g:-6YAAOSwALlcSYB3

I use this to power groups of low power instruments from a single  standard IEC cable. Makes for a lot less clutter at the power strips when you got a lot of gear.

Tho for mains stuff its a good idea to test them. I tried mine by daisy changing all of them together and then sending 30A round trip to the end and back. They did get very warm but nothing was hot or smoking so they pass. Just to make sure the wire inside is real proper thickness copper and that the connections (including earth) are solid enough to carry full current. Outlets here provide 230V 16A so if it can handle 30A for a few minutes it will handle 16A all day.

[soldar]

I like using power splitter cables like this.

Ha! I have been cheating for many years and just made them myself. I would take three computer cables and splice them all into one single Schucko plug. That works well with C13 / C14 connectors. Come to think about it maybe I should start updating/improving some of my instruments and install this type of connector in the back. Some have a fixed cord and are a pain to move out of the shelf. It is better if i can remove the cord from the instrument.