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

[Vredstein]

The dude on your computer monitor seems to be quite happy to be there.

[ronwoch]

What else do you need? 

Hey guys,

I'm 17 years old so forgive my rather lackluster workspace, but this is what I'm working with.

A few meters, a scope, cheap function generator, soldering iron, desoldering iron, crapton of banana wires, test leads. That's about it.

[rkoval]

Finally got my bench set up.  The Peg board really got me organized.

[FenderBender]

What else do you need? 

Hey guys,

I'm 17 years old so forgive my rather lackluster workspace, but this is what I'm working with.

A few meters, a scope, cheap function generator, soldering iron, desoldering iron, crapton of banana wires, test leads. That's about it.

You know...RF Spectrum Analyzers, 30GHz Tek MSO, etc. 

On a more serious note, I do actually need (want?) a bench supply and maybe an LCR meter.

Yes, I'm pretty satisfied with my test equipment, though I don't have anything too expensive or amazing.

[ronwoch]

Oh there is always more things to WAN- er, NEED,  but for a 17 yo you are off to a helluva great start. Keep at it!

[oddeohead]

So true! At 17 most of us were lucky to own even just 1 meter!

[dustooff]

Heh,

good example of a baaaaddd workbench.
it does get tidied up occasionally... honest.

first 2 main workbench
next job bench
then parts
and more parts. (I probably missed some... (parts))?

regards
Andrew

[george graves]

I like those right-angled test leads.  Source please?

The ones hanging on the wall? Those are homemade. I bought the wire in the bargain bin of AWC Wire. It's  UL1015 18AWG hook up wire. I chose UL1015 because it's got thicker insulation than UL1007 so it might be a little more flexible and reliable. I got 300ft (~150ea) total for about $20 shipped. Excellent deal.

I used Pomona 1825 banana plugs. Bought 8 of black and 8 of red. Cost me around $25 for the plugs. So a grand total of around $45 for 8 x 24" test leads.

It wasn't necessarily cheaper than the retail options. I reckon you can get some premade Pomona leads for about $5-6 each. which would be roughly the same price as mine. However, I do have around 275ft of red and black 18AWG wire ...so, I guess I win?

Thanks for the info.  I think I'll eventually pic up some of that wire and plugs.  I've been getting by with ebay audio banana jacks - But the recent ones on ebay are only for much larger gauge speaker wire, and you can't get a 18 gauge wire secured.  Thanks again.

[ronwoch]

Finally! Figured out how to post youtube videos. Derrrrrrr.

[jasonh]

When I first joined here I was looking for an oscilloscope  as the one I had was no longer working, it had been some time since I had used it and it wasn't worth looking at with all the cheap digital scopes on the market.

    I didn't get it as the project never came to fruition.  Now I am working on some other things I decided to get the cheap DS1102E, it's not the agilent but it's not the price and it will certainly do for what I am working on right now so I am very happy to have replaced mine for the price of this.

   Unfortunately a number of other tools that were in storage are mysteriously no longer in storage and seem to have gone missing. so I am starting from scratch except for a soldering station and power supply that I am always using for odd things.

   Most of what I will be working on in the near term will be microcontroller based and I will take the opportunity to move from my atmel kit to the TI cortex M3 and start doing SMD.

   So, this afternoon I will order the atten 858D+ that I see is popular.  I had another couple fluke DMM but they seem lost so something else there and another power supply will be on my short list.

   Right now I am increasing my workshop space as I work at home so I am stuck on my computer desk until that is complete and some concrete gets laid.   It will be tight for the meantime!

   Here are some pics of one of the workshop areas, I have another which has more tools but that is the area that is getting expanded so it's a big mess right now! 

   All these tools are some way incorporated in to various electronic projects, a lot of what I play with has a mechanical and electrical component to it.   In the new space there will  also be a new laser with a 1500x1200mm bed.  One thing I will use it for is to cut and engrave panels for mounting leds/swtiches etc on to.   As well as cut all the balsa parts for a spitfire

   I look forward to making some new prettier boards with SMD components

   It also looks like while I am at my computer desk I will need to make some stands so I can stack things.   I may also put the scope out of the way and use the computer interface to save a bit more space.  Not sure how well the computer interface works but it's worth a try.

[Deepak]

Look what I did today

 

[harnon]

Look what I did today

You lined up your cordless drills?     Looks good.

This thread is really not good for me - I'm getting a nasty case of lab envy!

[FenderBender]

When I first joined here I was looking for an oscilloscope  as the one I had was no longer working, it had been some time since I had used it and it wasn't worth looking at with all the cheap digital scopes on the market.......

Nice setup! Drill presses are the most helpful thing every invented.

[FenderBender]

Look what I did today

 

So what exactly do you do with all of those drills?

[Kibi]

Drill presses are the most helpful thing every invented.

You sir, are correct.

However, a band saw, lathe or milling machine would be nice too.

[Deepak]

You lined up your cordless drills?     Looks good.

This thread is really not good for me - I'm getting a nasty case of lab envy!

How'd I know that was coming?  Thx.

So what exactly do you do with all of those drills?

Usually injure myself.

Really, though, I do a lot of woodworking (I have since my teens). I picked up the Hitachi set about 2 years ago and the Dewalt set, along with a circular saw & recip saw that aren't pictured, were an Xmas gift. The big ones are general use (both hammer drills) and the smaller ones are impact drivers so I use them to drive screws - you can/shouldn't use them to drill holes.

Switching bits sucks.

[FenderBender]

Oh I didn't realize (or look) to see if they were different types.

Well that makes more sense.

[olsenn]

Here's my main bench:


free picture hosting

From left to right, I have a B&K Precision 879B, Fluke 87-V, Rigol DS1052E, Rigol DSA815-TG, Instek SFG-1003, Rigol DM3058, Itech (B&K Precision) 8511, Rigol DG2041A, Instek GPS-4303.

In the background, on my other bench you can barely see my Lecroy WaveAce102. I also have a Hakko FX-888, an AVR ONE!, PicKit2, J-Link EDU, Digilent Atlys, Terasic DE0 Nano, and numerous other powerful toys.

[free_electron]

My hardware workbench

left to right :
- Agilent 16702B logic analyser with two 16750a analyzer blades (400MHz state / 2GHz timing / 4Meg memory per channel , 68 channels ) , one 16520 pattern generator (32 channels , 200 M vectors / second) blade
- Agilent 54832D 1GHz 4Gs/s 4+16 channel oscilloscope. Deep memory option  (128 megasamples per channel)
- Agilent E3610 analog power supplies
- Agilent 34401 6 1/2 digit Digital multimeters
- Agilent MSO7104A 4+16 channel 1Ghz 4Gs/s oscilloscope. Deep memory option / packet decoders . this is my main machine. The reason i keep the 54832D is because i have the FPGA licences for that one. it allows me to debug inside FPGA's and that scope is timesynced with the logic analyzer so i can do mixed signal stuff
- Agilent 33120 arbitray generator
- Agilent E2641 3 channel power supply
- Agilent 8904A synthesizer. This thing has differential isolated output. ideal for precise LF applications
- Agilent 5334B counter with Oven option
- Agilent 8116 function generators. One with option 001 ( burst and modulation modes)
- Agilent 3225B signal generator. this one can do up to 40 volts p/p .
- vision engineering mantis with x8 super long working distance lens and x4 lens ( i primarily do SMD stuff... 0402 0603 , sometimes smaller )

All the generators are locked to the crystal oven in the counter.

My battery of soldering irons. smd tweezers, hot air pencil , microtouch for very precise work, two wsp80 with different tips ( so i don't have to swap all the time ) and a desoldering gun

 My software workbench

- General purpose power supply / counter / fg/ dmm
- Agilent 54831A 600Mhz 4Gs/s 4 meg deep memory general purpose scope
- older 54645D 2+16 scope 100 Mhz. primarily used for the digital channels

Not shown : my pile of half repaired / half broken / stuff to be scrapped / sold / donated equipment. a bunch of 16500A and B / 16700Alogic analysers with blades , A lecroy wavemaster scope ( bwuaaark. should be called lecrap )

Most of my equipment was gotten cheap/free because it was broken. Over the years i've gotten pretty good at repairing agilent equipment.
I traded a bunch of other scopes (tektronix TDS7xx / agilent 54645D's ) for the 54832D and the MSO7104. The Logic analyser was bought from a company that stopped hardware development 4 year ago. They only sell software now ( they used to have an asic running their software, now they license the algorithm.. ) They were moving and nobody still there knew what this machine was. It was on ebay for 300$ ... local pickup only.. and i got it! This was more than 120K$ machine when new 8 years ago ...

[jnd]

That's some pretty sweet workbench Agilent laboratory, free_electron

[Teknotronix]

That's some pretty sweet workbench Agilent laboratory, free_electron

There is even a spindle of HP blank media. Dedication!

[T4P]

That's some pretty sweet workbench Agilent laboratory, free_electron

There is even a spindle of HP blank media. Dedication!

AHHHHHH !! I used to have a 20kg box of HP tapes ! Threw them out during the beginning of the year . 

[SeanB]

I still have some QIC cartridges, still sealed........ Who needs a 40M backup tape? And the remains of a box of 1G DAT data tapes, where the drive died ( actually the 3rd drive died and we bough a DLT unit instead) eventually.

[T4P]

I still have some QIC cartridges, still sealed........ Who needs a 40M backup tape? And the remains of a box of 1G DAT data tapes, where the drive died ( actually the 3rd drive died and we bough a DLT unit instead) eventually.

Before i thrashed the tapes i had a 20megger Sony cartridge  And some 10GB DLT

[free_electron]

i still have three fluke handheld meters. two 179 and a 83 (original model ) but those are only used if i need to do something 'mobile'. there is also a couple of philips/fluke pm2811 programmable power supplies and a couple of pm2525 multimeters. i have a LeCroyoyap wavemaster too (500Mhz 4 channel 4Gs/s ) but those are gathering dust...

My last tek went out the door about 3 years ago.
As for that stuff from the drunken swiss scope maker .. i won't touch that with a long stick. At work we bought a brand new ( as in freshly released) wavemaster with the 32 channel digital pod option. I lost 4 days of work because that thing was lying. you'd zoom in on a segment but the display would show you something else. if you moved the viewport , the analog channels were lost... i had a report with 15 pages of errors in that scope. They didn't believe me. i had to walk them through each and every problem on the phone.... hook up a probe there , push that button , turn that knob 1 click now push that button.. what do you see. ? ah yes.. we'll that's not quite right ... we'll fix that..
It took them 2 months ! the scope was unusable... i had to rent a machine . When they finally came back they sent me the installer file. Here is the beta release, please install it and see if it works correctly now.. WHAT ?!? i bought a 50K$ scope that doesn't work , have to wait 2 months and now i have to test your beta-ware too ? you can have it back.
And there is the endless 'calibrating , triggering , acquiring' cycle. Their machines have immense blind-times. turn a knob too fast and they bluescreen or crash.

I only want HP / Agilent equipment now.
Tek's are junk. They were the best but with the advent of the TDSxxx series the repairability went to hell. They are full of unobtainium parts , no manuals and extremely difficult to troubleshoot. Agilent kept on publishing schematics until mid 2000's ( the newer machines don't have them anymore , although you can get the CLIP ( component level information package ) if there is a military variant of the machine. the us militray demands full schematics for anything they buy.

The serviceabilit of agilent is far superior. you can open machines , unflold the modules and still power it up. everything is accessible. with other brands you can unplug modules but then you can't power up the machines.

they also have eol support. like the logic analyzer. even though that machine went out of production in 2004 they still guarantee software updates until 2016 ... and they are free. just download the iso files , burn to cd and off you go. the same with the scopes.

I have a very expensive Tek scope at work that died... motherboard corrupted. take it to tek : ah sorry , we don;t have these boards anymore... but the machine is barely 4 years old. ah yes well..too bad. you can buy an upgrade , we'll give you a 15% discount ...
i put in a different motherboard, tweaked it a bit and its running. So long suckers !

Right, got to go .. i have scored two new instruments yesterday... another E3631A power supply and a 4263B RLC bridge ... they need my attention... both are dead. the power supply shows nonsense on its display. setting voltage works ok , but reading it gives absurd values like 9000 ampere and -41 volts... probably the digitizer that is shot. a couple of opamps should do the trick. ( i've seen this problem before , the integrator in the a/d dies and then it can't converge .. a simple AD711 )

The RLc bridge has the current source fried.. probably someone hooked up a large still charged capacitor. both protection diodes were burnt ... so probably the driver stage is fried too. nothing exotic in there. should be fixable.