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

[JackP]

Nailed it 

[AF6LJ]

Here is mine

Nice...
You have to watch those spare parts they accumulate really fast.

[Vgkid]

That is a incredibly neat(tidy) desk.

[AF6LJ]

That is a incredibly neat(tidy) desk.

If you are talking about my desk; it only stayed that long for the pictures..
The next pictures will not look so tidy...

[CrashO]

Time to post my bench too.
And because my lab is also my pc-room / dining room / living room / bedroom (Perks of still being in student housing  ) space is very limited so the only way is up! 


Also, this is about the tidiest it has ever been since I just finished mounting the 4 square cabinet so had to clean everyting of.

[Smokey]

Time to post my bench too.
And because my lab is also my pc-room / dining room / living room / bedroom (Perks of still being in student housing  ) space is very limited so the only way is up! 
...
Also, this is about the tidiest it has ever been since I just finished mounting the 4 square cabinet so had to clean everything of.

You have your lab, complete with mantis scope, in your dorm room!  HA!  Please tell me your roommate is an English history major and thinks you are completely insane.

[nanofrog]

Time to post my bench too.
And because my lab is also my pc-room / dining room / living room / bedroom (Perks of still being in student housing  ) space is very limited so the only way is up! 
...
Also, this is about the tidiest it has ever been since I just finished mounting the 4 square cabinet so had to clean everything of.

You have your lab, complete with mantis scope, in your dorm room!  HA!  Please tell me your roommate is an English history major and thinks you are completely insane.

Looks like a proper fume extraction system as well (follow the hosing). 

[CrashO]

Looks like a proper fume extraction system as well (follow the hosing). 

Bofa v200 
Works a treat and felt as a good investment seeing I sleep in the same room I solder in, and opening a window with a homemade fan on the desk just wasn't working good enough for me 

[chamod]

There is a saying that if you want to feel thinner, hang out with people fatter than you.

For all of you who think your set up is out of order, I present my personal (noun) for you to gaze upon.
(insert theremin and generic movie shrieks)

 If I had more stuff, my set up would exactly be like that   

[Neganur]

Bofa v200 

darn, that doesn't look like it can be had for 100 EUR. How much does one have to fork out for a beast like that?

[CrashO]

darn, that doesn't look like it can be had for 100 EUR. How much does one have to fork out for a beast like that?

Lets just say you can get about 1,5 brand spanking new JBC soldering irons for the price 

[G0HZU]

That Bofa fume extraction unit looks to be very similar to the ones issued to our engineering labs a while back.

The best thing about it is it keeps the whingers happy who won't allow a soldering iron to be left on without one of these things running.

The bad things are:

Very noisy. Holy shit, I'd hate to have one of these here at home. It's not  as noisy as a regular domestic vacuum cleaner but it is still very noisy.

Crap... and I mean CRAP extraction performance unless you solder right next to the nozzle. Otherwise it misses the fumes. So you have to keep moving your work (or the nozzle) to keep in the suction zone.

The on/off switch is on the side hidden next to the mains inlet cable so it is really fiddly to turn on and off. So if you have it below the bench you can forget about using the on/off switch on the unit. Or if you do then you can combine the use of this switch with your yoga exercises. Basically the design of this thing is so retarded they don't even offer a remote/foot switch with it. The more expensive models appear to offer a remote switch and speed control but this should be an option on all models. Or at least put a decent n/off switch on the unit rather than the fiddly rocker switch next to the mains inlet.

Basically, they are shite (limited effectiveness and very noisy) but they keep the whingers happy. Maybe if the whingers realised how ineffective these units were they would start whinging for an alternative.

[CrashO]

I can't say I share (all) of your bad experience with it. The only thing I agree on is the fiddly power switch. But I "fixed" that as soon as I got the unit with a 230V relay and the nice big red dome switch you can see in the picture of my bench. (just left of the hose).
The noise isn't too bad at all imo. You can definitely hear it but I've had 40mm case fans making more noise.
The nozzle sucks up pretty much all the smoke up to about 25 - 30cm from my experience. I usually just set it up about 10cm from the desk surface pointed at a slight angle downwards and move my board around just fine without losing suction. And if I want to solder one the other side of my desk I just bend the hose a bit, takes all of 5 seconds, whoohoo.

But perhaps our standards are just different 

[G0HZU]

I think a lot depends on how you plan to use the unit. In our busy RF design labs these things 'have' to be used now. They are too big to go on top of a bench as they eat up too much valuable space and if you put it below the bench the hose has limited reach. So if you only plan to solder in a tiny part of your bench then maybe you can live with it. But if you work on large units or need to solder in several places on the bench then it soon becomes impractical to keep moving this noisy thing around.

I simply don't have the patience to keep moving the unit or the hose and I hate the on/off switch design. Also, it can easily suck up SMD tape or bits of paper so you have to be careful what items you have near your work area. Most engineers hate using them and they just get turned on to keep the whingers happy.

If you always solder in a tiny work area then the extraction performance is fine but in my experience most people solder stuff in various locations around their work bench and so only a limited qty of fumes get extracted.

I'm surprised that you don't find it that noisy. Maybe yours runs at a lower speed or has different insides to ours. The ones at work are not as noisy as a regular vacuum cleaner but they are noisy enough to be very annoying.

[timofonic]

There is a saying that if you want to feel thinner, hang out with people fatter than you.

For all of you who think your set up is out of order, I present my personal (noun) for you to gaze upon.
(insert theremin and generic movie shrieks)

Are you a character from a cyberpunk novel? Do you wear brain implants and sleep 1 hour a day?

[nanofrog]

Crap... and I mean CRAP extraction performance unless you solder right next to the nozzle.

Did anyone ever replace the filters in it? 

They don't extract very well when clogged, and they happen to make a lot more noise when they're like this IME. 

[ChristofferB]

Thought I'd share too.
Mostly focused on microcomputers, and digital stuff.

Test gear on shelf R->L: TTI 4800 logic analyzer, small composite monitor, analog mmeter, PSU's, EPROM eraser.
On bench, R->L: Dumb terminal (restoration ongoing), ZX spectrum+2 with ½ an IO interface, and an old PACE desoldering/soldering station.
Analog oscilloscope under table, as well as PROM programmer, and a heap of RF test generators and other DIY RF gear, from my HAM time.

[G0HZU]

Did anyone ever replace the filters in it? 

They don't extract very well when clogged, and they happen to make a lot more noise when they're like this IME. 

That's a good point but the unit in our lab area was new last Autumn and has seen little use. It isn't a production environment. To give some idea of how little use it has seen, the reel of solder on the work area has only gone down very slightly. Maybe 20 small PCB/jigs have been made in this time plus some minor rework and a few cables made.

Besides, it doesn't seem any noisier or quieter to me since it was first installed. The other annoying aspect of it is that it's hard to move around. You have to pick it up like a huge pot plant. There are no carry straps or handles on it. Whoever designed the 'Human Factors' for this product probably didn't think much beyond "big cheap square metal box with fume hose and mains inlet filter with integral on/off switch and add a filter change lamp"

[Addicted2AnalogTek]

A quick picture of my current mini-lab and some of my goodies.  It is growing quickly, so I will likely be adding some shelving units & a drafting desk,  or just moving everything to a dedicated room.

I am currently troubleshooting the 468 I just bought so I can put it into operation with my 465. Then to a 475 or 475A project...   

[Vgkid]

What is the old gear on the top shelf, reminds me of General Radio.

[nanofrog]

That's a good point but the unit in our lab area was new last Autumn and has seen little use. It isn't a production environment. To give some idea of how little use it has seen, the reel of solder on the work area has only gone down very slightly. Maybe 20 small PCB/jigs have been made in this time plus some minor rework and a few cables made.

Anyone disassembled it to see if there's a blockage, something is bent, ... (maybe some packing material wasn't removed or something)? 

Might be a lot more convenient than returning it, and make the thing useful. Not much to them, so should be a simple matter to investigate IMHO (metal box, some filters, and a squirrel fan w/ hoses attached to the outside of the box).   

The other annoying aspect of it is that it's hard to move around. You have to pick it up like a huge pot plant. There are no carry straps or handles on it. Whoever designed the 'Human Factors' for this product probably didn't think much beyond "big cheap square metal box with fume hose and mains inlet filter with integral on/off switch and add a filter change lamp"

This type is meant to be stationary as I understand it. FWIW, it's the Hakko FA-430 that comes to mind when I think of portable, which is made of plastic (has handles molded into the enclosure).

As per handles on the unit at hand, maybe add some?
Drill some holes and use pop rivets /w large pan heads to attach nylon straps while it's still apart after inspection for example (assuming the problem is identified and easily fixed).

[mtdoc]

A2AT - nice looking Wavetek 166.  How's it working? I've got one with an intermittent fault that I haven't yet tried to track down.

[miguelvp]

...
On bench, R->L: Dumb terminal (restoration ongoing), ZX spectrum+2 with ½ an IO interface, and an old PACE desoldering/soldering station.
...

I hope that's a cinnamon stick on your coffee, then again it looks like a shark is swimming on it.

I would ditch the Dumb terminal, it looks almost as big as my first one (VT-52), If you must have one at least go for a VT-520 (hard to find) or a VT-420, they are still vintage enough and you'll get 30% of your bench back

[Addicted2AnalogTek]

What is the old gear on the top shelf, reminds me of General Radio.

Yep, it's a GenRad 1330A Bridge Oscillator.   The knobs are off because I am in the process of cleaning the front panel.  The inner workings are mint, though.

[Addicted2AnalogTek]

A2AT - nice looking Wavetek 166.  How's it working? I've got one with an intermittent fault that I haven't yet tried to track down.

It works great.  Funny thing is it's a bit dented and scratched, and the face was filthy when I got it.  I expected I would have to fix it, but I didn't even have to clean the boards.   If you need someone to compare notes with to try and track down your fault, let me know.  I don't mind opening it up and poking around a bit. I don't have an iso transfo yet, though, so my scopeshots might be a bit limited.