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

[JoeO]

No thanks to Dave and the rest of you very well equipped guys I'm constantly penniless; anyways, here is my modest lab I started building 4 months ago.  My ghetto lab sits in my bedroom on a table made of a door and saw horses. 

I really would like to get my hands on a good LCR meter and a spectrum analyzer or two, but now that I've burned through any sort of savings, they will have to wait.  When it does come time for me to purchase a good LCR meter, should I get a HP bench LCR meter or should I purchase something like the DER EE DE-5000?  Which is more accurate?

I like using doors as bench tops.  The hole for the door handle makes a great place to snake wires from the desktop to the floor.

[Richard Head]

What's the extractor pipe for? Do you produce a lot of excess gas in there?

[JoeO]

What's the extractor pipe for? Do you produce a lot of excess gas in there?

Probably an air conditioner.

[y2khris]

No thanks to Dave and the rest of you very well equipped guys I'm constantly penniless; anyways, here is my modest lab I started building 4 months ago.  My ghetto lab sits in my bedroom on a table made of a door and saw horses. 

I really would like to get my hands on a good LCR meter and a spectrum analyzer or two, but now that I've burned through any sort of savings, they will have to wait.  When it does come time for me to purchase a good LCR meter, should I get a HP bench LCR meter or should I purchase something like the DER EE DE-5000?  Which is more accurate?

Very nice - every good lab should have Lady Heather running the show!

Thanks, Lady Heather runs splendidly.  I picked up a Nortel Trimble NTBW50AA and I have PLL with my HP 33120A and my counters.  I was going to pick up a rubidium oscillator, but I found out that they had worse short term accuracy and they were likely close to the end of their usable lives.

[y2khris]

What's the extractor pipe for? Do you produce a lot of excess gas in there?

Probably an air conditioner.

Yes, it is an air conditioner; it will likely be hot this August and September in SoCal.

[bitseeker]

No thanks to Dave and the rest of you very well equipped guys I'm constantly penniless; anyways, here is my modest lab I started building 4 months ago.  My ghetto lab sits in my bedroom on a table made of a door and saw horses. 

It's good to make use of old doors, especially the solid-core variety. I like the way you've alternated between half-rack and full-rack width instruments in your stack.

[ez24]

My ghetto lab sits in my bedroom on a table made of a door and saw horses. 

Your black shelf looks like the ones Costco sells.  I took 2 and placed them perpendicular to the wall, put a 6 foot Costco folding table between them.  Then I took three 8 foot boards and used the plastic shelves to support them over the table.  This way I was able to get a table and a lot of shelves without any fasteners.

[Shock]

No table space for the bananas, kids these days are doing it so tough.

[German_EE]

In my Freshman year I had a 20 sq m (215 sq ft)  apartment, small but perfectly formed. By the time I had added the bed, the TV and the bookshelf there was not much room for anything else. Good for practising the minimalist lifestyle.

[rdl]

My new dorm lab.

That's a very nice compact set up. I recommend your next upgrade be to a more comfortable chair. 

[bollio]

My new dorm lab.

That's a very nice compact set up. I recommend your next upgrade be to a more comfortable chair. 

He's young... That'll work just fine.  I remember when I'd be able to sit in a chair like that for hours and stand up afterward... Those days were nice.

[System Error Message]

You even have more room than i do for my work space.

[GreyWoolfe]

In my Freshman year I had a 20 sq m (215 sq ft)  apartment, small but perfectly formed. By the time I had added the bed, the TV and the bookshelf there was not much room for anything else. Good for practising the minimalist lifestyle.

Wow, that's the size of my home office.

[ez24]

My new dorm lab.

Since I think you are in Florida and may have gotten your tables at Costco, you can expand vertically if you get Costco plastic shelves (also available at Home Depot) and place them at the ends of the table (perpendicular to the wall) and put boards across them to form shelves above the tables.  The boards have to be longer than the tables.  My tables are 6 feet and I use 8 foot boards (2x12s).  The span of the two plastic shelves and table works out to be about 9 feet.

[edavid]

My new dorm lab.

Since I think you are in Florida and may have gotten your tables at Costco, you can expand vertically if you get Costco plastic shelves (also available at Home Depot) and place them at the ends of the table (perpendicular to the wall) and put boards across them to form shelves above the tables.  The boards have to be longer than the tables.  My tables are 6 feet and I use 8 foot boards (2x12s).  The span of the two plastic shelves and table works out to be about 9 feet.

That is dangerous... the Costco plastic shelves will sag if you put any weight on them:

[ajb]

My new dorm lab.

Since I think you are in Florida and may have gotten your tables at Costco, you can expand vertically if you get Costco plastic shelves (also available at Home Depot) and place them at the ends of the table (perpendicular to the wall) and put boards across them to form shelves above the tables.  The boards have to be longer than the tables.  My tables are 6 feet and I use 8 foot boards (2x12s).  The span of the two plastic shelves and table works out to be about 9 feet.

That is dangerous... the Costco plastic shelves will sag if you put any weight on them:

Well, that's certainly one point on the "any" scale.

[PartialDischarge]

That is dangerous... the Costco plastic shelves will sag if you put any weight on them:

soooo many tek modules ,,wouldnt you have for sale a 7a22 ?? 

[mtdoc]

My new dorm lab. Since I am now having a great commercializable idea, I do not want the university to be part of it. After discussing with my professor, he wants to help me starting a business, but according to patent agreement I signed with the university, I can not use any resource from the university, including my lab and my office.
Therefore, I moved my equipments to my dorm, and started a dorm lab. This also allows me to work in a soho fashion. All equipments shown here are my personal property, and all parts are either paid by my professor's own funding, or from my pocket.

I would be sure to look carefully at the agreement. I was an employee of the University of California for many years - first as a PhD student and later as a research associate and lecturer.   IIRC my agreement said ALL intellectual property I developed while employed belonged to the University - independent of who owned the equipment I may have used to develop it.

[AF6LJ]

My new dorm lab.

Since I think you are in Florida and may have gotten your tables at Costco, you can expand vertically if you get Costco plastic shelves (also available at Home Depot) and place them at the ends of the table (perpendicular to the wall) and put boards across them to form shelves above the tables.  The boards have to be longer than the tables.  My tables are 6 feet and I use 8 foot boards (2x12s).  The span of the two plastic shelves and table works out to be about 9 feet.

That is dangerous... the Costco plastic shelves will sag if you put any weight on them:

WoW, are you sure you have enough Tek plug-ins.

[PartialDischarge]

My new dorm lab. Since I am now having a great commercializable idea, I do not want the university to be part of it. After discussing with my professor, he wants to help me starting a business, but according to patent agreement I signed with the university, I can not use any resource from the university, including my lab and my office.
Therefore, I moved my equipments to my dorm, and started a dorm lab. This also allows me to work in a soho fashion. All equipments shown here are my personal property, and all parts are either paid by my professor's own funding, or from my pocket.

I would be sure to look carefully at the agreement. I was an employee of the University of California for many years - first as a PhD student and later as a research associate and lecturer.   IIRC my agreement said ALL intellectual property I developed while employed belonged to the University - independent of who owned the equipment I may have used to develop it.

Well, after reading your post, I went through our patent policy, and it is true. The university owns all patents during my employment.
Please suggest me, if you have similar experience, should I:
1. disclose the technology and make it never patentable.
2. let the university to apply a patent for me, while having exception that I can license this patent for free to myself, my company and its potential subsidiaries and my employer.
3. let the university to apply a patent, while providing ambiguous information that makes the patent hard to defend.
4. secretly transfer the IP to my family in China, and let them to apply the patent (technically illegal but hard to collect evidence, and can get me fired, so this is my last choice).
5. just give all patents to the university, I get 40% of the revenue, the university gets 10%, then 50% reserved for compensating application cost of non profiting patents (patent trust).

I have no intention of protecting my invention from being monetized by the others (I do not have time to sue thousands of small Chinese companies, and I do not have money to sue big international players as well), but I do not want to pay the university for using my own invention either. The intention of applying a patent is solely for marketing purpose (Chinese companies are superstitious to western patents).

6. take your time, develop the technology while your a phd in yor dorm lab, anf after you leave that place ( time flies) do whatever you want with it

[ECEdesign]

Well, after reading your post, I went through our patent policy, and it is true. The university owns all patents during my employment.
Please suggest me, if you have similar experience, should I:
1. disclose the technology and make it never patentable.
2. let the university to apply a patent for me, while having exception that I can license this patent for free to myself, my company and its potential subsidiaries and my employer.
3. let the university to apply a patent, while providing ambiguous information that makes the patent hard to defend.
4. secretly transfer the IP to my family in China, and let them to apply the patent (technically illegal but hard to collect evidence, and can get me fired, so this is my last choice).
5. just give all patents to the university, I get 40% of the revenue, the university gets 10%, then 50% reserved for compensating application cost of non profiting patents (patent trust).

I have no intention of protecting my invention from being monetized by the others (I do not have time to sue thousands of small Chinese companies, and I do not have money to sue big international players as well), but I do not want to pay the university for using my own invention either. The intention of applying a patent is solely for marketing purpose (Chinese companies are superstitious to western patents).

I would worry less about money now and more on name recognition of your product with you.  If you publish this technology (either in a publication or by your name on a patent) I think it would be really good for your future career if people can look at your widget and then see who developed it. I think you are wise to not be worried about trying to protect your goods against others.  Suing other companies can go into the millions pretty quick.  So I think this brings you back to having the technology in whichever form gives you more recognition for developing it.

Really like your dorm lab though!  I am working on setting mine up although my room is a little smaller than that...  What keyboard do you have btw?

[mtdoc]

My new dorm lab. Since I am now having a great commercializable idea, I do not want the university to be part of it. After discussing with my professor, he wants to help me starting a business, but according to patent agreement I signed with the university, I can not use any resource from the university, including my lab and my office.
Therefore, I moved my equipments to my dorm, and started a dorm lab. This also allows me to work in a soho fashion. All equipments shown here are my personal property, and all parts are either paid by my professor's own funding, or from my pocket.

I would be sure to look carefully at the agreement. I was an employee of the University of California for many years - first as a PhD student and later as a research associate and lecturer.   IIRC my agreement said ALL intellectual property I developed while employed belonged to the University - independent of who owned the equipment I may have used to develop it.

Well, after reading your post, I went through our patent policy, and it is true. The university owns all patents during my employment.
Please suggest me, if you have similar experience, should I:
1. disclose the technology and make it never patentable.
2. let the university to apply a patent for me, while having exception that I can license this patent for free to myself, my company and its potential subsidiaries and my employer.
3. let the university to apply a patent, while providing ambiguous information that makes the patent hard to defend.
4. secretly transfer the IP to my family in China, and let them to apply the patent (technically illegal but hard to collect evidence, and can get me fired, so this is my last choice).
5. just give all patents to the university, I get 40% of the revenue, the university gets 10%, then 50% reserved for compensating application cost of non profiting patents (patent trust).

I have no direct experience with this. I've never developed anything worth patenting.

But I would suggest #2 and/or #5.  Good luck.

[Smokey]

Holy thread drift Batman!
Why don't you patent guys go get a room..

Seriously though, that's an interesting problem that probably deserves it's own topic so it doesn't get lost.

[edavid]

Since I think you are in Florida and may have gotten your tables at Costco, you can expand vertically if you get Costco plastic shelves (also available at Home Depot) and place them at the ends of the table (perpendicular to the wall) and put boards across them to form shelves above the tables.  The boards have to be longer than the tables.  My tables are 6 feet and I use 8 foot boards (2x12s).  The span of the two plastic shelves and table works out to be about 9 feet.

That is dangerous... the Costco plastic shelves will sag if you put any weight on them:

Well, that's certainly one point on the "any" scale.

I thought people here would enjoy that photo, but actually the Costco shelves will eventually sag just from their own weight.

WoW, are you sure you have enough Tek plug-ins.

Apparently not, the other day I was looking for a fully working 7A13 (out of 17 on the shelf), and struck out 

[raptor1956]

We had a cat just like that, long and slinky! He just passed a couple of weeks ago after 18 plus years, what a great cat he was. Boy you sure get attached..........

Rob

Oh, and he does ladders, too.  Kept hearing that tell tale aluminum extension ladder rattling from upstairs (In the midst of a renovation; it's there for access to a small attic), but when I'd go to investigate would hear a thump and several felines would scatter.  Finally heard it the other morning at about 3 AM and very quietly crept up there in bare feet.  He was in the attic, and on his way back down as he knew he'd been caught.  He got down a few steps before I could get the damned flash on the phone turned on, but at least I know what's causing the noise now...


I found him coming down again yesterday during the day, too.  He's a little hooligan, that one!   

-Pat

So that's ceiling cat!


Brian