Messy bench

Pictures du jour here.
Forum rules
This is a good place to put pix of your lab or shop intended to produce the drool reaction. If topics get lengthy here, we may want to move most of the discussion to where it fits in the org scheme here (such as it is). Good place for announcements of things you just got working and so on. Respecting readers who may not have large bandwidth, try and keep the pictures to about one megapixel -- we have the BW and the storage here, no problems, but some readers may not.

Messy bench

Postby Doug Coulter » Tue Jan 17, 2012 4:18 pm

Maybe we should have a contest, nope, I'd just win that one.
So, I get the new preamp boards from Joe today, and rush over to the bench to build one and confrim how super great they are. Uh, well it looks like I have a bit of clearing out to do first!
BenchClutter.jpg
My bench right when I needed it...


The thing on the rack panel is the last project, just finished. I've found that fusors, and probably accelerators tend to need a bit of a shared high quality power supply, some speakers with amps, and a meter. So, having an old panel that had the meter already, I added the rest here. This will go in the upstairs accelerator jig to provide detector power and audio...the meter ain't great shakes, but it was there already and you never know, it might come in handy to have +/- 3v and 30v ranges with those tube opamps also in that rack (think of those as perhaps great deflection plate drivers for the accelerator).
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.
User avatar
Doug Coulter
 
Posts: 3515
Joined: Wed Jul 14, 2010 7:05 pm
Location: Floyd county, VA, USA

Re: Messy bench

Postby vmike » Wed Jan 18, 2012 9:32 am

I want to enter too! Here's five of my work spaces.

MVC-012S.JPG
Garage bench east.
MVC-015S.JPG
Garage bench north.
MVC-023S.JPG
Ham station.
MVC-024S.JPG
Electronics bench
MVC-025S.JPG
Audio bench, littered with robots.

I didn't want you to win hands down without a little competition.
I tried to contain myself, but I escaped.
User avatar
vmike
 
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Sep 15, 2010 4:20 pm
Location: Stillwater, Oklahoma

Re: Messy bench

Postby johnf » Wed Jan 18, 2012 12:25 pm

Mike
Wow
I always wondered where old test equipment went to die
johnf
 
Posts: 433
Joined: Sun Aug 08, 2010 3:51 pm
Location: Wellington New Zealand

Re: Messy bench

Postby chrismb » Wed Jan 18, 2012 1:48 pm

vmike wrote:I want to enter too! Here's five of my work spaces.


'Spaces', Mike!?

'Work areas', perhaps... I can't see any space! :lol:
chrismb
 
Posts: 620
Joined: Thu Aug 05, 2010 6:32 pm

Re: Messy bench

Postby Doug Coulter » Wed Jan 18, 2012 8:24 pm

Thanks Mike! I see I'll get a run for my money here, cool! I'd point out that your stuff is organized, at least a little. That was three projects stacked on top of each other on the same bench sq foot - only the top one was "done". Now I get to go take pix of the other buncha benches, which frankly are even worse. I'll probably just do a walk around and post the movie here later. I don't think JohnF is even in the running - his stuff is all so neat - but I bet BillF could trump us all easy. Maybe I can get the true master, Frank Gentges, to post his warehouse pix too - it's truly stunning.
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.
User avatar
Doug Coulter
 
Posts: 3515
Joined: Wed Jul 14, 2010 7:05 pm
Location: Floyd county, VA, USA

Re: Messy bench

Postby vmike » Thu Jan 19, 2012 9:27 am

It's kind of funny the comments people make about "old test equipment." Especially the kids I work with. My retort is "Test equipment will always do the job it was designed to do." Besides, much of that old stuff wasn't old when I acquired it.

I generally don't pile my projects up, I push them towards the back of the benches until they move to the side and fall to the floor. Then, when the piles on the floor reach a point where I can't get to the bench, I straighten up a bit.

I've never thought of taking pictures of my warehouse areas, the mess is almost embarrassing!

mike
I tried to contain myself, but I escaped.
User avatar
vmike
 
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Sep 15, 2010 4:20 pm
Location: Stillwater, Oklahoma

Re: Messy bench

Postby Doug Coulter » Thu Jan 19, 2012 11:44 am

I'll make sure to display my old, reliable, best there is, test equipment in the next batch. Since I'm off grid, I don't have hit all racked up for daily use - the older Tek, GR, HP - draws lots of power. But you know, I can't get a good enough signal out of my newer solid state sig gen to really get that preamp I'm doing tested right - I'll either have to whip out my older stuff and use it or send you one, Mike. Some of it's currently in my warehouse two towns over.
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.
User avatar
Doug Coulter
 
Posts: 3515
Joined: Wed Jul 14, 2010 7:05 pm
Location: Floyd county, VA, USA

Re: Messy bench

Postby chrismb » Thu Jan 19, 2012 2:04 pm

I tend to 'oscillate'. I get into a particular 'sub-branch' of a piece of work and all of a sudden the mess 'explodes' in an extrapolating surge of activity. Then, at some point when either the work is done, or the work cannot be done (!), everything goes back.

The problem I have these days is that I have acquired so much stuff in such a short period of time that I keep forgetting I have bought this-or-that, so I buy it again when I see it. I mean - how dumb is that! What I have to do now is attribute a place for everything, then put everything back in that place, else I'll just loose it! Time spent hunting for stuff is just wasted.

One self-acquired tip I learned a long time ago - if you've been looking for something for a while and can't find it, but one day you happen to come across it again, DON'T move it! It is tempting to think 'Ah ha, I must put that somewhere safe', because you'll forget where that 'safe' is. However, the shock of finding it will bring about a permanent association between that thing and where you found it. It has found its own home! Leave it there, or it will go a-wandering again.
chrismb
 
Posts: 620
Joined: Thu Aug 05, 2010 6:32 pm

Re: Messy bench

Postby Doug Coulter » Thu Jan 19, 2012 3:52 pm

Yup, a lot of the same here - I have two of all too many things I need one of now because of that one. The plan that's been working for me when I find a lost thing, is not to put it somewhere "safe" - had the same problem there, but to put it where I *thought* it was when I first started to look. No mental recalibration required for the next time that way - don't even have to remember where I did finally find it - I make the reality match what was in my mind already. Lazy, but it works. My projects tend to get a couple layers deep as things move up and down the priority list - I built huge (for me) amounts of bench space here knowing that, but I guess you never have enough. I have 24 linear feet of bench up here, another 12 feet downstairs, another 32 in the next building over...and it's not enough to hold all the partly done stuff. But what it does get me is that on any given day, if I'm not feeling useless, I can just pick any project in progress and go push it along a little further without having the setup/teardown overhead, and it seems I'm most effective when inspired, so net productivity goes up with this plan. The thing I guess you never overcome is that each bench is more or less specialized to a sort of thing one does at it, and if there is more than one project needing that specialty it becomes a train wreck. I do for example have another electronics bench not pictured, but in winter that implies heating the building that one is in, which I avoid when not needed. But two of any one specialty implies also having to have two of all those special tools and test gear.
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.
User avatar
Doug Coulter
 
Posts: 3515
Joined: Wed Jul 14, 2010 7:05 pm
Location: Floyd county, VA, USA


Return to Eye Candy

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest