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What's On Your Tech Bench?
Twev1701 writes "As a small computer repair company that has seen enormous growth in the past few months, we are now looking to expand our facilities. With construction starting on our office space, we now turn to the task of designing a new tech bench. Our existing bench is 6'x3', has a dedicated 15" CRT, 4 port KVM, and overhead storage bins for parts. With a new bench of 12'x4', we have lots of room for expansion. What essentials would the /. community put on their new tech bench?"
a flux capacitor
IMHO, nothing helps more with diagnosing hardware problems than some tested hardware (video card, processor, RAM). Makes isolating a problem or conflict dead easy.
15 inches... How do you survive man?
Spring for a new monitor or two. They are cheap and well worth it. You have plenty of desk space and your eyes will thank you.
BTW, check out the Xcelite PRO-SERIES ergo screwdrivers (model #XPE500 for the 5 piece). I love these things -- using quality German made handtools is really satisfying. I think I paid $25 at Fry's.
In random order:
1. Something to remove dust from the computers' inside and from the workbench (compressed air, vacuum cleaner, both...)
2. Voltmeter
3. Spare PSU
4. Air conditioning (posibly in conjunction with 1)
5. Trash bin
R Tape loading error, 0:1
A loose power supply. One that you can actually switch on without a mainboard attached. Very conveniant to get that forgotten CD/DVD out the drive, or to test drives.
Another easily accessable computer. Sometimes you just need to google to see if a company's driver causes problems.
A completely naked computer that has been optimized for quick booting (a CF-system, perhaps?). Either way, a quick and easy way to test parts for failure.
Voltometer. Always good for testing parts for failure.
USB flash drive with all of your utilities.
Linux boot floppies / CD's.
A wired rotary disk-cutting tool. These come in handy far, far more often then they should.
A Lazy Susan. I hate having to constantly turn machines around.
All of the assorted parts you need to put into computers... Things like spare case screws, spare PSU's, little rubber feet...
All of the assorted screw drivers, etc, that you need to fix computers, which i'm sure you have figured out by now.
A bin of dead parts for scrap. Sometimes you just really need a face pannel from a networking card. You'll figure out what the usful scavengable parts are pretty quickly.
A pen and a notepad, believe it or not.
The ______ Agenda
Going by recent expierences expect to get a lot of cuts.
Cheap UK and US VPS
Install something around the edges to create a raised lip to stop screws and other small bits'n'bobs rolling off the bench and onto the floor
Maybe so. But if the customer decides to sue because their computer was unrepairable for the price they wanted to pay, and you told them that, they may use the fact that they don't have a static strap as a reason why the computer is now unrepairable. When dealing with the public you will get people who will complain and sue for almost anything especially when they feel they got ripped off, or they want to rip you off. It is better to have a static strap and use it to show to the customer and perhaps the court that you take good care of the others property.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
A cordless drill is better than a screwdriver.
Other than the normal bits and pieces you already have, hopefully in bins what more do you need?
a grounding strap across the entire front of the workbench. Something you can touch whenever or lean into to disapate static.
Some things are out of your control, and unless you have video tape evidence, it really doesn't matter that much.
Get the customer to sign a disclaimer as they give you the PC. Accidents happen sometimes, nothing you can do about it.
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
I wouldn't laugh at anyone who uses a ground strap. While there's plenty of folks here that have worked on PCs for 50+ years and never wrecked anything from static (or so they say), the potential is always there. No static protection may not have outright killed equipment, but there's no saying that it hasn't caused damage that showed up later as squirrely intermittent hardware problems.
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
They can build up static so quick you'll kill more machines than you'd ever imagine! It's the dust moving across the hose builds up static charges quickly.
If the PSU is faulty and is shorting to ground, then as soon as you plug it into the wall it's going to blow the fuse/breaker for the outlet, so no power to kill you with.
If you mean the 12V supply is shorting to ground, then one of two things is going to happen:
1. The power supply detects the short (they are built to do this, you know) and shuts down, so no power to kill you with.
2. It's a cheap power supply that doesn't detect, and you get 12 volt on the outside of the case. Oooh, wow. Ever grab both terminals on a car battery? Try it some time. You won't feel a thing.
If you're touching a hot rail in the PSU, then you're a stupid shit in the first place. Once you remove the case cover, the PSU is still inside it's own steel case. Typically you have to remove the PSU from the machine in order to open this case, and if you've still got it plugged in after all that, you should probably be dead, because your brain already is.
If you open the computer case, and notice the gaping hole in the side of the PSU, because somebody removed the side of the PSU cover previously, and still keep working on it with it plugged in.....well, take a look at my previous comment.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
When you have DC flowing through a high-impedance coil, there's a static magnetic field formed around the coil. Remove the DC supply, and the rapid collapse of this field induces a current in the coil flowing in the opposite direction from the original DC input.
This is the principle by which your car ignition system works. The ignition coil doesn't have a constant current to it. Voltage is applied, builds up the magnetic field, and when it's time to spark the plug, the voltage is removed, and the collapsing field generates one hell of a high voltage across the secondary side of the ignition coil, which is typically many times the impedance of the primary side.
You're feeling a little tingle of maybe 50 volts and a few milliamps on the primary side by doing what you describe. The secondary side has a voltage between 25,000 and 80,000, depending on the ignition system, but with only microamps of current available. That's why if you grab a spark plug lead when the engine's running, you feel quite the belt, but it doesn't do any damage. Not enough current.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
This and parent have some great ideas for an advanced bench, but most repair places are not going to have any use for solder and so on when doing warranty (and non) repairs. Basically any warranty repair is not going to involuve it's use at all - even if fixing something that's no longer covered by warranty, few A+ tech's are going to be useful with an iron or a Perc raid card. (I may be mistaken, but don't most raid array's refuse to rebuild if you move the drives to anything other than the exact same card?) Definitely need the various tools, Jewlers screw drivers (with hex, torx and so on can be a life saver.) Vacum and compressed air for sure. I find the use of a simple USB/Firewire external drive is plenty for backing up data on 99% of the jobs a normal tech bench will see. Get two for a large bench with a couple people. A USB network adaptor - can be a real time saver, again. Voltmeter. And one thing that I found terribly useful and so cheap I'm surprised I don't see them more - Ice cube racks. When you're dismantling a system, you can go clockwise around the ice tray placing scres from each layer in a new mini-bin. THen when you are putting things back together you just work back through the bins/layers and make sure you get every screw back. This little trick makes it VERY easy to verify that you aren't missing pieces, or that you accidentally put another piece back in that blocks another screw and so on. (Things like that can totaly kill productivity on a bench) Also a good information workstation per engineer at the bench can make things run much smoother. Access to repair PDFs and online information possibly not from the manufacturer can help to save time.
Back when I'd primarily work on a bench with a wall behind it (as opposed to relatively-free-standing like I do now) I would always keep a mirror at the back of the bench, standing up and facing me.
This is to counter the effects of J!mmy's Rule: "The interface ports you can't see are not where your fingers remember them being."
-- often wrong; never in doubt
A USB Nic can be pretty handy. If you ever have to get drivers and updates for a machine that doesn't have a nic, or doesn't have nic drivers it can save you some time. Also, have a phone line available to test a 56k modem. While they seem like a thing of the past, people still use them.
Most-used tool on our bench: Mini maglight flashlight (2-AA size). They come with a nylon holster, which can be easily attached to the bench.