Equipping a Small Hackerspace?

andy writes "After gentle prodding for about a year, my company actually agreed to include an electronics/robotics lab in the current build-out of our new office space. As I never really expected this to happen, I was at a bit of a loss when they asked me what sort of workbenches, equipment, etc. I wanted for the lab. The lab will only be approximately 9'x15' but there is a decent amount of vertical space to work with. I was thinking of having 2 workbenches side-by-side, one for 'hardware' and the other for 'software' with a floor-standing cabinet for storage. Semi-mobile workbenches might be a plus. Those of you that work in these sorts of environments, what do you recommend in the way of workbenches, storage, organization, and electronics?"

Comments

Stuff

[JBMcB]

Monitor arms and wireless keyboards/mice, or a keyboard drawer. This frees up valuable desk space for working on stuff.

Also useful:

USB port replicator - used for laptops, gets legacy and USB ports up on the desk from the tower, so you can get at them.
Variable power supply - get good ones with a couple of voltage options. +/- 5V, +/- 12V rails along with a variable output is very handy
Plenty of outlets on the desks or, better yet, built into the desks
Grounding - if you can't get grounded desks, get antistatic pads or, at least, antistatic wrist straps, and ground everything you can

The three things you shouldn't scrimp on - power supply, soldering station with adjustable temperature, multimeter

Get a cheap desktop for the hardware station - interfacing with hardware doesn't take much horsepower.

Buy a monster for the software station so you can run multiple OSes in virtual machines - get the free VMWare player that lets you create virtual machines and you can run Solaris, Linux, FreeBSD, etc...