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Ask Slashdot: What Equipment and Furniture For an Electronics Hardware Lab?
bartoku writes "Slashdot, what would you put in your dream electronics hardware lab? I am putting one together, and I'm looking for suggestions on everything from equipment to furniture. My aim is for a professional-grade setup, not just a hobby lab. The goal is to be able to test and debug modern electronic device prototypes. I would love to see money-is-no-objective suggestions alongside more economically practical solutions. Links or contacts for good distributors to acquire the equipment and furniture are also welcome. I'm also interested in commentary on renting versus buying new or used higher-end equipment to be economical and keep up with equipment that will become obsolete quickly."
Check out David Jones' EEVblog, particularly episode 168. http://www.eevblog.com/
Isn't most "debugging" done in simulation software before you make a prototype?
There are a number of pieces of equipment which should be in any lab setup - e.g. oscilloscope, voltmeter/ammeter, decent bench power supply, soldering iron and proper illumination. What you need after that will depend much more on the kind of electronics that you want to work on - digital, analogue, RF etc. Each needs a different set of equipment. Personally, I work in the digital domain, and find a fast logic analyser invaluable for diagnosing difficult problems. I would also include a dedicated bench computer (or two), and large, deep benches with overhead shelves. You can't have too much space. Of course the most important piece of equipment is your brain - no piece of equipment is going to replace your ability to think through a problem.
Well, obviously you might want to avoid metal. You can get these great plates for lab table surfaces made from some sort of ceramic. It's heat resistant and pretty tough, which is really necessary if a SMPS decides to hit the self destruct button. For soldering, just get a wooden board to protect the surface from direct impact with a soldering iron.
Miniature drawer cabinets are important and actually rather expensive, especially those that can be stacked.
Good soldering irons (more than one!) are a must obviously. Get both an analog and digital scope with at least 2 channels each. More is better. Personally I like putting a computer near my electronics workbench to view schematics, considered investing in a large TV for that but I'm a bit short on cash for that.
You want several supplies, current limited and not. Isolation transformers, a good variac, signal/function generators.
Good to have as well are an impedance meter/Q meter, network analyser, spectrum analyser and logic analyser. Especially the latter is worth considering, you can get pretty cheap versions these days that you hook up to a computer. For the other devices I advice stand alone versions cause it's really a lot easier while measuring if you can play with the knobs to home in on what you actually need. If you have more than enough money also get one of those microcontroller programmers with several sockets, that thing has saved my life more often than not.
Anyway, good luck!
Then lightly sprinkle with integrated circuits.
Their they're doing there hair.
It's all nice and dandy that you want a bunch of high-end professional equipment, but what do you actually want to do with your lab? Analogue? Digital? RF? Do you want some mechanical capabilities (drilling boxes, etching/machining PCBs, CNC, 3D printing, etc)? Do you need a microscope for really small stuff?
Rather than getting all excited about the shiny new toys, start with what you want to do. Then figure out what you need/want to help you do this. That's a question we can help with.
Conductive flooring paired with electrostatic discharge heelstraps (or better yet static dissipative shoes) will go a long way toward mitigating ESD risks in your lab. While wrist straps are effective they are inconvenient and therefore more likely not to be used consistently. Most lab furniture is conductive, but you often pay a bit extra for chairs with conductive castors. The need for lab coats depends on the apparel your lab staff typically wear (wool and synthetics should be covered with a dissipative lab coat, cottons are not typically an ESD risk).
money-is-no-objective suggestions
- BlueGene/Q supercomputer
- video wall
- space shuttle (just in case you need some low-grav testing done)
economically practical solutions
- why the hell are you seeking advice from slashdot as to what to put in an "electronics hardware lab"? if you are serious about building a "professional-grade setup", a fair assumption would be that you are a professional electronics engineer and would have no difficulty rattling off the necessary equipment (such as oscilloscopes, soldering irons, power supplies, plenty of storage, etc).
if you're merely after decorating ideas, i would suggest things that don't attract a lot of static electricity (so shag pile is out)
These will then tell you what kind of equipment they would like and you better get it for them.
Without people that know what they are doing, no amount or quality of equipment is going to make any difference, so forget about deciding without them.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Every mad scientist has banks of "computers" with flashing lights in the back somewhere. Maybe get a tape reel as well.
you might want to consider glass inlays, e.g. for soldering of placing PCBs directly. It cleans nicely, and looks good also after years of abuse. Just don't hammer on it.
Everything else should be easily cleanable, and I love to have racks behind the table, to have the table free, but still all measurement equipment, osci, power supply, soldering station and such directly usable on the table.
Also, i would buy a small cnc machine, for milling PCBs. Its rapid prototyping only, but it saves you the latency of days for having custom single sided pcbs. Double is also possible, but more involved.
I would go for racks for part drawer-based containers, and a rollable sidecupoard for the tools.
(shudders)... that's not a dream, that's a nightmare.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Got to have one of those. To keep the neighbors from spying on your RF emissions... or whatever.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Get some overall ideas and suggestions from:
Essential Electronics Laboratory Equipment
http://components.about.com/od/Design/a/Essential-Electronics-Laboratory-Equipment.htm
if you're in the USA, some suppliers are:
http://www.alliedelec.com/test-measurement/
http://www.mouser.com/Test-Measurement/_/N-5gf3/
http://www.bellnw.com/index.htm , http://www.tesales.com/
http://www.testequipmentdepot.com/ , http://www.trs-rentelco.com/
If this is a one-person lab, most of the equipment is going to sit unused most of the time. I'd suggest renting the more expensive stuff when you have a need for it.
Step 1: Get the Agilent catalogue
Step 2: Buy (at least) one of everything
My first suggestion would be to get a really good quality commercial grade bench with drawers and equipment shelves. Good ones will set you back 1000-2000 per workstation/seat. Also get a comfortable high chair the right height for the bench and you.
As for soldering irons, Metcal is the shit... They are owned by OK now, but you can pick up a nice used MX500 setup for about $200-300 or so. They are absolutely wonderful - you can solder a penny to a doorknob with a TINY pencil iron! The design is RF pumped and you practically can't swamp it - it will do ceramic substrates which no normal iron can touch, and stuff you would normally need a torch to do, yet the same tiny tip won't wreck a SOT-23 SMT transistor... Super deluxe.
If you have the luxury, shop air is also very handy to have (basement remote compressor or the like) for desoldering and cleaning up stuff it is REALLY nice and you can buy air-powered tools like screwdrivers and cutoff saws instead of electric cordless screwdrivers or Dremel tools, etc.
I have all this but shop air on my bench at home and I LOVE working there!
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
Perhaps a high-pot tester area or table for basic electrical testing? Don't forget a rack to hang your coat and a wall mounted medical kit? I dunno.
Salt-resistant desks, tables, wall-hangings, chairs, and couches.
Because your lab is in an abandoned, forgotten salt mine.
then you dont need it.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
Lots of them. In all sizes!
No, but it pretty much depends on what your are going to be working on. I would have this pretty basic list of things:
1. Nice four-channel color Textronics oscilloscope
2. SMD soldering station (Maker: Gote)
3. Fluke Multimeter
4. Desoldering equipment
5. Various probes
6. Various pliers
7. Some holder for your PCBs
8. Magnifying glass (with light)
9. Wires in various diameters and colors + super thin copper wire
10. Various connectors and the equipnent to crimp them
The rest I would get but while you are working. You will figure out what else you going to need soon enough.
Furniture:
1. Large (!) table in the middle of the room
2. Cubboards with shelves
3. Boxes and subboxes to put on these shelves with parts etc.
Don't put too much furniture in. Space to move is important.
If you want to do more complex stuff it might be good to get a logic analyser. But you also need to have someone who knows how to use it.
Tables - can be used to place stuff upon or to hide underneath.
Tesla Coil - If not for the cool visual effects, at least you could use it so your hair doesn't obstruct your field of view!
Farrady Cage - not only for it's obvoius purpose, but also lock up people that forgot to lock their workstation while playing with the Tesla Coil
Laser pointers, programmable Remote Controls both in IR and Ultrasound spectrum - their obvious use is for team-building. These tools are easy to conceal and can really fuck up the tests the poor outsider is running
Bras - to be used both for Ceremonial and for head protection.
Don't forget that you will need a good workbench and a good chair. And lots of shelves! Heating (in case it's not inside your house or apartment) and a sink in the actual lab is nice, too.
Long Arm Field Microscope - For pulling splinters
Oscilloscope - For seeing what electrical noise your finger generates
Soldering Iron with solder sucker - For cauterising splinter wounds
Fume Extractor - For getting rid of the fart gas
Induction lighting - Invented by Nicola Tesla; nuff said?
Decent Amp and Speakers - For setting the mood.
It's almost as if someone asked what equipment he needs for performing bypass surgery. First requirement would be a bookshelf (to be filled with books for one's study), and second is a cabinet for keeping degrees, diplomas and continuing education. I'd love to know what motivated the question to begin with, it sounds almost eerie, esp. the professional part. Maybe a PHB who wants to monitor his engineers' purchase requests or a lottery winner with his dreams.
...you're definitely going to need a job to pay for it all (or just steal it I suppose)
disclaimer: if you steal things you're bad, mkay
Oscilloscope.
$800 OWON DS8102 2 channels with VERY deep sample memory
$3600 Agilent DSO-X-3014A 4 channels 80 mHz can be upgraded to 200 MHZ with logic analyzer
multimeter
$113 Fluke 113
$1350 Agilent 34410A
Signal generator / arbitrary waveform generator
$380 Rigol DG1022 2 arbitrary channels per generator I got 2
Agilent Technologies 33250A- I didn't buy this but its the high end equivalent.
Power supply
$200 GPS3030D I have 2
Soldering iron
$50 Weller WLC100
$610 MetCal MX-500S-11 I don't own this. Soldering is the weakest item for me at present.
For a table I went big and cheap.
4 Saw horses from loses
1 4 foot by 8 foot by 1 inch piece of plywood
4 4 foot by 2 foot conductive mats from 3m 98-0798-1202-4 $75 each
If you are going all out having floor mats is a good idea too.
Good luck
Without knowing much about your application, I can only reasonably make suggestions about the basics.
1) Bench space, with good lighting and plenty of power points.
2) Flooring that won't build up static.
3) Good ventilation, because soldering fumes are not good for you.
4) A sink. You will probably need to be able to clean PCBs, and you will need to use wet chemicals if you make your own boards.
5) Component storage. Unless you want to spend hours digging through piles of parts, a good way of organizing components is very useful. Raaco make some nice steel cabinets for drawers, but they're not cheap.
6) A stereoscopic assembly microscope. I would be lost without mine - it is amazing how much easier it is to position small parts (e.g. 0201 size passives) when you can see what you are doing.
7) Multiple decent lab power supplies.
8) A good bench multimeter: one with a computer interface for logging would be good.
9) Digital storage oscilloscope, again with a computer interface of some sort (many have USB now) so you can store captured waveforms for later analysis and comparison.
These are the first things that come to mind, but undoubtably I have forgotten some essentials.
There's a wide range of things that may also be important, but it depends what you're doing so I can only speculate. For digital work you'll want a logic analyser / protocol analyser. If there are modern CPUs involved you will probably want a JTAG interface. If you are doing RF work there is a whole set of specialised equipment. If you are doing loads of SMD you might want a pick and place machine and a reflow oven. If you are making your own PCBs you might want a UV exposing unit and chemical trays, or alternatively a PCB milling machine (it takes a high end machine to do the very fine pitch work).
I would invent an allspark and a 3d-printer to manufacture mimetic polyalloy.
Anthro Corporation, a spin-off of Tektronix, has a line of desks and work tables. They are all very high quality. The 'Elevate' series have motor driven height adjustments. Their factory showroom is not far from me, it's a real candyland! When I'm rich I will buy a wrap around elevate desk for myself. See http://www.anthro.com/.
1) Lots of natural light, ideally a corner room with lots of windows. You'll also need at least one of those magnifying lamps.
2) Deep benches, at least forty inches, this is because your test equipment will take up at least a foot of space at the rear.
3) Lots and lots of mains sockets, you'll never have enough. Wire the power through a residual current circuit breaker and a big red emergency stop switch. Make sure your family and other people around know where that emergency switch is.
4) Four channel scope, signal generator, lab power supply (0-40V 5A) with a couple of channels, a second fixed power supply with 12V, 5V and 3.3V outputs and a bench multimeter. DON'T buy cheap, it's better to get a good second hand unit than a piece of cheap Far-East test gear. I like Hameg but I know that opinions will differ here.
5) Anti-static mat and wrist strap.
6) Lots and lots of storage for parts, as with mains sockets you'll never have enough storage.
7) Decent tools, as with the test equipment don't buy cheap. I'm still using some tools that I bought twenty years ago.
8) A set of drawers underneath your workbench for storing your tools. The plastic inserts that go inside kitchen drawers will help keep things in order.
9) A burglar alarm and a lock on your workshop door. All this lot is expensive and you don't want it to vanish and reappear on Ebay.
10) Air conditioning and/or heating depending on your location. Equipment calibration will drift in temperature extremes and the standard of your work will suffer.
Ganty
Drawer for tools: http://www.treston.com/index.php?article_id=4249&__from_id__=3072&product_group=6370
Workbench: http://www.treston.com/index.php?article_id=4249&__from_id__=4253&product_category1=4302
By no means is my workshop the coolest in the world, but its a combination of years of experience, building and designing, and this is how it is:
1) Raaco shelves, these are absolutely essential, youd hate to run out of components in the middle of a project, so you need these, fill the walls! http://images.toolstop.co.uk/product/6651eea4432e327d9f2017ea860bef09.jpg
2) You need HEAPS of components. Now, youre probably not a millionaire, if you where...you wouldnt ask us geeks, youd just purchase whatever, so here is how I get my stash. I go to ham-fests, the radio amateurs usually have thousands if not millions of surplus components theyve grabbed from a run-down electronics shop or factory closedowns. Make a HUGE list of your essentials, and go collecting. Itll take a few years, but youll get there. I have MILLIONS and MILLIONS of NOS (new old stock) components from all over the world by now. Ebay is your friend, but beware of FAKE components, expensive components sold for peanuts...could be fakes, but its still relatively rare imho. Go hunting for closedowns of electronics labs, stores and much more, 70% of my components comes from there, and usually for pocket-change. Hang out...befriend the managers...listen and pay attention. Before you know it, youre the "buddy" who gets everything for nothing.
3) Get SMD reels too. Have a copy of your DIL/DIP discretes as SMD equivalents, this is when youre finished prototyping with the discretes. You need the full size discretes in order to experiment properly. Far too many wannabe designers design everything in CAD and scratch their heads endlessly over their designs, lacking on-hands experience with the easy to handle components. This is understated today. A lab like this is essential for quick and good development.
4) You need ROCK SOLID tables rather than fancy glass tables, so purchase some old super-solid office equipment rather than shop IKEA. Sometimes youll throw a 50-100 kgs of instrumentation on your table, and bye bye IKEA. And itll get dirty, and itll drown in solder waste (which you will eventually get everywhere). So it must be a surface solid and easy to clean.
5) You wall should also have a tool-rack, here you need the rough tools such as screwdrivers, mini drills, bits, cutters, pliers and whatnot. Youll also need some hangers for your endless numerous test-cables. Hang the test cables within easy reach so you can keep your shop tidy and neat. This will become more important than you may think.
6) Speaking of which, numerous of testcables you need (Yoda talk)... banana plugs, soft-silicone cables for power connections, extendable banana plug cables are essential, dont skimp on quality here. In fact, you may nearly skimp on everything except this. Test cables are notorious for going bust, and killing that spirit when you finally discover that you bought cheap crap...and spent hours just to find out your test cable is leaky, crappy and such. You need 100mhz range probes, probably higher...and more expensive, but start out with common 100-250mhz scope probes.
7) As for test instruments, you need these basic things: 2 Benchtop multimeters, 1 portable multimeter, 1 frequency counter (min 2.6 ghz), 2 Benchtop oscilloscopes, preferably one analog and one digital...Ive got 4 of them for various reasons...you can never get enough scopes and multimeters. Function generator is essential for repair and design, a 10mhz will do, preferably with TTL level output as well as variable analog. Get a Signal generator too, 1 ghz minimum...the 1+ghz something...needs to be very stable if you operate above these frequencies. Benchtop lab PSUs... get some with both analog and digital readouts, the older generation analog psus tend to be less noisy and better at delivering at high peaks. Switchmode PSUs are needed for those higher power needs, but have at least one of each.
I don't have any suggestions, but I am very curious about the background of this question. Could you elaborate a little? Why and for whom are you building this lab? Are you putting your own money into it, and if so, why is it worth so much money to you and why do you need such a high-tech lab? Just curious.
Second the overhead shelves *but* make sure you leave a gap or cutout for the power cords... great for CRO, Logic Analyser, signal generator etc
Also, on the power front, at least four power points per bench - about mid way between the bench and the overhead, probably ethernet etc too. If you have a side rack for a PC or something, you need a couple there too; oh, don't forget the cutout from the side shelf to the bench for cables.
On the bench surface, you can get this goo that sets slightly squishy that is non-slip and mildly conductive (ie: not a dead short, but dissipates ESD) - you make a flat bench with a lip on the front (stops stuff rolling off) and then poor the goo in to a depth of about 5mm.
Nice lighting (maybe under the overhead shelf) and ventilation - hard to retrofit.
Someone suggested a shielded room - that's easy enough to do if you expect to do RF stuff.
The flippant answer to your question is that you should get whatever equipment you think will be useful for whatever projects you're doing. If you don't know what you want, then you won't be putting it to use anyway. "Electronics" is not one discipline. It's a collection of related but different fields, like different specialties in medicine. What equipment does an operating room need? Aside from a few basics, the answer depends entirely on what kind of surgery is being performed. Having a network analyzer or a service monitor in your electronics lab is great for some types of work, but if you don't already think you'll be needing those then they're just going to collect dust anyway.
I do a variety of different kinds of electronics work, but most of it is RF (ham radio), high voltage (Tesla coils, fun plasma experiments), or high power (switching power supplies), or all three (induction heating, BIG lasers, serious radio transmitters, kick-ass solid state Tesla coils, etc.). This requires an array of tools and equipment that ranges from common and universal to highly specialized. Here are my key assets:
- Fluke Scopemeter 199C, 200MHz portable digital oscilloscope. If I could keep only one test instrument, this is it. Totally worth the $4k. I literally could not do much of what I do without this tool or something similar. I love my Scopemeter. It's just the right combination of portability, durability, and signal analysis capability. The electrical isolation of the fully-insulated battery-operated unit is a huge benefit sometimes too.
- Fluke 287 digital multimeter. A very high-functioning DMM for general purpose use. RMS readings on funky waveforms over a wide frequency range. Accurate measurement of component values.
- Klein CL2000 clamp-on AC/DC ammeter and multimeter. A really great tool for general DMM use, as well as non-contact RMS measurement of high currents, both AC and DC. This bad boy can accurately measure how much current your car draws while cranking the starter, or the true RMS current of an arc welder.
- RigExpert AA-520 antenna analyzer. A rudimentary but powerful digital antenna analyzer for HF through UHF frequencies. Great for its basic purpose, but also capable of doing lots of neat tricks like tuning duplexers if you get creative with it.
- Cheap pocket DMM's. They're like $20 and it's great to have several sitting around to use as monitors for various parameters on a system during testing. You can blow them up or fry them with an RF field and not feel too bad, saving your precious Fluke gear.
- Solomon temp-controlled soldering station. Needs no explanation. I feel that there's no need to go crazy on soldering equipment. A sub-$100 station will do the job just fine, even for fine SMD work as long as it's of decent quality. PID temperature control, low mass, and a hefty heater are all requirements.
- Granite work surface. Of all the surfaces I've worked on, I have found granite to be the best. Preferably pure black so things show up on it. It is heatproof, electrically insulating enough for any purpose, anti-static, strong, hard, and pretty affordable compared to a digital oscilloscope. A couple hundred bucks will get you a very good slab section to work on.
- Automated external defibrillator. I often work on circuits that can kill me with one false move. Having an AED nearby and showing friends and family how to use it could save my life some day. Very rapid defibrillation (within 5 minutes, preferably 2) is the ONLY effective life-saving treatment for electrocution. With very fast intervention, the chance of survival is excellent. By the time an ambulance arrives it is far too late. It's $800 well spent if it even gives me a 1% chance of not dying. Skip this if your work doesn't involve much line-voltage or higher.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
Lots of old books. Gruenberg on telemetry, the Radiotron Designers Manual, the ITT Radio Engineers manual, Skolnik on radar, the GE transistor manual and anything that shows actual circuits. You can always get modern books on theory but 1960s to 1990s books will give you circuits you can actually build.
Lots of components. You can buy in bulk from Chinese distributers using eBay and there is very little risk of counterfeits.
Good strong lighting. Loupe magnifiers. Fume extractors. Those devices that hold PCBs and components in place while soldering. Solid but comfortable chairs. Solid laboratory benches able to hold your test instruments and heavy equipment under test. At least 45 x 60 cm space on the bench.
Lots of wire
Blowtorch
Nonstick fryingpan and hotplate
Ceramic tiles
Clear plastic boxes
Gloves
Chemical sink
Vice and clips
Holders
Piles of leds resistors and common stuff
Magnets, many kinds
Avr programmer w 5 avrs on boards and lots of loose avr chips
Microchip microcontroller programmer and lots of chips
Lots of batteries, lipos, some big lead acid
Etch and solder and blank boards
Lucite
Coping saw
Dremmel
Handheld pc with lpt port
Tons of transistors
Desktop pc with internet for getting pdfs specs of parts and ordering
Cellphone
Wireless transmitters
Some lasers
Some lcds and other displays
Lots of weird motors with different voltages for quick checks of circuits
Radioshack science kits WITH the manual
Laser goggles and other goggles
Lighter, bunson burner
Fresnel big one
Breathing masks
Vaccuum cleaners
Timers
Signal generator
Oscilliscope with data cable
Serial and lpt port cables for chopping
Did I say wireless transmitters already?
Exacto
needle nose
Scisors, good ones
DUCT TAPE
BIG HUGE LASER
Chemistry glassware
POFiber
Glue
Paint
More, but phone has no bat
As well as telling us what the lab is for, it would be REALLY USEFUL (tm) if you could tell us:
1 - what size of space you are thinking of using?
2 - what sort of support services are around it (eg, is it a shed at the end of the garden with no power, a basement room with mains power, a barn......) ?
3 - what sort of budget do you have to spend?
Cables that explode into lava if anyone tries to take them out of the room.
Stop stealing my test leads!
I've been doing electronics work in my home workshop for about 35 years. My workshop is equipped with the following;
I have 20 units of 36-drawer Akro-Mills parts cabinets, the kind with the clear plastic drawers. These have SMD components, through-hole components, nuts, bolts, connectors, switches, etc. I occasionally devote a parts cabinet to the parts for a particular project that I build a few hundred of.
Hand tools: I have a red plastic screwdriver caddy that's full of screwdrivers. About 80 different tools to open anything I may encounter. There is a very expensive pair of diagonal cutters and a nice pair of long-nose pliers on the bench, and some tweezers and an X-acto knife.
I have a Hakko soldering station and a Bauch & Lomb stereo microscope to see what I'm doing.
On the bench, I have a 3 digit digital voltmeter and a couple HP bench power supplies to activate my current project.
Next to the bench, I have a 6 foot tall rack with a Tektronix R7704 oscilloscope with appropirate plugins, a vintage Fluke 6-digit Nixie tube voltmeter, an HP 5245L Nixie tube frequency counter, a signal generator, an old HP spectrum analyzer and tracking generator, and a Nixie tube atomic clock.
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
If money is no concern, and you want to do high frequency work, soldering is not enough. Good high frequency components work better without a package, so you need some equipment to perform wire bonding. Forget ball bonding, high frequency really needs wedge bonding to minimize stray inductance. A second hand bonding machine will set you back 7 to 8 grand. Then you have to buy the tools (Gaiser for example), some wire (look at bondingsource) and probably some silver loaded epoxy (biggest problem being the limited shelf life, which can be increased by keeping it in a freezer).
That's 10 grand for a start. Now how much have you left for the rest of the lab?
If you've ever watched Mythbusters, that's the ideal general purpose lab. It's big, has tons of storage and plenty of workspace. Also, there are no carpeted floors in the work areas, just in their offices. Carpeting is the natural enemy of electronics.
Separation and planning are key. Equipment comes and goes as needed, so planning around specific equipment is the wrong approach. One big lab is also a disaster waiting to happen, unless only one person will ever be doing work.
Basically, it all ends up being a bunch of compromises around the following problems:
Problem #1, storage space
Nothing is more frustrating than having to shuffle around previous work to make room for the latest project. Furthermore, throwing away old parts is blasphemy; most engineers are pack rats, because it does eventually come in handy if it isn't fried.
Have excess storage space, realistic throw-away policies, and try to avoid storage bloat. Bloat happens every time somebody reinvents the wheel (or buys it). Instead, store stuff where it can be found for reuse and keep some kind of inventory. Don't buy things you don't need for any project, and avoid storing regular junk (like old gears and belts). Having the ability to fabricate mechanical parts is ideal (having a 3D printer at least), because then it's less important to keep junk like enclosures, gears, and pulleys - you could make a lot of them as needed instead of hoarding them.
Problem #2, work space
A bench or two quickly becomes inadequate, especially if there are multiple projects being worked on over time. Sometimes things get postponed, and taking them apart and putting them into storage is like handing out a death sentence (people hate it).
Having special storage for delayed projects is a good idea; just a big shelf in a lab that's out of the way or underneath a bench. My personal favorite is turning book shelves into benches (it's cheap). Not every surface needs to be a bench - eight foot long desks are nice because they're cheaper and can have two (or more) levels. Island workbenches are also a must, because being in the center of a room gives the best access for big projects.
Problem #3, people space
When the lab is so crammed with everything else, making room for people can sometimes be neglected. There are often basic tools everybody needs at some point, sharing isn't always possible.
Parts and projects lying around looks complex and impressive (briefly), but an actual space for guests is advisable. Enough space between free-standing benches for two people to walk past is a must. Plan where the desks/workbenches are depending on how you want to improve or reduce foot traffic nearby. Reducing traffic through labs is usually better, people are less likely to bump into things. Put the soldering irons and sensitive equipment away from the paths people have to take when they walk through.
Problem #4, air space
I've seen some places that should be condemned, used as labs. Water leaks, mold, filthy microwave ovens nearby, mini fridges, perpetually dirty carpeting, and crummy ventilation. Noise, smells, and lighting, can prevent people from doing the best work they're capable of.
Creating separate rooms and environments helps people concentrate, and prevents minor annoyances from adding up. Don't put the microwaves and fridge near anyone; if you have an out of the way corner or exterior door put it by that, not where somebody might be forced to work. On that note, cubicles waste space and offer a poor substitute for a real office. If you must have cubicles, put them all together in a separate room not merged into the labs (i.e. no lab workspace in the cubicles, just a desk, computer, filing cabinets and books). Labs have a natural tendency to become like offices, but an actual office prevents people from being as territorial about which lab they work in.
Problem #5, free space
The unexpected can happen. A new project might need an engine hoist, or who knows what. If the building catches on fire,
I like to use recliners and things in front of my desk.
In addition to the OPs, my recommendations (please excuse overlap) speaking from experience:
- A fast computer with a good widescreen monitor. Why? Much electronics work is done the computer, from circuit design, PCB design and microcontroller emulation
- If expense is no object, get a high-end electronics design package like Altium (only one that comes to mind, sorry). I use Proteus from Labcenter as it does the most excellent circuit and microcontoller emulation and is much better value for money
- Software for developing micrcontoller code
- CAD software like Solidworks or Autodesk Inventor for enclosure design
- 3D printer for printing enclosures
- microcontroller programming/debugging devices (e.g. MPLAB Real ICE) and headers
- a high-end mixed-signal oscilloscope (e.g. Tektronix MSO5000)
- a shitstorm of various voltage and current probes
- a good benchtop multimeter, e.g. Agillent 34411A
- a good digital soldering station (e.g. Weller) with multiple soldering irons of various power/sizes
- a good hot air rework station (e.g. Weller WPA3000)
- a hotplate
- *** IMPORTANT *** Fume extraction Don't solder without it
- a good desoldering station
- *** IMPORTANT *** a good stereomicroscope for surface-mount assembly (e.g. Nikon SMZ series)
- good digial benchtop power supplies (analog units can be bumped sending voltages flying; been there, done that)
- a good LCR meter (e.g. Fluke, Hameg)
- If you a doing power supply design, an "electronic load" (TTi)
- Again, if doing power supply design or mains voltage stuff, an AC power source/analyzer (e.g. Agilent); supplies worldwide voltages at various frequencies
- a good signal generator (any)
- an "electronics safe" vacuum for cleaning your bench, £M make one for printer repair which works well
- As I "hate" working from a bench, I recommend a strong and long desk (e.g. 1.8 -2m in length); Check out Herman Miller Abak
- A good chair, e.g. Herman Miller Aeron
- breadboards
- component "engineering kits" (e.g. assortments of resistors, caps, etc... both surface mount and radial/axial in a nice binder) so you always hav ethe exact component on hand
- tools: good screwdrivers, wire cutters, wire strippers, etc... heck, could go on regarding tools, but will stop...
*****
Good luck...
Hot air rework station. IR rework station. at least TWO sets of decent hot tweezers. That is an absolute minimum. I got all of mine at Dayton Hamfest 2 years ago for next to nothing. Lastly install a bathroom vent fan above your electronics bench and pipe it outside. turn it ON when you are soldering / desoldering.
As for workspace. you need 2 of them. 1 for electronics work, 1 for disassembly/reassembly. NEVER do both on the same bench.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
After that just buy stuff as you need it. You don't appear to know what your needs will be, so there's little point in trying to second-guess what you'll be doing. Therefore find a few good, punctual, well-stocked suppliers and keep their catalogs handy.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Fill one wall with component cabinets, and organise them well. You need enough so that every resistor value, capacitor value, transistor, diode, IC and every possible component variation has its own partition. This costs a small fortune but is well worth it for the hours it saves looking for the parts you need.
If you can afford it, something like this:
http://www.hera.de/fileadmin/downloads/hauptkatalog_de/Kap01d.pdf
I't does not have to be the fully integrated version as in the top image, but a top with multiple sockets and some rack space will be great for putting the measurement equipment.
C - the footgun of programming languages
_ONE_, very good ground. Make sure *ALL* the outlets are connected to the same ground, with nice thick juicy cables. I have seen a lab where you could pull sparks between the grounds of 2 outlets.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
Why stoop to the level of working in a salt mine, when you can carry out your mad electronic experiments from the safety and comfort of your very own abandoned missile silo ? (Note: some PCB or asbestos cleanup may be required....on-site groundwater may be unsafe for consumption....etc. (In Soviet Russia, groundwater consumes you.) But hey...sure beats a damn salt mine any day of the week! Woe betide the scientist who accidently leaves the Tesla coil cooling pump on overnight, when a rubber hose bursts and floods the cavern. Imagine waking up to that! Evil fortress FAIL)
There is no point in even attempting to answer this question without knowing what your real budget is, and what your specific needs are.
Buy all of your equipment from major manufacturers and you can hardly go wrong. Get your RF equipment from Rohde & Schwarz, especially high frequency signal generators and spectrum analyzers. Get your scope, meters and logic analyzer from Tektronix. Get most of the rest from Agilent. You will really have to better define the type of work you plan to do, however. For example, if you plan to work with cellular telephone equipment you will need a lot of specialized instruments just for that, but if not most of it would be useless. The cost of specialized equipment is higher than that of more mundane machines.
For planning purposes you might want to make a list of parameters associated with equipment you expect to be working with. For each record the frequencies, bandwidth and other functional parameters required. How many lines on your logic analyzer are you likely to require, and what depth memory? Do you want to have diagnostic and repair equipment or will your lab be devoted exclusively to R&D? Don't answer too quickly, because you may on occasion encounter a malfunctioning reference assembly, for example, and if you can fix it yourself it could save several days compared with sending it out for repair, or starting over with a replacement. When you complete the list it should be fairly easy to see what additional equipment you will need.
If you're unsure what you will need for some or all of it, contact sales people for the companies you plan to buy equipment from. The major companies generally give solid advice, because they would like you to buy from them again in the future. They will come to your location and arrange to demonstrate equipment for you. Of course you will still have to do your homework to evaluate their proposals.
For workbenches you will probably want to get standard height with a shelf running the full width of each and cabinets underneath. Chairs with armrests will be needed, and they should be adjustable height to suit your workbenches. Plan on lots of 48" florescent lights, good metal cabinets for storage and file cabinets for documents and drawings. A computer on each bench is not too many. You might want to look at a decent sized UPS system if it will be important that you keep some or all of the equipment running without interruption.
I think you will find that the sky's the limit when it comes to buying test and measuring equipment. You could easily order so much that you wouldn't have a place to put it all, then never use most of it. IMO there is no substitute for analyzing the work you plan to do, then match it up with the available instrumentation.
My overall advice is to buy what you know you will need before you begin working in your lab. Then you can easily add additional pieces as the need arises.
Good Luck! --NR
Think modern. Pretty much everything is surface mount these days. As such, everything is also small, so lots of those stackable sets of drawers. Also, you may want a photo-etching kit to make your own PCB's for breakout & prototyping many of those SMT parts.
You will also need a microscope, full rework station (not just a quality soldering iron, but hot air gun too), and a reflow oven.
Every activity starts with a shopping trip.
This sounds like: "Slashdot, do my job for me because I have no clue what I'm doing."
It lacks specificity in application, and doesn't really lay out any requirements.
If money is no object I suggest purchasing every you see in the Newark catalog, and your lab will be very well stocked.
Collin's lab: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv7Y8nAOoFE
Most of these can be obtained for very little cash and I couldn't do without them:
A good old fashioned Tek 100-250MHz analogue scope. No DSO. No fancy stuff - just an analogue scope. This is the one bit of kit that has saved my butt a million times over. DSOs and new digital scopes are crap at picking up transients due to their crappy slew rate. The analogue scope will get you out of many a mess.
A couple of (you need at least 2) decent Fluke multimeters. These will save your life. It will fail safe in short/overvoltage conditions. I lost one of my beloved Fluke 76 to a 4Kv overvoltage situation. It went pop but I didn't. If it was any other multimeter, I wouldn't be here writing this.
A decent *linear dual rail* supply. Don't get two and stick them together - this is a pain in the arse and you'll get earthing problems from hell, especially when in the US as the mains there is funny. I've used old HP (circa late 1970s) and more recently Thurlby Thandar ones. Make sure they have short and over current protection otherwise fuck ups get quite expensive.
Make sure everything you buy has a service manual.
Get some decent goggles/safety glasses for the smoke test when you power up something you've made. I've avoided bits of LED and transistor blinding me a few times because I've cocked up.
I use a Weller PS2D soldering station that I've had for 20 years. I wouldn't swap it for anything.
Apart from that, anything you can get your hands on cheap. There is little requirement to blow lots of cash on anything really with the advent of eBay.
you're thinking about furniture? What for?
I meant FCC...lol...
Some suggestions: I recently demoed some Rigol Osc. and signal generators. USB (all models) [and Ethernet on most] [and serial on some] ideal for computer hookup. Their specs/features/performance:price ratio is much better than anything else I have come across. They also make RFSA, digital multimeters, DC sources etc. Prices on their (USA) web site. Also, get LabView.
Tailor equipment purchases to the anticipated tasks. I get by with limited resources, but there's a dynamic involved.... my designs reach the limits of my test equipment and fab capabilities. (I do concept demonstrations, mostly, which don't require extensive cosmetics, packaging, or ESD precautions.)
If money is no object, a deep memory mixed signal oscilloscope / logic analyzer (Tek MSO/DPO 4000 series, $10-20k), decent 6 1/2 digit bench multimeter (Agilent or Tek), several power supplies, and these days, a good arb waverform generator/pulse gen/synth box (I like Tektronix hardware.) One realllllly good piece of hardware is a stereo inspection microscope (3-15x). More mag is not better for this. You don't need to see invisible detail, but you DO need to manipulate and inspect and stereo gives depth perception.
Good benches organized for either projects or itinerant jobs. Good solder gear. Excellent hand tools, particularly tweezers. You can forget about rework stations, etc. if you get a good supply of solder wick for cleanup and part removal. Indispensable supply, really.
Lighting and magnification, of course. LED lighting on the magnifiers is good.
Essential docs are best gotten from the internet, so a good internet connection and computer are good. I get a lot of mileage from a digital camera, since clients want to see what I have found and I document failures, etc. with it. A local printer (multifunction) is also a good item.
An awful lot of lab equipment is cheap. Don't skimp on the scope, though. Still the best and most useful tool.
Depending on what you are doing, you may need additional resources. I have spectrum analyzer, TDR, RF gear, and a few thousand dollars of adapters, loads, cables, yada yada that are radio specific. These days, the module mfgs do all the hard work and a typical problem is solved without RF resources. These tend to be really expensive and few engineers have the training or experience to use them, anyway. You are unlikely to be dealing with this type of thing.
Oh... several handheld multi-function meters, too. You almost always need to monitor three or four quantities simlultaneously.
For mechanical hardware.... a drill press, belt/disc sander, vise, bench, power screwdriver, portable drill (with LED lamp), saber saw, Dremel or flex shaft tool, layout tools, and a hand punch for marking drill points (essential). Basic shop hand tools.
Supplies and cables are another thing entirely.
You could have some fun with this: http://www.raith.com/?xml=solutions%7CSEM+%26+FIB+lithography+kits%7CELPHY+MultiBeam
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
An electron microscope might come in handy - it lets you figure out the details on chips that the manufacturer sometimes don't want to disclose. Or even lie about - because nobody else checks with an electron microscope anyway.
But then - if you really have unlimited money, you just buy whatever corporation it is that have what you want anyway . . .
An artificial intelligence system to help you write and think.
the phrase is "money is no objection", usually contracted to "money is no object".
I was in that business here from 1989-2006. My first suggestion is DON'T - KEEP YOUR MONEY. Increasingly numbers of programmables (fpgas, microcontrollers, pals, etc) make it impossible to source spares. No other independent repair house lasted until 2006 here on repairs alone. I'll talk some more on that if you wish. 2 things you should have are a Metcal soldering iron, (ebay, but watch the mains vfoltage) and a Diagnosys Pinpoint 2 or the successor to that. For unknown boards, Diagnosys (www.diagnosys.co.uk) make the best test equipment about. Preferably buy secondhand - you get ripped off new. You also need desoldering, for which I used a spare Weller handle, an industrial vaccuum pump and a footswitch.
1 i would say have at least 3 power circuits in the room A lighting circuit B Main Power C Secondary or High Power (give you 220 if you are in the US)
2 Lighting Lots and Lots Of Lighting (and please use stuff that isn't RF "noisy" so you can scope stuff properly)
3 ground the floor (if you have a basement type lab and the decor can work with it have several points with grounded metal in the floor)
4 2 exits (even if one of them is a big window)
5 Fire Extinguishers using the 10 second rule (make sure you are within 10 seconds of a FE at any given time)
6 2 sinks and a Loo
7 Storage lots and lots of Storage
8 a Phone (even if its a base for a cordless)
9 Emergency Party/Panic Buttons
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
This question is extremely broad.
I just finished putting together a broad professional lab. It's also be far too expensive for me to contemplate putting together at home.
For electronics I put in a couple computers, a National Instruments CompactDAQ, a Solartron Modulab, an Agilent 4 port PNA-L (splurged on that) and a probe station with a USB camera. There's a bunch of small stuff around in storage, a soldering iron, power supplies, wires, components, old projects which are well characterized and stuff like that. There is one long workbench, a few chairs, a white board, and a sink. You don't really need to go crazy with stuff. There's a bunch of materials processing gear in there too, but that's not such a great thing to set up at your house. I have access to a good machine shop, so I didn't put any of that stuff in my lab.
On a budget and still want great equipment. Ebay is your friend. HP and Techtronics equipment is pennies on the dollar. You can get a 250MHz 1GS/sec digtal scope for under $300. Even the modern USB scopes won't match that. Multimeters, Oscilloscope, Signal generators, Power supplies.
To get a stock of parts cheap get a common paint striping heat gun. Use it to unsolder parts from old equipment before scaping it. I have spent years doing this to old TVs, radios, computer power supplies, motherboards and such. I now have a cheaply aquired large parts collection. Esp capacitors which are a very common failure.
I don't do electronics per se, but for my all-purpose-home-workshop I put 36" tubes paralleling the wall 6" out and then 24" tubes on every other joist above the workbench and wherever else I need light. Plus two drafting lamps, and I picked up some stupid cheap clipon LED tasklights at Ikea. I use it for hobby electronics, ammunition reloading, and general tinkering/building stuff and it's honestly just adequate. Tubes on every joist might not be a bad idea.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Money is ALWAYS the objective. Get a comfortable chair... like a lay-z-boy. Sometimes it helps just to sit and think, but leaving the environment altogether can often bring new distractions.
Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
I recently put together such a lab in a room in my office space.
Electronic equipment depends completely on what kind of work you're doing: digital, analog, high-speed, low-signal, RF, etc. So it's hard to answer that question.
Pretty much everything, however, needs some basics: ESD protection, furniture, lighting, storage.
ESD protection: Install a conductive tile floor. Most vendors for this stuff prefer to work on whole buildings; finding someone to do a single room took a bit of looking. I ended up buying the tiles myself (from StaticWorx, from their odd lots selection at about $3/sqft) and hiring one of the big company's installers to moonlight over a weekend.
Other folks have talked about grounding. It's just as important as they say. Most electricians who do commercial work will understand how to get this right.
Furniture: Get one or two heavy duty lab benches with anti-static surfaces and shelves above the bench. It's a little detail, but I recommend bullnose fronts instead of square, to make chipping and other damage less likely. Benches should be 36" deep if you have the room, so you can have relatively deep equipment on the bench and still have room to work in front of it.
You should be able to get behind the bench to fuss with cabling and such (and to vacuum... dust accumulates like nobodys business if you have your test equipment pushed all the way back to the wall behind it).
I have a couple of anti-static lab chairs: conductive fabric, little chain to connect to the anti-static floor.
I also have a big folding table that I unfold when I need to lay out a bunch of stuff and reorganize it.
Lighting: This is really important. You can't have too much. I have a bunch of 4-bulb T-8 fluorescent fixtures on the ceiling (in several groups with different switches, so it doesn't have to be that bright all the time).
I also have a big magnifying lamp, and a big stereo microscope, although I'm still looking for a good solution for lighting on the microscope.
Storage: I have a bunch of little drawer cabinets. Most aren't anti-static, so I have a lot of stuff in conductive foam. It's a trede-off: anti-static is safe, but it's opaque, but clear drawers are a lot easier to work with (and cheaper). A lot of stuff (machine screws, switches, resistors) doesn't need anti-static.
I also have a bunch of open shelves filled with Akro-Mils plastic bins. These are great for storing miscellaneous stuff like multimeters, tools, small project pieces, larger components, etc. They come in many colors, which I've never figured out how to use effectively as an organizing scheme. I try to keep everything loose in one of these bins so it's easy to put a bunch of bins on the shelf to make room fo a project.
I do a fair amount of work with surface-mount devices, and I struggled with how to store them. It's a nuisance to handle the devices in cut tape form: the tape is bulky and springy and clumsy, and it's a pain to get devices out of it one at a time. Once extracted, the devices are way too small to make effective use of drawer cabinets: it's like storing grains of sand. But then I found these nice little (conductive) aluminum canisters at American Science & Surplus, and they're great: about an inch in diameter, glass window in lid, and stored 20 to small aluminum box the size of a small book. I now have a bunch of those "books".
Multimeters: Someone suggested getting a bunch of cheap multimeters; this is a great idea. $5/each from Harbor Freight (or free sometimes with a coupon). An extra cheap oscillosope isn't a bad idea, either--an old Tek 465 is cheap on eBay and very quick to use.
Lots of power outlets: I ended up bolting a ton of cheap power strips all over the benches, because there are so many things that need power. And because so many o
I find myself thinking the same thought I have when I flip through Syd Mead's books. Wow, that cityscape is super cool but it will never happen because you never get to start from scratch and without plenty of morons who think their idea is better. But I digress. I have dozens of big plastic containers full of electronic stuff I've accumulated since college. My biggest desire and quandary is how to get all that crap organized. I look at blog pages with photos of well-organized workshops and I think "That's cool but how did you decide on how many storage racks and drawer systems and of what size would you need if you hadn't been anally organizing things from day one?"
As to the one answer, I recent spent a few bucks on a decent work bench. I looked at the high-end offerings from companies like Edsal. They have some nifty stuff but it's all pretty spendy. I eventually bought a bench from Uline. Nice thick maple. I skipped the ESD top because it was more expensive and I already had a mat. Basically, be sure to budget for good furniture because all the expensive test equipment in the world is going to piss you off if your work area is a pain.
Masking tape for holding a socket onto the board for the first few soldered holes and electrical tape when you need some impromptu low grade insulator.
UGH. Watching David Jones is like sitting in a dentist's chair because he often squeaks his voice at a high, constant monotone pitch - and he doesn't just ramble, he goes on walkabouts. Seriously, the guy needs to print a fucking agenda and tape it above the camera, and then EDIT HIS FOOTAGE.
Most people would make a page or two on their blog with a few photos - but Jones manages to turn it into a 30 minute stream-of-consciousness youtube video, 90% of which should have been edited out.
It's beyond painful, and I have no idea why he insists on speaking in such a squeaky voice - he has moments where he's speaking normally and tolerably...
Please help metamoderate.
You'll need anti-static flooring and special grounding for all your lab stations. You'll want a Digital Storage Scope, maybe a mask tester, a logic analyzer, maybe a protocol analyzer, a spectrum analyzer, power supplies, multimeters, a soldier station with adequate ventilation...Prepare to fork over a lot of cash.
I love this question! Let me help you pick an oscilloscope.
If you're not designing a motherboard, but instead working on medium-speed (Agilent MSOX3054A. If $12k is too much, you can get the "lower" grade MSOX2014A, 100MHz, 8 digital inputs for an almost reasonable $3100. Agilent is the heir to the classic Hewlett Packard geeks all know and love, and the infiniivision x-series compares favorably to tektronix, dollar for dollar.
You need a multimeter. Just get the Fluke 87 and forget the rest. It is also useful to have a function generator and a frequency counter, even if you are doing low-speed digital/analog work. If you're doing RF work or designing analog amplifiers, you might also want a spectrum analyzer. These can get freakishly expensive depending on the type of work you want to do. If you didn't get a mixed-signal oscilloscope, look into getting a logic analyzer. For professional applications it's probably cheaper to just get the MSO.
Not as high tech, but equally important: a soldering station and a fume extractor. For working on mains-powered equipment, you are going to want an isolation transformer and potentially a variac. You will need some way to mitigate ESD in your lab, so look into grounded tables, heel/wrist straps, and ionized air blowers. Not the consumer grade stuff, you want something that senses static charge.
If you are the DIY type who doesn't mind getting your hands dirty, it is nice to be able to fabricate your own PCBs. You can get PCB mills but they are expensive and low-precision. Better to do it the old-fashioned way, in a printmaking studio. You need a UV exposure unit, a laser printer or inkjet that can lay down a high density of ink on a transparency (no recommendations, sorry, I'm still trying to find a good one myself), an etching tank with aquarium pump, and a sink. Just buy your PCBs pre-sensitized. For cutting and drilling you want a small bandsaw or shear and a drill press. You can Harbor Freight the bandsaw, but try to get a high-quality drill press with no spindle wobble or else you'll blow through drill bits like crazy. If you're OCD about this you might even consider getting a small mill, just make sure it has enough of a throat to handle the boards you want to work with.
If you want to do SMD in house you'll need a reflow oven, solder paste, some tiny tools, and possibly a low-power stereo microscope depending on your visual acuity.Throw in a hot-air reworking system too, they're essentially heat guns with chips that match common SMD packages.
You are going to be accumulating many, many tiny parts, so storage is essential. It will need to be versatile: bulk resistors are one thing, but over time you will accumulate reels of SMD parts, coils of wire, long plastic tubes full of DIP and other through-hole parts and all kinds of other junk. It has to go somewhere and stay organized. In my lab I use the tiny trays available at model shops for stuff that's not ESD-sensitive, but in pro labs I've seen large metal cabinets reminiscent of library card catalogs and flat files lined with anti static foam organized with mazes of dividers.
Finally you'll need good EDA tools, so be prepared to pay good money for professional grade software. Most of it runs on Windows so budget for a new PC as well. Cost is no object? Look into Altium Designer. It's the kind of software that doesn't have a listed price. Eagle is a realistic option although its user interface is like taking a time warp into the nineties. No free software I've tried can be cajoled into doing what I can routinely do with Eagle, so my advice is to accept that you'll be using a proprietary toolchain and budget accordingly. Good luck.
Stanley Vidmar cabinets can be ordered in all shapes, sizes, configurations. First a workbench with nice wooden desk, large drawers on left for bulky tools, small drawers on right for small tools and parts. Then add cabinets for cables, connectors, shrink tube, whatever. These cabinets are not cheap but they will outlast you and your grandchildren. It may take some time to come up with configuration that best meets your needs and wants. Yes I know I'm promoting their stuff but dang, when compared to stuff you buy at OSH or elsewhere.... Now if money is still not an issue for you, then get Snap-On tools, they do make small size for electronics lab, screwdrivers just seem to feel better than other brands (note that Snap-On tools are like TSO aviation parts, if you have to ask the price then you cannot afford it)
http://www.stanleyvidmar.com/products/cabinets
But whether you are stinking rich or a simple minimal cost hobbyist, one item that is a ***must*** is a temperature controlled soldering station, i.e. Weller. Don't bother to find one used (you will not find any except from someone that just died at an estate sale). Go ahead and spend the money on a good Weller, think of it as good investment.
mfwright@batnet.com
The difference between "hobbyist grade" and "professional grade" is a huge chasm of cash.
The place that I got my (ancient) Tektronix analog oscilloscope (for $200) also does all kinds of high-end equipment repair and calibration. The digital oscilloscopes they use cost $25K each.
1) Well labeled power evenly distributed to work areas. Enough amperage to cover all potential machines plugged in. :)
2) Adequate ventilation and A/C. Some high power fans for WHEN the A/C dies.
3) Networking, Both wired and wireless. DHCP/DDNS services running.
4) Windows server and authentication services for linux (ldap) [best to use VMs for this].
5) NAS server w/NFS and CIFS services
6) Dustmop and broom. Dustpan.
7) proper wire guides above head
8) Lockable cabinets and plain selves
9) Depending on noise: earplugs
10) Remotely accessible power strips. If you have a lot of racked servers, end switches per rack as well.
11) Backup power for up to 1 hour down time for essential servers.
12) Fire suppression system (a electronics grade extinguisher would do minimally)
13) Firewall to control access to lab. Probably allow for email out of lab and ssh into lab.
14) A strong password used on all machines.
15) Some lab machine monitoring software tool.
16) Proper seating for the benches.
17) A rolling cart or two. If you have a lot of racked servers, a rolling desk for KVM.
18) A laptop with serial port or dongle and networking. Go for trouble shooting.
19) Powered screwdriver or drill with proper bits. A strong small flashlight. A tool box with lots of screwdrivers and one hex bit set. One hammer for that problem between keyboard and chair.
20) Dry erase board and markers.
I've scanned through the comments and I'm trying to offer stuff I haven't seen. I also emphasize things that were said but I feel strongly about.
A metal wastebasket, used with a bin liner. When you have a possible pickup problem, remove the contents with the bin liner and invert the wastebasket over your circuit. Plastic won't do it. If you're at a larger company, get a "Calibration not required" sticker from QA. Then when facilities runs off with your wastebasket because it helps keep down the static at the shredder, you can prove it isn't their wastebasket (guess how I know this).
Sink. Someone said to put your bench in a concrete floored room like a garage because then you could put in a drain. I think a concrete floor has to be the worst place to install a drain after the fact. You can put a drain anywhere. My new metalworking shop has a sink, and just being able to wash brushes and hands is a huge plus.
Second story shelf on bench for equipment--should be obvious to one skilled in the art.
Goggles if you do power electronics.
Quality soldering iron. I like Hexacon for a straight iron, but they have their problems too.
Computer for instrument control and data capture. Think about where the keyboard is actually going to be useful; do you want it on a tray under the bench, or under the second story shelf so you can use it standing up?
Instruments
The tiny little scopes made now are great if you need portable or are desperate for space. If you've ever used a fine lined analog scope and switch to an inexpensive one like my TDS2014, you'll hate the display (I think it's only 8 bits and shows a lot of quantization). Mine is borrowed, so I put up with it.
DO NOT buy a digital scope without having used it for a few hours. Some of the early ones had horrifying user interfaces, and they worked about that well too.
Regardless of whether you have a digital scope, get a Tek 2465. One of the best analog scopes ever made.
Instruments now come with LARGER screens, what a great idea.
High accuracy dvm; Keithley 2000, various HP's.
Stereo dissection microscope with zoom and light--pick this up surplus.
Other fine instruments to fit your specialty. HP is almost always a good bet.
Remember, unless you're 90 years old, you don't have to get it all at once. Putting together a lab should be spread out over time, especially as you learn that you should do things a different way, or encounter deals at auctions or other used.
Steve
What I have:
- Plenty of storage, cabinets and containers for a variety of screws and sets of electronics ... ...)
- Garbage cans
- Sink with standard faucet, rinsing hose and a separate inline distilled water filtration system (for cleaning up print boards and keyboards without rusting them)
- Drying racks, small drying oven (actually an old bacteria incubation oven), regular oven, microwave oven (marked 'chemicals only')
- Fume hood
- Microscope
- Vacuum pumps
- Belt sander
- Band saw
- Large drill press
- Dremel drill press
- Dremel tools and variety of additions
- Weller soldering station
- Larger soldering iron
- Huge soldering iron
- Weller PortaSol soldering iron (butane)
- Portable soldering iron
- 2 channel scope and test leads
- Fluke digital multi-meter with variety of test leads
- Circular saw
- Miter saw
- Saw blades and drill bits for plexiglass/plastic as well as metal and wood
- Extensive craftsman toolkits (wrenches, ratchets)
- Various repair kits for non-regular screw-devices (Torx etc.)
- Set of spatula's for opening no-screw enclosures, tweezers in various sizes, magnetic screw-picker-uppers, spudgers, suction cups
- Mac Mini and PC, couple of LCD's and a CRT
- Converter pieces for everything you will ever need to repair (DisplayPort, mini-DisplayPort, mini-DVI, DVI, VGA, HDMI, FireWire, USB)
- Set of many size PCB's (pre-drilled and plain) and Proto-Boxes
- PCB etching chemicals and various chemically resistant enclosures to develop them in. You could use also small glass aquariums for that, but put in some slots so you can do multiple at a time.
- Set of Arduino's
- Large array of cabling but the main ones you should have is 4 wire and 8 wire CAT5 and CAT7, coax, jumper wires in a couple of sizes, speaker cable ~18AWG (4 and 2 leads), 3 lead 12AWG (for 110/220V power) and some bigger cable like 4AWG and 0AWG if you ever want to do low-voltage/high-amp (as from car batteries) or electric motors.
- Replacement and testing components for the stuff you'll be repairing (hard drives both known good and known bad ones, flash memory, RAM modules, switches,
- Variety of clamps (small to big) and 'helping hand' tools (the little 'men' with lights and crocodile clamps)
- Variety of colored electrical tape
- Variety of size and color heat shrink stuff
- Crimp tools for coax, RJ-11 and RJ-45, strippers and crimpers from 0000AWG - 22AWG (beyond that use heat to melt the insulation)
- Cleaning tools and supplies
I have some fiber optic tools as well but unless you're going to use fiber optics, you won't need them. I also inherited a cryo-safe and centrifuge but you won't need that.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Having done this at home and for work, I've found an ESD solution that works very well, is durable, and can be touched up inexpensively when you've gotten a bit rough with it.
Using masonite, a very hard sheet board, cut pieces to use as tabletops on your workstations. The reason for this material, or something similar, is that it is relatively thin, and dense.
Before attaching it to your tabletop, use a small foam type paint brush to apply India Ink to one side of each of the boards. When dry, apply at least one more coat. Depending upon your application, and the absorbancy of the material you use, you may need another.
When dry, attache to you table top, each board should then have a wire with a round log attached to one end bolted to it so as to make good surface contact with the inked side of the board, which is facing up. The other end of this wire is grounded in whatever way is convenient for you to do.
You now have a durable ESD workstation. As it gets scratched, it is easily touched up, however, you'll find it takes a lot of abuse to get to that point.
When selecting India Ink, be sure it is true carbon black India Ink (Speedball makes some good stuff). Cheaper inks are not carbon black based, and thus non-conductive. I actually went to an art store armed with a meter and measured samples they had over the various types. Readings are very high, but still obvious which are carbon black based and which are not.
On the data end, you might need a DCA complete with the fastest sampling heads. Such a comms setup would include a spectrum analyzer, several soldering irons and all the tools that go with it like a stereomicroscope and tweezers, and a rework station. You should also cultivate good relations with your local test instrument rental outfit as well as your parts suppliers and your PCB rework shop. There are some reworks you just can't do yourself.
Toss in the usual oscilloscope, meter, frequency standard, hand tools, work area, lighting, ESD control.
Geez I could go on and on, but congratulations on your new job for a mom and pop outfit, do your own homework please.
Back to the "Hardware" part of the lab. Well equipped work bench for prototype assembly and rework.
- Stereo microscope with at least 10 inch working distance
Dentist scopes are one of the best, Those 0201 devices are hard to see.
- Temp controlled soldering station
Two low wattage, makes removing some parts much easier
One high wattage for those ground/power plane connections.
Assortment of tips, wide tips are helpful for some components.
- Small vise to hold small boards and a board vise for the larger ones.
- IR rework station for BGA and possibly chip attach and replacement.
Expect to spend $40K-$60K. Also good for large count connectors.
- Vacuum desoldering station.
For the simpler stuff.
- Misc 30ga (wire wrap wire) with good SLT strippers for those few EC's.
- Drill with small bits for land deletion (top, bottom, and internal)
- Handy hand held DMM (Fluke 88V)
- Cap meter to see if that cap you dropped is really 2pF or some other random part floating around the bench.
(Fluke might be enough here for larger values)
- If dealing with RF you may also need some specialized instruments to check the package inductance of your chip caps and such.
The rework equipment should be selected to handle the new no-lead temperatures.
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I found these cheap and large SMD resistor and capacitor kits to be practical. Just ask the vendor to pack all kits regardless of component size into SK128A or SK128B boxes... the cheaper box they use by default for larger component sizes is of too low quality. They will do this free of charge if you ask.
For vice, I use Bernstein with various attachments.
The rest will depend on what you do.
I have new models of Weller soldering irons, and am less than impressed with their design and quality, especially for the top price they charge. Things came from Weller with manufacturig defects, broke mechanically very quickly, etc. User interface is not intuitive, and touch screen is awkward comparing to a knob and buttons. I'm getting Hakko now instead (= made in Japan), will see how it works out.
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I recommend you have two or three computers... 1) at least one Windows box. 2) at least one Linux box. 3) at least one Mac. At least one of these should have a 46" flat panel display with 1920x1200 resolution You will often want to display a large schematic, and several component data sheets (mandatory while debugging). Two large displays are better than one. New age test equipment often comes in the form of USB pods, and the host software varies in requirements from Windows XP onward. Logic analyzers like the Saleae that have Mac compatible software are very cool. Windows version requirements for inexpensive test equipment often include downlevel or unsupported Windows versions.