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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/
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)
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.
Indeed relaxen und watchen das blinkenlichten
(http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/b/blinkenlights.html)
"XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, use more." - Anonymous Coward
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.
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.
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).
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
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.
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.
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.
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
you might want to consider glass inlays
Static issues, although that's tediously fixable with a spray. Also horrific glare if your work is properly illuminated unless you get frosted glass, in which case this is getting kinda complicated. Finally you're gonna drop stuff and a SMD component will skip across glass like a rock skipping on water, but on wood it'll still bounce but not as far. I've been doing this stuff over 30 years... you can do a lot worse than glass, so its not an awful idea, but disposable particle board wood is better.
Also if inlayed you need precision size, whereas just "drop a sheet of wood on the desk" requires no work, so when its inevitably utterly trashed (once a decade?) the replacement process is easier.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
As for soldering irons, Metcal is the shit...
Also, get one of those tip cleaners made from what looks like a brass scourer. So much better than the wretched wet sponge.
Hakko sells a great brass turnings soldering iron cleaner. Coincidentally they sell great soldering gear, better than Metcal at about the same price. Metcal is good, don't get me wrong, in fact its very good, its just that Hakko is better. This is the soldering equivalent of the eternal vi vs emacs battle, and just like that your best bet is to try as many brands as you can and THEN select your winner (as opposed to "the" winner). Or use what your buddies use, so you can trade/share stuff. At the higher end a lot of the parts of soldering gear are swappable to different sizes sometimes different wattages.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Yes and no. In the case of digital logic you can write a model in VHDL, Verilog or whatever floats your boat. And then do functional verification on that. Dump it in a FPGA or hope your computer is fast enough. But for analog circuits it's not as easy. SPICE can give you a pretty good idea, but it's not perfect. Even more advanced programs like ADS won't give you the full picture. As the final step you will always need to actually make a prototype and just hope it works.
So yes you can test small parts of the design, but a large design can't be simulated without significant computing resources.
... and Hakko is just Aoyue with an expensive sticker!
The brass pot scourer tip cleaners are awesome.
But for analog circuits it's not as easy. SPICE can give you a pretty good idea, but it's not perfect. Even more advanced programs like ADS won't give you the full picture. As the final step you will always need to actually make a prototype and just hope it works.
Sorry, but if your final step is to "just hope it works" then your design is incomplete. For example, I designed an optical to electrical amplifier in the late 90's as part of the fiber optic communication system on the ISS. It was a pencil and paper design, and the first prototype worked as expected. I can guarantee what the circuit will do for any input that is within spec.
With modern computer simulation tools a designer can absolutely expect an analog circuit to behave as the simulation does. If not, the model is incorrect, or the simulation tools are not being used properly.
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.
All models are abstractions and linearizations of reality. Assuming that your simulation software will tell you exactly if it's work is a pipe dream. Even if your math is correct and your simulation says it'll work you'll often run into problem. Even if it's something stupid. Like a few years ago we spent a week debugging a stupid OLED screen. Turns out that we had to move a PCB trace 1mm to make it work, but in that position it was causing too much noise. The manufacturer of the OLED panel never mentioned that in their datasheets or application notes. Nor did they actually know it until we contacted them. Needless to say simulation was useless at finding that problem.
Another area particularly fond to me is MRI coil design. Good luck simulating that. There's so much going on, the system is too complex to model. You can only give a guess at what's going to happen. Yes I can design the coil and transmission system adhering to the necessary specifications. But it turns out if you put it next to a high power transmitter inside a 3T magnetic field you'll run into things behaving not quite as expected. And no amount of simulation ever really catches those weird little quirks (we even modeled the inside of the transistors we used in the pre-amplifier in case you were wondering). There are just too many obscure effects that you can't quite predict until you put it together and try, even when you test it part by part in simulation. It's more than about bandwidth and amplification mind you. The NF has to be correct, you have to avoid coupling, and so on. Though it has made me a better designer by a huge margin in the long run. But that's experience preventing the errors instead of simulation and testing.