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."

Comments

There's a great Australian with the answer

[RaySnake]

Check out David Jones' EEVblog, particularly episode 168. http://www.eevblog.com/

Depends what you're working on...

[wisewellies]

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.

Re:Depends what you're working on...

[xQx]

You also will need the following:

1. A van der graaf generator
2. A very powerful degaussing Coil
3. A glass still

1. Because if you're spending heaps of time in an electronics lab, you're sometimes going to have visitors and it never hurts to show them something theatrical.
2. Because you never know when you need to destroy information.
3. Because if you're testing and doing R&D on electronics stuff for any length of time, you will know it doesn't always work the way it should, and for those instances a home-made stiff drink never goes astray.

Re:Depends what you're working on...

[Lost Penguin]

The lift that opens the roof, for the body to be charged by the lightning....

What's it for?

[backwardMechanic]

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.

Re:What's it for?

[Electricity Likes Me]

I cannot stress lighting enough.

Almost everyone gets it wrong, and it's the most annoying to fix after the fact. You want whatever room you're in bright - very bright, and illuminated uniformly. If you're putting in shelves or anything that occludes light, plan to have lights attached to it. You'll find yourself *much* happier later.

Start from the ground up

[fragMasterFlash]

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).

erm...

[crutchy]

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)

If you dont know what you want

[citizenr]

then you dont need it.

All I can tell you is what I have

[mpoulton]

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.