My workshops tend to be floor-to-ceiling twin-slot shelving too. I also put the bench on the biggest twin-slot brackets and brace it to the ground at the front if needed with breakfast-bar supports. Mines a huge organised clutter too. But, like you, I can go straight to the thing I need in that clutter.
Wish I could install some of those as well, but I'm renting this flat and the landlord is not too keen on me changing the wall into a huge slab of swiss cheese... Everything is precariously balanced (which makes it more exciting, I guess)
I would still have to hang those sheet from somewhere and I cannot drill holes into the wall (nothing major, at least). Walls are also very thin/cheap so it would take quite a few big screws to secure everything properly. I'm hoping to be able to move into my own house as soon as possible, so I can have all of the space I need.
I'm lucky that although my tenancy agreement says I shouldn't make holes in the walls, my actual landlady is fine with me doing so as long as I can fix it up before we move out, which is piss-easy with plasterboard. I've filled plenty of plasterboard screw holes before (after having used those metal screw-in plasterboard wall plugs, which leave moderately-sized holes when removed), and even filled/repaired a 6"-diameter hole in a wall after my housemate fell down the stairs and elbowed her way through the wall! (She was fine, thankfully, but I then had a 2-week on-and-off job repairing the wall, as the only person in the house capable of doing such a thing!) As such I have a rack of open bins clipped to a plastic sheet on the wall, several racks of smallish plastic drawers, and a 7-foot-tall, 4-foot-wide bookcase full of random bits including stacks of compartmentalised plastic boxes (there are some lovely, decent-size, good-quality, 24-compartment boxes that Toby Electronics (UK) sell that I've bought 20 or so of, but they were selling them at clearance prices last time I checked, so they may no longer sell them...). My "workshop"/home-office is a piddly little box room (the little room that technically makes this a four-bedroom house, but no one would ever want to have this as a bedroom!), though, so things accumulate on the floor under the drawer units more often than not!
wrt to farnell labels that just fade off with time (and eventually go completely blank): If you heat them up with a lighter or a heat gun, you can make them legible The part that was exposed previously will not react a second time, but the part that wasn't will darken. And so you end up with a reverse-video label white-on-black. Obviously only works once, but it can be very useful :p
-"Thing 1") I ussually use another thinner top, MDF or another cheap (free from trash) panel over my chipboard+melamine top tables, so I can replace quickly, easily and very cheap/for free -"Thing 2") I had years ago the idea of putting the back of the computer in front, but I didn't realize I can reverse the drives too ! Good idea ! -"Thing 3") I use the same "idea-structure" of storage and I put long things in the top, just above the ceiling, but the light path is reduced, the upper sides of the room are darker and lower the light is not the solution, because they will be interfering -"Thing 4") I use also the Staedtler Permanent "F" for "normal things", but they are not the best for draw/repair PCB tracks before the acid, used to be, but not anymore, I think Staedtler changed the formulation, so, I contacted Staedtler a few years ago and they sent me one Staedtler special for optics and nano-something (I just google it : "Lumocolor permanent special 319") that works really well for PCB, but are a expensive -"Thing 5") Hey ! Are those Hi-tec boots like mine ? :D Thanks for the ideas and all your videos, Cheers !
Extremely helpful. Think a minute about how TH-cam is giving a new generation access to people like you. I grew up in the Berkeley Homebrew Club. That depended on pure luck of getting a job at Lawrence Berkeley. How many people had that luck? Today, you impact kids on a diversion program from jail living in the middle of nowhere near an old retired teacher. Amazing. My students watched this twice and made fun of me the whole time. I appreciate the ESD reality check. I am so sick of ESD cops who have no idea how capacitance effects anything. They just love that EEVBlog blue. Sickening to see young people taught crap. Please teach some more of this simple stuff. I assure you, young people soak it up. The State Prison won’t let them post anything on the internet. What a damn shame.
Am I the only one wondering what Mike's house is like? Love the chaotic-but-organised look of everything. Also: I think Mike contradicts himself in this video, I'm sure in one video, he once said that fully populated boards are less susceptible to damage by ESD, which made sense at the time, but this new statement taking the charge and capacitance in relation to other surfaces into account is true as well... :)
ESD in general is a low risk - populated boards have different risks to individual parts, and the fact that lots of parts are interconnected goes some way to improving protection, but with the exception of unusually delicate unprotected devices, it's pretty difficult to kill a loose part unless maybe it's on a metal surface
It was Dave at EEVBlog that said populated boards are less vulnerable. It's what I was taught as well, but Mike's logic also makes sense. I tend to just not give a crap about either or and accept that someday I *might* zap something.
It is always comforting to see that I am not alone at having a lab like that, storage like that, saving everything, we are all closing in on getting a diagnosed with hoarding syndrome :) Thanks for the walk-through, although a little too detailed and long.
Thanks for putting this video together. The timing for me could not be better. I -just- so happened to be in the midst moving my electronics lab between rooms. I am setting up in a rather small space. I have just set up an industrialish type shelf, (~4'x2') with the bottom shelf at desk height and another "shelf" 5 inches above that to become my work surface. The remaining shelves are above head height. Mounted an LED light to the bottom of the shelf above. Another idea I have is to mount some light weight bins and/or test leads to the inside of a closet door. I will have my test equipment on a nearby shelf unit that has casters, I hope this will allow me to roll the shelf out to cable equipment up as needed. Because my computer will be at a separate desk across the room, I will extend the video signal over to the bench and have a small monitor setup for viewing schematics, data sheets etc.
12:34: Any thoughts on PCB dust? I have CNCed a lot of PCBs for a while, but I got a bit scared because no regular vacuum filter seems to be able to contain the super fine glass fiber dust. Wouldn't want to breath something like that ...
Hey Marco, you could try something similar to what Chris has done in the video linked below. It seems to be common practice to sprinkle some water on the spindle/part when milling carbon fiber to keep the fine dust from being circulated in the air. You could try that with water or some other coolant. Although I don't know if the water/other coolants would negatively affect the pcb though. th-cam.com/video/VDjdMW4_eRc/w-d-xo.html
I don't think drilling and milling with chip-breaker cutters produces particularly fine dust - a lot of what you are cutting is the resin, and I'd imagine the glass tends to stay bound to it rather than becoming loose fibres. Only issue I've had is occasional slight itchiness - never noticed anything obviously airborne.
How's the airflow through the general workshop area? If a capacitor pops, or wire housing burns, how long does it stay funky? Any special provisions, or naturally well ventilated?
One of my favourite TH-camrs that the algorithm has decided to find this older video to show me, left pathologically tidy me shocked and uncomfortable 😲 However I realise why I get so little done as I spend so much time tidying and cleaning up my little multi purpose room!!!
6:38 you can fill that in with ca glue and produce an epoxy finish on that counter top and bring it back to "good as new" while having allot more character. keep in mind though that "good as new" in this case still means a big chunk of particle board with a plastic coating. honestly for electronics i can't think of a good surface that wouldn't ultimately be sacrificial, the surfaces that wouldn't be damaged by electrical work would damage the things you are trying to work on (granite, marble, in general stone surfaces) so i think i can only say you should probably look at woodworking workbenches. easy to damage but easy to fix. you can't use welding benches for electronics, they are conductive and even designed to be as conductive as possible. the best electronics benches i have seen are eevblog's. just some basic tables with a conductive mat on the surface that can be tied into wrist straps. i'd put discharge panels in so you don't need to hook up to discharge yourself, but that is about as good as it gets for an electronics bench at home.
The problem with kitchen worktop, is that the cheapest worktop 20 years ago, was 10 times better than the cheapest worktop is now, and also the cheapest worktop is not cheap anymore.
Still, kitchen worktop is probably the only proper working surface in mass production, so ... an alternative to a kitchen sink might be a door. they are usually much wider (and longer) too. and people are somehow averted to having generic doors in their new apartments, so these are thrown away en masse. DIY might be another cheap alternative.
Another option is two sheets of 19 or 20mm stirling board glued together for the thickness, and that way extra depth can be obtained. Then cover that with either laminate or rubber sheet.
Thanks for the tour. Funny that my lab space is very similar in terms of workbench and testgear arrangement. I also use a kitchen surface with self made supports, but I went throught the 3 months wait to have the 90cm deep surface made to order which did end up costing 210 EUR. Also got the same shelving with the same, colorful boxes, even the same size. I have not plastered the walls with sockets like you have, which in my case was a mistake since I waste space at the back of the workbench with multiple outlet power strips.
I'm using a kitchen worktop too, an off the shelf B&Q one. My latest improvement (today!) power-strip wise was to mount an IEC "kettle-lead" (C13/C14) outlet strip under the worktop. All the testgear hooks up through that, and then into one socket on the wall. Instruments get turned on/off via their front-panel on/off switches. The next task is to move the power strip for the soldering equipment onto the underside of the bench too - via an isolator switch and socket for safety reasons.
12:10 You have to be kidding me. A pick & place machine! Your shop is amazing! I wished mine could be nearly as professional. There are many great things to replicate, like the U-shaped desk layout. I hope you get well paid by your customers, VERY well paid.
Awesome lab. I am also a fan of this shelving system, and have entire continues wall just filled with shelves (2.5m high, 4m wide, with 7 U profiles attaches to a wall, with a lot of screws so it can support probably a ton of stuff together). Most of my shelves are 30cm deep, but few of them are 40cm and 60cm, i.e. for very deep test and measurement equipement. And at the lowest level 20cm, so there is a bit space for stuff on ground and legs. Plus boxes on ground. It all is stable and reconfigurable easily. Great stuff. I also use a lot of Orthex SmartStore Classic boxes (around 200 boxes total), as they are easy to stack and are transparent, and locking lids, so it is easy to move around, put on shelves or stack on floor. And a lot of LED strips on the bottom side of shelves, with individual RC controlled switches, so I can set it up the way I like. I agree that it is really hard to get anything deeper than 60cm for a desk top. I usually take two 60cm deep (standard) stuff, and extend it to 80cm by cutting second top into 3x20cm sections, and using the other 20cm sections as shelves above the desk (mostly for books). Troley on wheels in the corner is very smart move! I need to do that in my lab too.
Thanks for showing us around. The explanation about ESD is interesting. From the literature I've come to the conclusion the opposite was true, components are easier destroyed by ESD than mounted on a PCB. As for single prototypes, I've never run in to ESD problems. As for production it's standard practice to ESD bag all the things.
I definitely recommend asking people who make custom kitchens if they have any "scrap" table tops, they often have ~2m pieces of discontinued table tops, they won't use it for a kitchen, since it's kinda short for that, but you might be able to buy it cut to the length you want for the shop, I built my PC desk out of that, it's 1.8m long (60cm deep) and it's a really nice Austrian table top, for which I paid half the price of a cheap table to, including cable passthroughs and putting trim on the ends
Thanks for the "Clear peel box" trip. This is just what i need to organize my lab, but things can be hard to find on ebay without the magic search term
I think these may be the ones Mike uses: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-PEEL-OFF-CLEAR-PLASTIC-CRAFT-BOX-STORAGE-BOXES-IN-SINGLE-5s-OR-10s-/112692541009?var=&hash=item1a3cffb651 bit there are others cheaper: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Peel-Off-Box-Clear-Plastic-x10-Storage-Craft-Container/253357211775?_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20160908110712%26meid%3D12e50484f10241079d7a5d53b2aba23a%26pid%3D100677%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D11%26sd%3D201471060588&_trksid=p2385738.c100677.m4598
Fishing tackle boxes are handy, many various sizes, long ones for float storage, many smaller compartments for shot weights, variety sizes with and without dense foam inserts for fly/spinner storage etc. Many have decent clip closures.
Any love for clear plastic takeaway containers? I buy them by the 100 from the local cash & carry. They do various sizes which all have the same footprint but have varying heights. Work great as part bins, and I also use them for storing bolts, washers, nuts, etc. for my main mechanics workshop. ...And another lot with woodscrews of every size in my wood-shop.
I also have a box of old PCBs that really need to go as I had exactly the same idea 10 years ago and the only parts I re-used were from old power supplies like odd ball through hour parts etc..having heard your comments I have decided to throw most of these out in to a recycling skip when I sort the garage.
Nice workshop. I like to take stuff off of old circuit boards. I choose components that lookstrange and interesting, not just capacitors. Then I try to figure what they do and how they differ from things on Ebay. I keep my components in large coffee cans on the floor marked on top with a general catigory lable.
The "peel off storage boxes" you're using are likely made by Weston Boxes - www.westonboxes.com/collections/craft-storage-boxes/products/peel-off-storage-box. I use them a heck of a lot for storage boxes. My favorites for small things are their business card boxes, combined with either A4 or A5 boxes. You get 8 or 16 business card boxes on edge nicely in the larger boxes, makes it very convenient.
I feel you, man. All those years of saying "fuck" from under the table, crumbled in most inconvenient ways ... it is funny to think how the floppy (and then cd/dvd) went and the front side of the computer was there only as an opposite to the back one. To our defense, a lay person will probably instinctively put the connector side facing the wall because of the cable management. And obviously, Mike is very accustomed to installations, where a computer is just yet another tool, and a proper cable management is in place with or without it. Those red and green plastic diffusers are nice though
I built my worktops using decking boards, that way, you get to control the width furthermore, the small groves are great for stopping stuff rolling off the top or for catching small screws or whatever it is that you drop.
Find myself wanting to questions like: What PCB layout SW do you use? Where do you get your PCBs Made? Do you use fume extraction equipment? Could go on, but I'll stop now. So thanks for sharing with us you insights into how you use your workshop.
For wider kitchen worktops, try 'island' worktops, just over 3 foot wide, personally i would cut off the round edge, then glue a wood strip on the front, if there's a possibility of spilled coffee, the edge strip can be stuck in place with a bit of silicone to seal it. If using a circular saw to cut it, cut with top down to avoid split out of the surface. :
Only problem with the stick-on edging strip is that the glue tends to fail over time, to the point where catching it with a tool will peel the whole thing. I'd sooner put up with the rounded edge because the coating on the melamine worktop is a hell of a lot tougher.
On "A place for everything and everything in its place" agreed 100%, my version of that is "I like to have a place for everything and everything in its place, the problem is I don't have enough places for things so my workareas look like bomb sites"
I read lots of negative comments about your organization, but you seem very productive with it. It seems well suited to hardware development and your kind of research. Your comment about organizing for development versus production made a lot of sense to me, but I never thought of it that way before. I also started putting “on hold” projects in boxes to keep them easy to restart. I liked your yellow compartment boxes, and will look for similar because movable dividers don’t stay put well. I’m also looking for the long clear boxes, and will pick up some of those. I must have over a hundred cheap clear plastic boxes with white lids over the years for trying to organize my stuff from various hobbies, home repairs, etc. I only found out a year ago they are intended for shoe storage. Those and a label maker have made a huge difference to me. At 21:57 was that a ginormous (25+mm?) green LED on the right side of the “More LEDs” box?
Very good video. Couldn't agree more with unlabelled parts are useless sentiment. I'm trying to arrange my stuff in bins each that has a stated generic purpose and when I have time going through a single bin and listing the contents in a spreadsheet. I decided that cataloguing the lot in one go was just never going to happen.
There are 1206 SMD resistor "sample pack" on AliExpress with 4000 or 8000 resistors in a binder. The strips are not long enough for a feeder but it might be useful for development to quickly find the resistor value thats needed. Edit: oh, it gets covered 25:00
Well these books are for the weird values. I have a reel of the common parts like 10E 100E 1K 10K 1nF 100nF 1uF etc where i can grab as many as i want. But when you need that one single 91K resistor for that regulator voltage feedback or whatever the books are a lifesaver.
Few thoughts on smt binder sheets: The ones you can get from china all seem to be just A5 for some reason. I always thought they (the A4 ones you can get in europe) are little too expensive, I also think there isn't anyone who would sell plain sheets without components. It's possible to make them yourself, what I have tried was just go along a line with soldering iron, the problem there is that you need to make sort of intermitent movement, otherwise you end up just cutting the sheet (if you look at the professional ones, the melted lines are dotted). Ideas for making them that I had but didn't try: -Make a comb-like jig that you heat up and touch the foil to make the line at once -Use a laser engraver -fix a soldering iron to a cnc router You can even make double-sided compartments if you put a single layer of the foil inside the sheet. To ease putting in the components, cut one layer (both outer layers if you make double-sided) shorter few milimetres before melting in the lines.
The Farnell ones are the only A4's I've found, the web page is slightly misleading as it mentions resistors. A5s are a bit too small - you need something that will take 100 parts as 2 strips as that's a common MOQ. EEVBLOG made some A4 ones, but with horizontal orientation, which again looks like it ends up a bit short - listed in his store but often out of stock.
Maybe a cogged wheel fitted to a large soldering iron like a pizza cutter? I'm sure you could get the heat to transfer into the wheel if you mount it in a solid copper yoke.
What you likely want for sealing strips in plastic sheets like that is a device called an "impulse sealer" (at least that's how you find them on AliExpress & eBay). Big Clive's torn-down one before, but it's essentially a heating element strip connected to a variable timer that, when tweaked just right, melts plastic sleeves/bags together. Those are also how you seal up anti-static or polythene(?) bags semi-permanently. Not sure how fiddly it'd be to use one to seal just _parts_ of a page, though - maybe aluminium tape in the areas that you don't want sealed, to reflect the heat away? I've not tried it (and my impulse sealer is much too small a device for this kind of work).
Something I have found useful is switched power strip the type with one master switch that means you can be confordent that all soldering irons etc are off .
Nice video - and thanks for the ebay search terms for component storage boxes! The workboxes with the locking lids - if those are what I think they are (Raaco assorter boxes), then you can write on them. You want a Uni "Prockey" marker (Paperchase stock these), or a Uni or Edding solvent-based paint marker. But with that said - the P-Touch style labels do tend to last longer, especially if you use the Strong Adhesive tapes. Farnell labels - a major bugbear of mine. The old dot-matrix printed labels were great (if a little hard to read), but the thermal ones are utter junk. RS seem to use thermal-transfer. I usually copy the stock number onto the main bag with a marker pen... though I''ve toyed with the idea of using a Brother QL570 label printer or the Thinkjet clone (found for £1 in a camera shop, of all places) to reprint more hard-wearing labels. Paper/plastic component tapes - the 6mm P-touch labels are good for marking these up, but best to do a batch of them with the PC software to save label tape. I keep toying with the idea of making a paper-tape counter/labeller using a Thinkjet cartridge and a stepper motor. Obviously no good for the plastic tapes, but might be handy for resistors and capacitors (which invariably come on paper tape). Storage boxes - the Maplin SF05F boxes are probably 70% of my storage, with Raaco A45 and A46 Assorters taking up the rest. I've also got a few of the 4-litre "Really Useful" boxes (with a pair of "hobby tray" inserts) which are good for larger modules and sheets of antistatic foam loaded with ICs. The trading-card bags are better for components which ship on bandoleers - power diodes, thru-hole resistors and so on. But even those I only end up using for prototyping. Everything production is SMD - I still make my own PCBs, so reducing the number of holes which need drilling is a definite bonus! I guess we all find solutions as we need them, hence the sort-of "organic" layouts and assortments of different boxes. ${dayjob} only achieved consistency by throwing an absolute ton of components and boxes out, then buying all new. It works, but I wonder how long it'll last!
I really enjoyed watching this :) I to have the issue where I want to use kitchen work top but 600mm isn't deep enough for what I want but then buying wider is silly priced. I loved the old projects you have set up so you can turn them on and show them off. Great vid :)
Its always reassuring to see another engineer's workshop. Software development it is most definitely not! I still have loads of those grey drawers. Not many of mine have the handle left on either. Old-school 35mm photographic slide drawers might have been useful for keeping random semiconductor strips. Difficult to source now though. Which reminds me, you can get A4 sized 35mm film negative storage pages that might be useful for wider strips. Hama do pages for different sized medium format negatives and contact prints too.
Now that's a mad scientist's laboratory! They're not so much of a thing today but if you can get your hands on some old jewel CD cases you can pop the disc liner out of those cut off the disk part, and hot glue the edge back in. Then line the empty box with some foam and they hold parts really good. I wrote an article about how to do it here www.instructables.com/id/Jewel-Case-Parts-Storage-Box/
WOW, very nice Mike, Your video got me motivated to sort my own lab. I like particularly your back to front PC arrangement and priority use system. Thanks
The foam and foil thing for "anti-static" I think might have started with some of the electronics kit suppliers, I remember a lot of ICs in kits coming in foil-coated foam.
About the vise, simply mount some material on the last 3 inches so it grips beyond the countertop anti-spill hump. Around here you google "Cow mat" and you can get very thick rubber that is super super heavy duty. Makes for a good floor on concrete, too. As far as countertop material in the USA you can get butcher block maple tops in the same sizes as countertops. Extremely durable in the long run because you can keep oiling them and sanding them down. Don't know if you have that in England. I know when Stanley was there they favored the english beech wood.
Thanks for the idea of sticking a piece of rubber sheet between the vice and the bench. I've got a scrap of EPDM rubber shoved under the desk looking for a use, and I think I might have just found it!
For marking and writing on any surface Inc black plastic... Tip-ex pens. They will even hold up to oxy-act heat. Oil, water and mild solvents. They are worth their weight in gold to me (a mechanic)
Yes and no. Genuine tip ex pens seem to hold up well,I store them with no lid and when they do block up a few dabs in a puddle of brake cleaner they are good to go again. Brake clean obviously being readily available in my workshop. Grab a couple and try, I mark up all my socket and tool trays with them too. And even in this chemically and physically harsh environment the hold up great.
I purchased a box of 10(display case) a month or so ago ,am in the uk. They say right on them "may cause drowsiness or dizziness" so assume they are the good stuff. this box will likely last a million years but if I need more i'll need to bear in mind to get the good ones. to write with them you have to push the tip in and squeese gently, they wont write small like an ultra fine marker but will write small enough to mark up automotive connectors and vacuum hoses.
I tend to use a lot more through hole resistors these days. The trouble is storage. If you use the grey rack system for individual values they are too big. I got some long boxes from Konrad with multiple long compartments for things like resistors and diodes. I haven't the same space but it is as crowded! Wilkos 24 compartment boxes are great too!.
I can confirm Farnell are using thermic ink and it is very annoying after some time to find the labels almost unreadable or even completely blank. I rewrite them with a marker to avoid that.
Actually it's not ink, but *thermal paper. The paper itself turns dark when heated. Terrible stuff for something you want to keep. The better version is thermal transfer that we know from Brother/Dymo Labelwriters where it's a ribbon that's heated and transferred to the paper. These keeps almost indefinitely.
My suggestion is for one month tag everything you actually use, then after a month put everything else in a drawer, then if you use stuff out of the drawer more it to another drawer... after 3 months to a year move everything in the 1st drawer to long term storage... you’ll find you only actually need just a few tools... life is so much better when you’re organized... once I did this, I replaced everything I actually use with the highest end stuff I could buy, it would have been cheaper to do it that way to begin with by ten fold had I known what I actually needed...
I really like the Ikea LED lamps too! - I use neodymium magnets under my upper shelf to hold small pliers/cutters/screwdrivers. Here is my desk setup: hilo90mhz.com/desk/
Quick way to spruce up that white melamine is to grab some scouring powder and scrub it with some in water. Gets the dirt off and strips the top oxidised melamine layer off, leaving a surface that looks like new, and also fills the lighter scratches.
I use 7 day pill organisers for my SMD resistors and caps, 4x7 matrix of small flip top boxes, with printed labels. A wipe of acetone will remove the original markings if you want. imgur.com/NIeSVIP They are pretty secure, certainly 1206 and 0805 resistors won't go walkabout in them, 0603, even 0402 is OK too as long as you don't shake them around. It's easy to open the lids with the tip of your tweezers, pull out what you want, and close it again. Of course, always close the lid right away, leaving an open lid on the bench is a bad idea. I don't keep a full set of resistor values, I can always series or parallel them if I need a different value, mainly I use 1206 (those are the bins in the picture not marked with size). For "safety" I do usually keep some on tape in "cold storage" just in case of an accident, but I've never had to use it.
Loose resistors are too fiddly to deal with - keeping them on tape is more convenient, and you can vacuum pick from tape when doing lots onto a pasted board. You can't generally tweezer out of tape, I just tip a few out.
Mike ive found if you want thick desks get solid wood fire doors, they normally have a nice finish and are can be cut up depending on the depth you want.
ESD is really only a problem in factories because production line workers are doing repetitive tasks. Anything repetitive is in danger of building up a charge which eventually discharge to the n-th PCB they touch. A hobbyist/single engineer is doing much more random or chaotic tasks so there's much less risk of building up a charge.
It's not so much the repetition but the lower skill level, and sometimes just not giving a shit about doing a boring job. Also more precautions are taken due to the higher costs of any damage - rework costs, field failures etc.
It's also sheer quantity that comes into play. When you make 100k of some item in a factory and 0.1% get damaged you might notice. If Mike damages 0.1% of his work output he will most likely never know it was ESD, since the quantity is low and the other causes for faults such as simply dropping stuff and breaking it are far more likely.
I noticed you have quiet a bit of dust in the workshop, especially on lids and items on the ground. I was wondering how do you clean stuff up. I was thinking to invest in an air filter, and humidity control, both for making environment less prone to dust, and to ESD, but I have no idea how these air filters are effective at all in actually reducing dust.
30:38 Thermal labels! Exactly this. Everything that comes from Farnell Liege warehouse has these I think. Useless when they fade to nothing. Even in a sealed lightproof box. All I had left was a lot of small SOT devices with cryptic three character codes lasered into the package :(
One of the worst things from Farnell (and possibly other suppliers are also guilty) is those biodegradable static dissipative bags that they supply components in. These bags break down in storage and make a right mess.
Aurelius R I often heard that too, but I can see what Mike is saying. I would have thought that components on PCBs are generally more protected because their pins often have a lower resistance across them (due to the rest of the circuit), and the PCB itself helps dissipate ESD across it to some extent (bit of a Faraday cage effect)? Either way, parts on a PCB are still definitely still vulnerable to ESD zaps, which is why I cringe when I see people unnecessarily touching edge connectors on graphics cards etc. lol Modern chips / devices usually have more robust ESD clamp diodes, but it's worth getting into the habit of not touching the components nor traces too much. I've worked in a few telecoms factories over the years, including having to wear the full "bunny suit" - Even while wearing an ESD wrist strap, we still always held the PCBs by the edges.
Depends where you touch the finished board. A filtered input, no problem. A chip in the middle of the board... might be a problem. ESD seems to be a bit of a hot potato - everyone seems to have an opinion on how to do it "right". This appears to have sparked a cottage industry of companies which make or sell ESD kit - and will tell you that you need everything they sell. ESD-safe paintbrushes for instance... you just need a horse-hair (or any natural fibre) brush with a wooden handle... wood is slightly conductive which dissipates the built-up charge.
Aurelius R But yeah, I guess a PCB would have a pretty big stray / parasitic capacitance due to the traces and power / ground planes, so probably are more prone to zappage? With ESD, I'm fairly certain you can zap components / boards if they have a higher net charge on them too, and I think that's one of the reasons why the wrist straps usually have a 1M Ohm resistor in them, which obviously helps limit the discharge current, as well as for safety. (ie. You would normally think of the person having a greater charge potential than the component. It can happen either way though.)
philpem I agree that there is a whole industry built around "ESD Safe" products, and slight scaremongering. lol But, a few simple things in a small workshop are plenty. I just have an ESD mat on the bench, and just one of those black conductive brushes. I should really wear the wrist strap too, but only really building my own projects atm, so I'm not so strict over it. Although, if there ever comes a time when I (finally) release a project, and have to build or test multiple boards, I'll definitely be using the wrist strap and proper bags for storing the boards. And yep, it does of course depend on which areas of a board you're touching, and things like PCI / PCIe / HDMI often have extra clamp diodes because they know people will be touching the connectors. It still mystifies me when people spend £500 on a new graphics card, and then have their hands all over the board though. lol The main point is that although most modern stuff is more robust, there is always a risk, and the internal damage to a chip might not be noticed until months down the line. Best to take at least the minimum of precautions, especially on the expensive stuff. ;)
ESD is just one of those bugaboos. Anyone can say practically anything and be conditionally correct in the right set of circumstances. Now nobody judge me for my aluminum foil lined styrene tray liners over here!
I agree there is a need for long, narrow and shallow boxes for tubes. I hate tubes, it is hard to organise. And I also need to invest into SMD binders. I have gazillion of short SMD tapes and they are just in boxes, but it doesn't work for quick work, because boxes are a bit too large (deep), so I always end fishing in parts and it wasts a lot of time.. The antistatic plastic would be a big plus. Unfortunately for me, almost all my boxes and organizers are for mechanical parts, and are not really ESD proof.
Great tip regarding the plastic boxes. Just wondering about the lid retention problem, would screwing through side of the top and bottom work for non-frequently accessed stuff? Perhaps drill the hole and add a brass threaded insert but depending on the thickness of the plastic it might need a wooden block gluing on the inside for the insert to grip into.
My workshops tend to be floor-to-ceiling twin-slot shelving too. I also put the bench on the biggest twin-slot brackets and brace it to the ground at the front if needed with breakfast-bar supports. Mines a huge organised clutter too. But, like you, I can go straight to the thing I need in that clutter.
Have you done a shop tour video yet? I've picked up some pretty good tips and habits watching shop tours of people I'm subscribed to.
Wish I could install some of those as well, but I'm renting this flat and the landlord is not too keen on me changing the wall into a huge slab of swiss cheese... Everything is precariously balanced (which makes it more exciting, I guess)
Hang sheets of plywood, then perforate them as needed.
I would still have to hang those sheet from somewhere and I cannot drill holes into the wall (nothing major, at least). Walls are also very thin/cheap so it would take quite a few big screws to secure everything properly. I'm hoping to be able to move into my own house as soon as possible, so I can have all of the space I need.
I'm lucky that although my tenancy agreement says I shouldn't make holes in the walls, my actual landlady is fine with me doing so as long as I can fix it up before we move out, which is piss-easy with plasterboard. I've filled plenty of plasterboard screw holes before (after having used those metal screw-in plasterboard wall plugs, which leave moderately-sized holes when removed), and even filled/repaired a 6"-diameter hole in a wall after my housemate fell down the stairs and elbowed her way through the wall! (She was fine, thankfully, but I then had a 2-week on-and-off job repairing the wall, as the only person in the house capable of doing such a thing!)
As such I have a rack of open bins clipped to a plastic sheet on the wall, several racks of smallish plastic drawers, and a 7-foot-tall, 4-foot-wide bookcase full of random bits including stacks of compartmentalised plastic boxes (there are some lovely, decent-size, good-quality, 24-compartment boxes that Toby Electronics (UK) sell that I've bought 20 or so of, but they were selling them at clearance prices last time I checked, so they may no longer sell them...). My "workshop"/home-office is a piddly little box room (the little room that technically makes this a four-bedroom house, but no one would ever want to have this as a bedroom!), though, so things accumulate on the floor under the drawer units more often than not!
So the can of Raid is for debugging software?
wrt to farnell labels that just fade off with time (and eventually go completely blank): If you heat them up with a lighter or a heat gun, you can make them legible The part that was exposed previously will not react a second time, but the part that wasn't will darken. And so you end up with a reverse-video label white-on-black. Obviously only works once, but it can be very useful :p
Not the prettiest but certainly one of the most practical setups I have seen. Thanks for sharing!
That was very nice! I’ll start ordering sticker boxes. Thanks for passing on your experience to us newcomers. It’s extremely appreciated !
I think we ALL need to know what's in your box of "Funky op amps" !!!!!!
omsonic
Maybe they only sound good when playing Nile Rodgers or Stevie Wonder? lol
-"Thing 1") I ussually use another thinner top, MDF or another cheap (free from trash) panel over my chipboard+melamine top tables, so I can replace quickly, easily and very cheap/for free
-"Thing 2") I had years ago the idea of putting the back of the computer in front, but I didn't realize I can reverse the drives too ! Good idea !
-"Thing 3") I use the same "idea-structure" of storage and I put long things in the top, just above the ceiling, but the light path is reduced, the upper sides of the room are darker and lower the light is not the solution, because they will be interfering
-"Thing 4") I use also the Staedtler Permanent "F" for "normal things", but they are not the best for draw/repair PCB tracks before the acid, used to be, but not anymore, I think Staedtler changed the formulation, so, I contacted Staedtler a few years ago and they sent me one Staedtler special for optics and nano-something (I just google it : "Lumocolor permanent special 319") that works really well for PCB, but are a expensive
-"Thing 5") Hey ! Are those Hi-tec boots like mine ? :D
Thanks for the ideas and all your videos, Cheers !
Extremely helpful.
Think a minute about how TH-cam is giving a new generation access to people like you. I grew up in the Berkeley Homebrew Club. That depended on pure luck of getting a job at Lawrence Berkeley. How many people had that luck?
Today, you impact kids on a diversion program from jail living in the middle of nowhere near an old retired teacher.
Amazing.
My students watched this twice and made fun of me the whole time.
I appreciate the ESD reality check. I am so sick of ESD cops who have no idea how capacitance effects anything. They just love that EEVBlog blue. Sickening to see young people taught crap.
Please teach some more of this simple stuff. I assure you, young people soak it up. The State Prison won’t let them post anything on the internet.
What a damn shame.
This is a gold mine of info for productivity
Thanks a ton. The reverse computer case is brilliant
Am I the only one wondering what Mike's house is like? Love the chaotic-but-organised look of everything. Also: I think Mike contradicts himself in this video, I'm sure in one video, he once said that fully populated boards are less susceptible to damage by ESD, which made sense at the time, but this new statement taking the charge and capacitance in relation to other surfaces into account is true as well... :)
ESD in general is a low risk - populated boards have different risks to individual parts, and the fact that lots of parts are interconnected goes some way to improving protection, but with the exception of unusually delicate unprotected devices, it's pretty difficult to kill a loose part unless maybe it's on a metal surface
It was Dave at EEVBlog that said populated boards are less vulnerable. It's what I was taught as well, but Mike's logic also makes sense. I tend to just not give a crap about either or and accept that someday I *might* zap something.
@ Dick Fageroni, That would be my guess as well. :)
It is always comforting to see that I am not alone at having a lab like that, storage like that, saving everything, we are all closing in on getting a diagnosed with hoarding syndrome :)
Thanks for the walk-through, although a little too detailed and long.
I'd rather have what I don't need than need what I don't have.
Wow I was still at school 20 years ago and just discovered mikeselectricstuff website. It's been awesome following you over the years Mike!
Thanks for putting this video together. The timing for me could not be better. I -just- so happened to be in the midst moving my electronics lab between rooms. I am setting up in a rather small space. I have just set up an industrialish type shelf, (~4'x2') with the bottom shelf at desk height and another "shelf" 5 inches above that to become my work surface. The remaining shelves are above head height. Mounted an LED light to the bottom of the shelf above. Another idea I have is to mount some light weight bins and/or test leads to the inside of a closet door. I will have my test equipment on a nearby shelf unit that has casters, I hope this will allow me to roll the shelf out to cable equipment up as needed. Because my computer will be at a separate desk across the room, I will extend the video signal over to the bench and have a small monitor setup for viewing schematics, data sheets etc.
12:34: Any thoughts on PCB dust? I have CNCed a lot of PCBs for a while, but I got a bit scared because no regular vacuum filter seems to be able to contain the super fine glass fiber dust. Wouldn't want to breath something like that ...
The Signal Path even went as far as to make a pcb fixture that allowed him to submerge the pcb's to be milled in oil
oh, marco here :) I like your channel
Hey Marco, you could try something similar to what Chris has done in the video linked below. It seems to be common practice to sprinkle some water on the spindle/part when milling carbon fiber to keep the fine dust from being circulated in the air. You could try that with water or some other coolant. Although I don't know if the water/other coolants would negatively affect the pcb though.
th-cam.com/video/VDjdMW4_eRc/w-d-xo.html
I don't think drilling and milling with chip-breaker cutters produces particularly fine dust - a lot of what you are cutting is the resin, and I'd imagine the glass tends to stay bound to it rather than becoming loose fibres. Only issue I've had is occasional slight itchiness - never noticed anything obviously airborne.
How's the airflow through the general workshop area? If a capacitor pops, or wire housing burns, how long does it stay funky? Any special provisions, or naturally well ventilated?
Note that "breakfast bar" worktop is 90cm deep. Widely available now at the usual outlets (B&Q etc) and used for those required island units.
One of my favourite TH-camrs that the algorithm has decided to find this older video to show me, left pathologically tidy me shocked and uncomfortable 😲
However I realise why I get so little done as I spend so much time tidying and cleaning up my little multi purpose room!!!
6:38 you can fill that in with ca glue and produce an epoxy finish on that counter top and bring it back to "good as new" while having allot more character. keep in mind though that "good as new" in this case still means a big chunk of particle board with a plastic coating. honestly for electronics i can't think of a good surface that wouldn't ultimately be sacrificial, the surfaces that wouldn't be damaged by electrical work would damage the things you are trying to work on (granite, marble, in general stone surfaces) so i think i can only say you should probably look at woodworking workbenches. easy to damage but easy to fix. you can't use welding benches for electronics, they are conductive and even designed to be as conductive as possible. the best electronics benches i have seen are eevblog's. just some basic tables with a conductive mat on the surface that can be tied into wrist straps. i'd put discharge panels in so you don't need to hook up to discharge yourself, but that is about as good as it gets for an electronics bench at home.
The problem with kitchen worktop, is that the cheapest worktop 20 years ago, was 10 times better than the cheapest worktop is now, and also the cheapest worktop is not cheap anymore.
arcadeuk depends where you buy it from;)
Still, kitchen worktop is probably the only proper working surface in mass production, so ... an alternative to a kitchen sink might be a door. they are usually much wider (and longer) too. and people are somehow averted to having generic doors in their new apartments, so these are thrown away en masse.
DIY might be another cheap alternative.
Another option is two sheets of 19 or 20mm stirling board glued together for the thickness, and that way extra depth can be obtained. Then cover that with either laminate or rubber sheet.
I got mine by asking the store manager if there were any pieces with small chips in that he couldn't sell on the shop floor.
'a completely empty spot, il have to find something to put there'
Thanks for the tour. Funny that my lab space is very similar in terms of workbench and testgear arrangement. I also use a kitchen surface with self made supports, but I went throught the 3 months wait to have the 90cm deep surface made to order which did end up costing 210 EUR. Also got the same shelving with the same, colorful boxes, even the same size. I have not plastered the walls with sockets like you have, which in my case was a mistake since I waste space at the back of the workbench with multiple outlet power strips.
I'm using a kitchen worktop too, an off the shelf B&Q one.
My latest improvement (today!) power-strip wise was to mount an IEC "kettle-lead" (C13/C14) outlet strip under the worktop. All the testgear hooks up through that, and then into one socket on the wall. Instruments get turned on/off via their front-panel on/off switches.
The next task is to move the power strip for the soldering equipment onto the underside of the bench too - via an isolator switch and socket for safety reasons.
Fascinating. Thank you for making this video.
12:10 You have to be kidding me. A pick & place machine!
Your shop is amazing! I wished mine could be nearly as professional. There are many great things to replicate, like the U-shaped desk layout.
I hope you get well paid by your customers, VERY well paid.
When I look now around to the mess that I have in my office/workshop, based on Mike's standard everything is so clean and well organized :)
Awesome lab. I am also a fan of this shelving system, and have entire continues wall just filled with shelves (2.5m high, 4m wide, with 7 U profiles attaches to a wall, with a lot of screws so it can support probably a ton of stuff together). Most of my shelves are 30cm deep, but few of them are 40cm and 60cm, i.e. for very deep test and measurement equipement. And at the lowest level 20cm, so there is a bit space for stuff on ground and legs. Plus boxes on ground. It all is stable and reconfigurable easily. Great stuff. I also use a lot of Orthex SmartStore Classic boxes (around 200 boxes total), as they are easy to stack and are transparent, and locking lids, so it is easy to move around, put on shelves or stack on floor. And a lot of LED strips on the bottom side of shelves, with individual RC controlled switches, so I can set it up the way I like.
I agree that it is really hard to get anything deeper than 60cm for a desk top. I usually take two 60cm deep (standard) stuff, and extend it to 80cm by cutting second top into 3x20cm sections, and using the other 20cm sections as shelves above the desk (mostly for books).
Troley on wheels in the corner is very smart move! I need to do that in my lab too.
Thanks for showing us around. The explanation about ESD is interesting. From the literature I've come to the conclusion the opposite was true, components are easier destroyed by ESD than mounted on a PCB. As for single prototypes, I've never run in to ESD problems. As for production it's standard practice to ESD bag all the things.
I think he could have simply stated that he lived in a bog, and left it there.
I definitely recommend asking people who make custom kitchens if they have any "scrap" table tops, they often have ~2m pieces of discontinued table tops, they won't use it for a kitchen, since it's kinda short for that, but you might be able to buy it cut to the length you want for the shop, I built my PC desk out of that, it's 1.8m long (60cm deep) and it's a really nice Austrian table top, for which I paid half the price of a cheap table to, including cable passthroughs and putting trim on the ends
Thanks for the "Clear peel box" trip.
This is just what i need to organize my lab, but things can be hard to find on ebay without the magic search term
I think these may be the ones Mike uses: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-PEEL-OFF-CLEAR-PLASTIC-CRAFT-BOX-STORAGE-BOXES-IN-SINGLE-5s-OR-10s-/112692541009?var=&hash=item1a3cffb651 bit there are others cheaper: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Peel-Off-Box-Clear-Plastic-x10-Storage-Craft-Container/253357211775?_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20160908110712%26meid%3D12e50484f10241079d7a5d53b2aba23a%26pid%3D100677%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D11%26sd%3D201471060588&_trksid=p2385738.c100677.m4598
Fishing tackle boxes are handy, many various sizes, long ones for float storage, many smaller compartments for shot weights, variety sizes with and without dense foam inserts for fly/spinner storage etc. Many have decent clip closures.
This is the definition of organised chaos!
Any love for clear plastic takeaway containers?
I buy them by the 100 from the local cash & carry. They do various sizes which all have the same footprint but have varying heights.
Work great as part bins, and I also use them for storing bolts, washers, nuts, etc. for my main mechanics workshop.
...And another lot with woodscrews of every size in my wood-shop.
You don't have the slide-out-ability from a stack though, and the ones I've seen are a bit deep and not as long
they just break too fast and they're kinda annoying imo
I also have a box of old PCBs that really need to go as I had exactly the same idea 10 years ago and the only parts I re-used were from old power supplies like odd ball through hour parts etc..having heard your comments I have decided to throw most of these out in to a recycling skip when I sort the garage.
Nice workshop. I like to take stuff off of old circuit boards. I choose components that lookstrange and interesting, not just capacitors. Then I try to figure what they do and how they differ from things on Ebay. I keep my components in large coffee cans on the floor marked on top with a general catigory lable.
Yeah it is hard to get parts today like some of the good vintage stuff. It is all counterfeit now.
Great vid., as usual, Mike. Thanks for posting.
The "peel off storage boxes" you're using are likely made by Weston Boxes - www.westonboxes.com/collections/craft-storage-boxes/products/peel-off-storage-box. I use them a heck of a lot for storage boxes. My favorites for small things are their business card boxes, combined with either A4 or A5 boxes. You get 8 or 16 business card boxes on edge nicely in the larger boxes, makes it very convenient.
I doubt they're made by Weston Boxes -- at least not for less than a pound each! They're likely made in China or Taiwan somewhere...
Oh that is my aim to have a workshop like that, I could spend all day playing with things
The reverse case PC is a very good idea, wish I thought of that.
I feel you, man. All those years of saying "fuck" from under the table, crumbled in most inconvenient ways ... it is funny to think how the floppy (and then cd/dvd) went and the front side of the computer was there only as an opposite to the back one.
To our defense, a lay person will probably instinctively put the connector side facing the wall because of the cable management. And obviously, Mike is very accustomed to installations, where a computer is just yet another tool, and a proper cable management is in place with or without it.
Those red and green plastic diffusers are nice though
I built my worktops using decking boards, that way, you get to control the width furthermore, the small groves are great for stopping stuff rolling off the top or for catching small screws or whatever it is that you drop.
Re worktop; Look at breakfast bar worktop - it’s 900mm deep. Also oak breakfast bar stuff is 900 without the rounded edge.
Find myself wanting to questions like: What PCB layout SW do you use? Where do you get your PCBs Made? Do you use fume extraction equipment? Could go on, but I'll stop now. So thanks for sharing with us you insights into how you use your workshop.
Great video Mike. a 4k 30" monitor will change your life (layout, schematics and datasheets)
4k 40" is the hot tip for me. Makes four nice sized 1080 windows or like you say blow up larger items across the whole thing.
4k 40" defeats the purpose I believe, especially in a cramped workspace.
For wider kitchen worktops, try 'island' worktops, just over 3 foot wide, personally i would cut off the round edge, then glue a wood strip on the front, if there's a possibility of spilled coffee, the edge strip can be stuck in place with a bit of silicone to seal it.
If using a circular saw to cut it, cut with top down to avoid split out of the surface. :
Only problem with the stick-on edging strip is that the glue tends to fail over time, to the point where catching it with a tool will peel the whole thing. I'd sooner put up with the rounded edge because the coating on the melamine worktop is a hell of a lot tougher.
Not edging strip, but an actual piece of wood, it's a good idea as it becomes a wear strip too.
For the baseball card sheet, I use by with anti-static small bag that fit nicely and that adds some fiction for retention.
Thanks for the grand tour of the workshop of the most interesting electric stuff channel
A long awaited video, ordered chaos like an engineering workshop should be.
you can see that it is a place where things get done
Thanks for sharing! I have just taken your advice on the small plastic storage boxes, I'm looking forward to improving on my IKEA storage solution!
On "A place for everything and everything in its place" agreed 100%, my version of that is "I like to have a place for everything and everything in its place, the problem is I don't have enough places for things so my workareas look like bomb sites"
Be careful when you open the ferret box! (37:06)
I read lots of negative comments about your organization, but you seem very productive with it. It seems well suited to hardware development and your kind of research.
Your comment about organizing for development versus production made a lot of sense to me, but I never thought of it that way before. I also started putting “on hold” projects in boxes to keep them easy to restart.
I liked your yellow compartment boxes, and will look for similar because movable dividers don’t stay put well. I’m also looking for the long clear boxes, and will pick up some of those.
I must have over a hundred cheap clear plastic boxes with white lids over the years for trying to organize my stuff from various hobbies, home repairs, etc. I only found out a year ago they are intended for shoe storage. Those and a label maker have made a huge difference to me.
At 21:57 was that a ginormous (25+mm?) green LED on the right side of the “More LEDs” box?
Yeah, so long as it works *shrug*
Very good video. Couldn't agree more with unlabelled parts are useless sentiment. I'm trying to arrange my stuff in bins each that has a stated generic purpose and when I have time going through a single bin and listing the contents in a spreadsheet. I decided that cataloguing the lot in one go was just never going to happen.
There are 1206 SMD resistor "sample pack" on AliExpress with 4000 or 8000 resistors in a binder. The strips are not long enough for a feeder but it might be useful for development to quickly find the resistor value thats needed.
Edit: oh, it gets covered 25:00
Well these books are for the weird values.
I have a reel of the common parts like 10E 100E 1K 10K 1nF 100nF 1uF etc where i can grab as many as i want. But when you need that one single 91K resistor for that regulator voltage feedback or whatever the books are a lifesaver.
Few thoughts on smt binder sheets:
The ones you can get from china all seem to be just A5 for some reason. I always thought they (the A4 ones you can get in europe) are little too expensive, I also think there isn't anyone who would sell plain sheets without components.
It's possible to make them yourself, what I have tried was just go along a line with soldering iron, the problem there is that you need to make sort of intermitent movement, otherwise you end up just cutting the sheet (if you look at the professional ones, the melted lines are dotted).
Ideas for making them that I had but didn't try:
-Make a comb-like jig that you heat up and touch the foil to make the line at once
-Use a laser engraver
-fix a soldering iron to a cnc router
You can even make double-sided compartments if you put a single layer of the foil inside the sheet.
To ease putting in the components, cut one layer (both outer layers if you make double-sided) shorter few milimetres before melting in the lines.
The Farnell ones are the only A4's I've found, the web page is slightly misleading as it mentions resistors. A5s are a bit too small - you need something that will take 100 parts as 2 strips as that's a common MOQ.
EEVBLOG made some A4 ones, but with horizontal orientation, which again looks like it ends up a bit short - listed in his store but often out of stock.
Maybe a cogged wheel fitted to a large soldering iron like a pizza cutter?
I'm sure you could get the heat to transfer into the wheel if you mount it in a solid copper yoke.
What you likely want for sealing strips in plastic sheets like that is a device called an "impulse sealer" (at least that's how you find them on AliExpress & eBay). Big Clive's torn-down one before, but it's essentially a heating element strip connected to a variable timer that, when tweaked just right, melts plastic sleeves/bags together. Those are also how you seal up anti-static or polythene(?) bags semi-permanently. Not sure how fiddly it'd be to use one to seal just _parts_ of a page, though - maybe aluminium tape in the areas that you don't want sealed, to reflect the heat away? I've not tried it (and my impulse sealer is much too small a device for this kind of work).
Mike, Does your EL clock still work? That Nixie you built for me is now 22 years old and works perfectly
Just about - a lot of variation in segment brightness now. Overdue for replacement.
"SM CM Filters & Ferrets" LOL I love it
Ferrite ferrets, clears up noise and finds lost rabbits!
Something I have found useful is switched power strip the type with one master switch that means you can be confordent that all soldering irons etc are off .
Organized chaos, I love it!
People who call this chaos or disorganization have never done actual work I think :-)
Nice video - and thanks for the ebay search terms for component storage boxes!
The workboxes with the locking lids - if those are what I think they are (Raaco assorter boxes), then you can write on them. You want a Uni "Prockey" marker (Paperchase stock these), or a Uni or Edding solvent-based paint marker. But with that said - the P-Touch style labels do tend to last longer, especially if you use the Strong Adhesive tapes.
Farnell labels - a major bugbear of mine. The old dot-matrix printed labels were great (if a little hard to read), but the thermal ones are utter junk. RS seem to use thermal-transfer. I usually copy the stock number onto the main bag with a marker pen... though I''ve toyed with the idea of using a Brother QL570 label printer or the Thinkjet clone (found for £1 in a camera shop, of all places) to reprint more hard-wearing labels.
Paper/plastic component tapes - the 6mm P-touch labels are good for marking these up, but best to do a batch of them with the PC software to save label tape.
I keep toying with the idea of making a paper-tape counter/labeller using a Thinkjet cartridge and a stepper motor. Obviously no good for the plastic tapes, but might be handy for resistors and capacitors (which invariably come on paper tape).
Storage boxes - the Maplin SF05F boxes are probably 70% of my storage, with Raaco A45 and A46 Assorters taking up the rest. I've also got a few of the 4-litre "Really Useful" boxes (with a pair of "hobby tray" inserts) which are good for larger modules and sheets of antistatic foam loaded with ICs.
The trading-card bags are better for components which ship on bandoleers - power diodes, thru-hole resistors and so on. But even those I only end up using for prototyping. Everything production is SMD - I still make my own PCBs, so reducing the number of holes which need drilling is a definite bonus!
I guess we all find solutions as we need them, hence the sort-of "organic" layouts and assortments of different boxes. ${dayjob} only achieved consistency by throwing an absolute ton of components and boxes out, then buying all new. It works, but I wonder how long it'll last!
I really enjoyed watching this :) I to have the issue where I want to use kitchen work top but 600mm isn't deep enough for what I want but then buying wider is silly priced. I loved the old projects you have set up so you can turn them on and show them off. Great vid :)
Its always reassuring to see another engineer's workshop. Software development it is most definitely not! I still have loads of those grey drawers. Not many of mine have the handle left on either. Old-school 35mm photographic slide drawers might have been useful for keeping random semiconductor strips. Difficult to source now though. Which reminds me, you can get A4 sized 35mm film negative storage pages that might be useful for wider strips. Hama do pages for different sized medium format negatives and contact prints too.
Film binders ar a bit wide & loose
Now that's a mad scientist's laboratory! They're not so much of a thing today but if you can get your hands on some old jewel CD cases you can pop the disc liner out of those cut off the disk part, and hot glue the edge back in. Then line the empty box with some foam and they hold parts really good. I wrote an article about how to do it here www.instructables.com/id/Jewel-Case-Parts-Storage-Box/
WOW, very nice Mike, Your video got me motivated to sort my own lab. I like particularly your back to front PC arrangement and priority use system. Thanks
The foam and foil thing for "anti-static" I think might have started with some of the electronics kit suppliers, I remember a lot of ICs in kits coming in foil-coated foam.
I tend to have horizontal bars where I hang loops of solder, cable or tape etc. donut shaped things. Keeps them put so I don't displace them :)
About the vise, simply mount some material on the last 3 inches so it grips beyond the countertop anti-spill hump. Around here you google "Cow mat" and you can get very thick rubber that is super super heavy duty. Makes for a good floor on concrete, too.
As far as countertop material in the USA you can get butcher block maple tops in the same sizes as countertops. Extremely durable in the long run because you can keep oiling them and sanding them down. Don't know if you have that in England. I know when Stanley was there they favored the english beech wood.
Thanks for the idea of sticking a piece of rubber sheet between the vice and the bench. I've got a scrap of EPDM rubber shoved under the desk looking for a use, and I think I might have just found it!
The triple ended USB cable is the SparkFun Cerberus USB Cable www.sparkfun.com/products/12016
funky opamps - a good name for a band
My kind of organization.
Mike you're always the voice of experience. The Great Farnellius and his amazing disappearing label text scuppered me only last week :-(
For marking and writing on any surface Inc black plastic... Tip-ex pens. They will even hold up to oxy-act heat. Oil, water and mild solvents. They are worth their weight in gold to me (a mechanic)
Will try - are they prone to drying & gumming up when not used though, like paint pens?
Yes and no. Genuine tip ex pens seem to hold up well,I store them with no lid and when they do block up a few dabs in a puddle of brake cleaner they are good to go again. Brake clean obviously being readily available in my workshop. Grab a couple and try, I mark up all my socket and tool trays with them too. And even in this chemically and physically harsh environment the hold up great.
Are they water of solvent based ?- in the UK I think they stopped selling the old solvent tippex because kids were sniffing it.
Yeap, the old ones were Trichloroethane based and so much more usable than the newer ones.
I purchased a box of 10(display case) a month or so ago ,am in the uk. They say right on them "may cause drowsiness or dizziness" so assume they are the good stuff. this box will likely last a million years but if I need more i'll need to bear in mind to get the good ones. to write with them you have to push the tip in and squeese gently, they wont write small like an ultra fine marker but will write small enough to mark up automotive connectors and vacuum hoses.
That ESD discussion @30min was alone worth to watch the 30min before
I tend to use a lot more through hole resistors these days. The trouble is storage. If you use the grey rack system for individual values they are too big. I got some long boxes from Konrad with multiple long compartments for things like resistors and diodes. I haven't the same space but it is as crowded! Wilkos 24 compartment boxes are great too!.
I can confirm Farnell are using thermic ink and it is very annoying after some time to find the labels almost unreadable or even completely blank. I rewrite them with a marker to avoid that.
Actually it's not ink, but *thermal paper. The paper itself turns dark when heated. Terrible stuff for something you want to keep. The better version is thermal transfer that we know from Brother/Dymo Labelwriters where it's a ribbon that's heated and transferred to the paper. These keeps almost indefinitely.
I don't think that can of Raid is an effective software debugging tool. Just saying.
No it's just for de-bug-ing
Amazing .. really enjoyed this one
Hmm, "clear peel box" appears to work only on ebay.co.uk. Those do look like a decent solution, though.
My suggestion is for one month tag everything you actually use, then after a month put everything else in a drawer, then if you use stuff out of the drawer more it to another drawer... after 3 months to a year move everything in the 1st drawer to long term storage... you’ll find you only actually need just a few tools... life is so much better when you’re organized... once I did this, I replaced everything I actually use with the highest end stuff I could buy, it would have been cheaper to do it that way to begin with by ten fold had I known what I actually needed...
Love the funky OpAmps 👍
I really like the Ikea LED lamps too! - I use neodymium magnets under my upper shelf to hold small pliers/cutters/screwdrivers. Here is my desk setup: hilo90mhz.com/desk/
My favourite part: "Funky Op Amps"
Quick way to spruce up that white melamine is to grab some scouring powder and scrub it with some in water. Gets the dirt off and strips the top oxidised melamine layer off, leaving a surface that looks like new, and also fills the lighter scratches.
I use 7 day pill organisers for my SMD resistors and caps, 4x7 matrix of small flip top boxes, with printed labels. A wipe of acetone will remove the original markings if you want.
imgur.com/NIeSVIP
They are pretty secure, certainly 1206 and 0805 resistors won't go walkabout in them, 0603, even 0402 is OK too as long as you don't shake them around. It's easy to open the lids with the tip of your tweezers, pull out what you want, and close it again.
Of course, always close the lid right away, leaving an open lid on the bench is a bad idea.
I don't keep a full set of resistor values, I can always series or parallel them if I need a different value, mainly I use 1206 (those are the bins in the picture not marked with size).
For "safety" I do usually keep some on tape in "cold storage" just in case of an accident, but I've never had to use it.
Loose resistors are too fiddly to deal with - keeping them on tape is more convenient, and you can vacuum pick from tape when doing lots onto a pasted board. You can't generally tweezer out of tape, I just tip a few out.
Mike ive found if you want thick desks get solid wood fire doors, they normally have a nice finish and are can be cut up depending on the depth you want.
Great video. Can you share the make+model of the gooseneck lamps and 13m05s please.
Ikea Glanso
ESD is really only a problem in factories because production line workers are doing repetitive tasks. Anything repetitive is in danger of building up a charge which eventually discharge to the n-th PCB they touch. A hobbyist/single engineer is doing much more random or chaotic tasks so there's much less risk of building up a charge.
It's not so much the repetition but the lower skill level, and sometimes just not giving a shit about doing a boring job. Also more precautions are taken due to the higher costs of any damage - rework costs, field failures etc.
It's also sheer quantity that comes into play.
When you make 100k of some item in a factory and 0.1% get damaged you might notice.
If Mike damages 0.1% of his work output he will most likely never know it was ESD, since the quantity is low and the other causes for faults such as simply dropping stuff and breaking it are far more likely.
I noticed you have quiet a bit of dust in the workshop, especially on lids and items on the ground. I was wondering how do you clean stuff up. I was thinking to invest in an air filter, and humidity control, both for making environment less prone to dust, and to ESD, but I have no idea how these air filters are effective at all in actually reducing dust.
Oh, nice. Now I feeling fine because my workshops is a bit cleaner... :)
30:38 Thermal labels! Exactly this. Everything that comes from Farnell Liege warehouse has these I think. Useless when they fade to nothing. Even in a sealed lightproof box. All I had left was a lot of small SOT devices with cryptic three character codes lasered into the package :(
its not complete but help to find most of the common parts www.s-manuals.com/smd
Your workspace is the proof of the saying "Nature abhors empty space" 😅
I use tiny plastic testtubes for storing my 0603 resistors and capacitors. One 1.5mL testtube holds around 1000 pcs :P
this is a really great idea!
Thanks :D :D :D
me too. The sort with white screw tops so you can write on them. I made a rack by drilling holes in foam rubber with a water pipe
so...
You keep your ferrets in a plastic box...
Hopefully, you've, at least, provided air holes.
interesting. why's that important?
Ferrets, being mammals, need to breathe :(
Ferrets != ferrites
Ah, ok! :-)
Now that's funny.
I'm not a native so it took me a while...
Ever considered doing youtube as full time job ? You deffo got charisma and knowledge.
Not really - too lazy to do it properly, and I already have a job...
One of the worst things from Farnell (and possibly other suppliers are also guilty) is those biodegradable static dissipative bags that they supply components in. These bags break down in storage and make a right mess.
Funky opamps, ancient io, antique cpus... hehehe
at 32:00 that's weird... I was always told that it was completed boards that were safe, and individual parts were vulnerable to ESD.
Aurelius R
I often heard that too, but I can see what Mike is saying.
I would have thought that components on PCBs are generally more protected because their pins often have a lower resistance across them (due to the rest of the circuit), and the PCB itself helps dissipate ESD across it to some extent (bit of a Faraday cage effect)?
Either way, parts on a PCB are still definitely still vulnerable to ESD zaps, which is why I cringe when I see people unnecessarily touching edge connectors on graphics cards etc. lol
Modern chips / devices usually have more robust ESD clamp diodes, but it's worth getting into the habit of not touching the components nor traces too much.
I've worked in a few telecoms factories over the years, including having to wear the full "bunny suit" - Even while wearing an ESD wrist strap, we still always held the PCBs by the edges.
Depends where you touch the finished board. A filtered input, no problem. A chip in the middle of the board... might be a problem.
ESD seems to be a bit of a hot potato - everyone seems to have an opinion on how to do it "right". This appears to have sparked a cottage industry of companies which make or sell ESD kit - and will tell you that you need everything they sell.
ESD-safe paintbrushes for instance... you just need a horse-hair (or any natural fibre) brush with a wooden handle... wood is slightly conductive which dissipates the built-up charge.
Aurelius R
But yeah, I guess a PCB would have a pretty big stray / parasitic capacitance due to the traces and power / ground planes, so probably are more prone to zappage?
With ESD, I'm fairly certain you can zap components / boards if they have a higher net charge on them too, and I think that's one of the reasons why the wrist straps usually have a 1M Ohm resistor in them, which obviously helps limit the discharge current, as well as for safety.
(ie. You would normally think of the person having a greater charge potential than the component. It can happen either way though.)
philpem
I agree that there is a whole industry built around "ESD Safe" products, and slight scaremongering. lol
But, a few simple things in a small workshop are plenty.
I just have an ESD mat on the bench, and just one of those black conductive brushes.
I should really wear the wrist strap too, but only really building my own projects atm, so I'm not so strict over it.
Although, if there ever comes a time when I (finally) release a project, and have to build or test multiple boards, I'll definitely be using the wrist strap and proper bags for storing the boards.
And yep, it does of course depend on which areas of a board you're touching, and things like PCI / PCIe / HDMI often have extra clamp diodes because they know people will be touching the connectors.
It still mystifies me when people spend £500 on a new graphics card, and then have their hands all over the board though. lol
The main point is that although most modern stuff is more robust, there is always a risk, and the internal damage to a chip might not be noticed until months down the line.
Best to take at least the minimum of precautions, especially on the expensive stuff. ;)
ESD is just one of those bugaboos. Anyone can say practically anything and be conditionally correct in the right set of circumstances. Now nobody judge me for my aluminum foil lined styrene tray liners over here!
PVC pipe for screwdrivers - good idea! thanks!
Also usable for similar purposes are shampoo bottles, with the top cut off.
The more power / main sockets the better. Every 10 cm there should be a socket, so it is convinient to connect stuff.
Great setup - but where's all the Rigol stuff though? :)
The only Rigol I have is the AWG
I agree there is a need for long, narrow and shallow boxes for tubes. I hate tubes, it is hard to organise. And I also need to invest into SMD binders. I have gazillion of short SMD tapes and they are just in boxes, but it doesn't work for quick work, because boxes are a bit too large (deep), so I always end fishing in parts and it wasts a lot of time.. The antistatic plastic would be a big plus. Unfortunately for me, almost all my boxes and organizers are for mechanical parts, and are not really ESD proof.
Love the enterprise screensaver on the scope screen!
It is actually a hidden easter egg in the scope :)
Some great ideas; thanks much for sharing!
Great tip regarding the plastic boxes.
Just wondering about the lid retention problem, would screwing through side of the top and bottom work for non-frequently accessed stuff? Perhaps drill the hole and add a brass threaded insert but depending on the thickness of the plastic it might need a wooden block gluing on the inside for the insert to grip into.