What does your shop look like?

[martin martin]

We all design and build clocks until there's no more room in the house for another one... then we make a new one!

What does your shop look like?  Is it the garage, basement, kitchen?

Here's my little corner of the house:

Tektronix 100 MHz scope with built-in freq counter and VM

Lambda dual power supply (80s vintage)

Heathkit 2.5 VOM (70s)

Fluke auto-ranging VOM

Of course the scope doubles as a clock - 1965 GE Telechron clock in the background- extremely accurate too

[jb-electronics]

Great idea, looking forward to seeing all your workshops! I have finally been able to set up a small workbench in my student's dorm as well. The problem is that I cannot bold anything to the walls, so I have to be creative. I am still starting out, but this is what I have so far.

Cheers

Jens

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[David Forbes]

I'm moving this week, so it looks like this.

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[Mahdi Al Husseini]

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[J Forbes]

Time to do some work to this car, it's signed up to go on Drag Week in September. The electronics stuff doesn't take up much room, so I work on it wherever I feel like at the time...kitchen table, dining room table, office desk, shop work bench, floor, etc.

stuff in the shop: brake, lathe, mill, TIG, MIG, and torch welders, etc. Plus a Tek 535A.

[Michail Wilson]

I wish my garage had that much open space.

 

GF finally jumped my ass about using the kitchen table, dining room table, etc etc.   Now what am I supposed to do?  She might soon be the ex-gf.  That will open up some space.  J

 

 

Michail Wilson

206-920-6312

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[Terry Gains]

Extra points if the shop has nixie test gear?

Disclaimer: Photo was taken with my phone. so sorry for the focus.

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[Oscilloclock]

I built my lab into a tiny 5-tatami mat room (only 7.74 sq m!). This was all my wife would allow. But it's chock-a-block full of beautiful old (and functional) test equipment scrounged from decades of visits to university dumps, flea markets, ham fairs, and (recently) auctions! I got the earliest piece when I was just eight years old. The shelves are customized to fit the equipment (and not the other way round).

More at http://oscilloclock.com/archives/498 .

- Aaron

[Tyler Bourne]

I got my lab set up a few months ago after refurbishing a lab bench I got from the side of the road.  Everything else was formerly in the living room. (I must applaud my wife's endless patience)  Bit of a mess in this picture though.

[Nicholas Stock]

We used to be able to park cars in the garage....

Ha ha ha...

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<IMG_20190707_121357770_HDR.jpg>

[Jon Jackson]

Nick,

You must live in southern California having those nets to catch anything that shakes off of the shelves...

Jon

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[Nicholas Stock]

Indeed....we felt the latest quake centered outside of LA....bit of a roller, not very strong, but I'm quite a way south of LA. When you spend that much time organizing, the last thing you want is mother nature putting a couple thousand  components, screws and nuts all over the place!

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[Mahdi Al Husseini]

Older pictures I admit but here they are

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[Paul Andrews]

Here is my home office. I built the bench. The shelves are attached to the bench, not the wall, and that whole part detaches to make it easier to move around. I'm in the middle of a project, so it is all a bit of a mess at the moment. The first photo shows the bench just after I built it - I've got a lot more equipment and parts now as you can see in the second photo.

[martin martin]

Does that old TV work?  

~

mcve...@gmail.com

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[Paul Andrews]

I haven’t turned it on yet. It’s in the queue of projects! It’s a Predicta Holiday. This is a Predicta Siesta I restored back in January

On Jul 8, 2019, at 12:42 PM, martin martin <mcve...@gmail.com> wrote:

Does that old TV work?  

~

mcve...@gmail.com

On Mon, Jul 8, 2019 at 9:40 AM Paul Andrews <pa...@nixies.us> wrote:

Here is my home office. I built the bench. The shelves are attached to the bench, not the wall, and that whole part detaches to make it easier to move around. I'm in the middle of a project, so it is all a bit of a mess at the moment. The first photo shows the bench just after I built it - I've got a lot more equipment and parts now as you can see in the second photo.

<IMG_3825.JPG>

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[Nicholas Stock]

Respect. I love those old TV sets....got quite enamoured with the old 50’s/early 60’s German radios....no TV’s yet.....may just have to get one to show the kids what it used to be like before the new-fangled LED’s...:)

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 8, 2019, at 10:00, Paul Andrews <judg...@gmail.com> wrote:

I haven’t turned it on yet. It’s in the queue of projects! It’s a Predicta Holiday. This is a Predicta Siesta I restored back in January

<image1.jpeg>

On Jul 8, 2019, at 12:42 PM, martin martin <mcve...@gmail.com> wrote:

Does that old TV work?  

~

mcve...@gmail.com

On Mon, Jul 8, 2019 at 9:40 AM Paul Andrews <pa...@nixies.us> wrote:

Here is my home office. I built the bench. The shelves are attached to the bench, not the wall, and that whole part detaches to make it easier to move around. I'm in the middle of a project, so it is all a bit of a mess at the moment. The first photo shows the bench just after I built it - I've got a lot more equipment and parts now as you can see in the second photo.

<P5072065.jpg>

<IMG_3825.JPG>

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[Michail Wilson]

Don’t forget to tell the kids how there was only like 3 channels back in the day.

And how you were able to just turn the antenna to get a signal, but because you walked away, you would lose that signal by the time you got back to the sofa.

 

Ohh, and how the term ‘Clicker’ came into existence when the ‘modern’ tv had come up with remote access.   J  Even better that to turn the tv off, you had to click through the remaining channels to cycle the VHF back to power off.

 

I miss my old tv.

 

Michail Wilson

206-920-6312

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[Paul Andrews]

If you show one to the kids, be prepared for “That whistling noise is really annoying”.

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[Nicholas Stock]

...or the soothing sound of white noise....

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[Dan Harboe Burer]

This is what my shop looks like right now.. a bit chaotic. I have three weeks of holidays right now and I'm attempting to brig a bit of order to it...  :p
Oh, well, when I have been given an entire electronic factory to dismantle and a tonne of gear from other places, this is what happens....

Dan

[Robert L]

This... plus a bunch of wire rack storage!

[Dan Harboe Burer]

Oh, you want to see storage too? Here's one corner of my garage ;)

Dan

søndag den 7. juli 2019 kl. 19.20.58 UTC+2 skrev martin martin:

[Mark Moulding]

Here are some photos showing the evolution of my bench over the years.  They also clearly illustrate the advancement in cell-phone camera technology.

The first two are from my previous life in Southern California. Most of that test gear has been replaced by now, but a few items I'll probably never get rid of: the Fluke 6011A signal generator, the Tek 475 'scope, and the HP 5326B frequency counter (Nixie!).  Even now, close to 50 years after they were made, the signal generator and counter agree within one count in the 7th digit!  It's hard to find quality like that now.  Also, take note of that little Radio Shack multi-meter in the "mini-rack" with the NLS mini-scope - it will be significant later...  (That was my personal "electronics lab" back in college - about 40 years ago.)

The third photo also shows my wife's bench, where she primarily makes arty Burning Man-style projects based on LEDs and EL-wire.  (Those flowers on top of the benches all have LEDs in them, and the plant fronds visible at the far right are outlined with EL-wire).  As a co-conspirator, she has been very understanding of my consumption of space, although I try to steer the conversation away from the garage (3-bay, and it's never seen a car - I also have wood- and metal-working hobbies...).  On my bench are a couple of Numitron-based projects: the guts of a four-digit clock that I was "mass producing" for gifts, and a temperature-controlled crock pot for melting wax.

The fourth photo shows the addition of some more modern power supplies, as well as the LeCroy digital 'scope (also present in the last picture).  There's now an audio distortion analyzer, too; it and the 120V green-LED power supply help support my burgeoning interest in tube-based audio.  The calculator-looking thing at the upper left is actually an HP 1602 Logic Analyzer (LED, not Nixie).

The final picture, taken a few minutes ago, shows my current configuration.  The HP 333A distortion analyzer has been replaced by the almost miraculously easy to use 8903A, and there's now a Heathkit SP2717 high-voltage power supply - vacuum-tube based, but I can't find any more modern unit that works nearly as well (0-400 VDC @ 100 mA, very well regulated).  Also, the very high-quality, but massive and hard to use, HP 141T spectrum analyzer visible in the first pictures has been replaced by a cheap, mediocre, but compact and easy to use Chinese unit sold by a German company Hameg - kind of drifty, but serves my purposes.

That Radio Shack multi-meter I mentioned earlier? I still have it in my parts closet, since it has the neat feature that you can plug any transistor into it and it will tell you the type, basing, and gain.  However, I recently picked up the small red box on top of the Fluke generator from eBay - you can hook almost *any* component to the leads, and it will tell you all about it: capacitance (with ESR), transistor type (including FET, and even UJT), basing, and gain, inductance, etc.  *Very* handy!

It's not visible in the picture (because I intentionally cut off the embarrassingly messy bench itself), but the Tek 475 is still very much present - just yesterday it helped me find some stray digital noise in a high-precision A-D circuit I'm building, which the LeCroy couldn't even see because it was buried in its own internal noise - the Tek synced right up to it.

I have a few other bits of test equipment sitting around (see "garage", above), but this is set that I use most often.  Especially seeing the quality with which the earlier test gear is made (there's a great parable about that in Horowitz & Hill's "Art of Electronics"), it would be very easy for test equipment to become an huge hobby all by itself, as I know it has become for many.  Personally, though, I'd rather focus on the creation of new things, even if based on "obsolete" technology.

~~
Mark Moulding

[SWISSNIXIE - Jonathan F.]

Welcome to my lab tour!

As you can guess i'm doing all kind of nixie related project as well as other vintage electronics, combined with also very new electronic technologies (sometimes i work at my home lab for work). Also i have a little space for photographing the nixie tubes and store them in carton boxes for collection. The boxes are labeled in number and box size and are listed in a online stock software, this makes it easy to find a tube and also know exactly how many you have (left). Also it allows me to quickly check if i already own a tube when i see an action. I did the same thing to most of my other electronic components like IC's and special parts.
One of my other hobbies is the interest in radiation and nuclear related stuff and hobby gamma spectroscopy, for this i also have a table where all the items are. My lab is located in the attic, i reused this room that once was storageroom for all kind of housware, which was a terrible waste of beautiful workspace to me ;) Therefore i decided to renovate and use this room as a lab. I really like my lab (even though its a bit messy in the shelfes), the only disadvantage is the heat in the summer.

[Paul Andrews]

Do you have a link to the little red box - I just blew up my cheap LC meter...

[Mark Moulding]

This isn't it, but it looks very similar and I suspect it has essentially the same guts. Less than $25 including shipping - how can you lose? 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/323530347214

~~
Mark Moulding

On Tuesday, July 9, 2019 at 11:42:27 AM UTC-7, Paul Andrews wrote:

Do you have a link to the little red box - I just blew up my cheap LC meter...

[martin martin]

Dan,

Are those HP Nixie freq  counters in that stack of goodies?

[Jonathan Peakall]

Very cool! I have a Predicta Holiday too, mahogany color. I watch it often, usually once a week or so. Nothing like a good film noir or a Twilight Zone on it.

I'm not surprised that nixie fans would like old TV's too, hardly a stretch. I will admit that my Predicta was a bit of a bugger to get working but it works very well now.

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[Charles MacDonald]

On 2019-07-09 2:24 p.m., SWISSNIXIE - Jonathan F. wrote:
> this makes it easy to find a tube
> and also know exactly how many you have (left). Also it allows me to
> quickly check if i already own a tube when i see an action.

> One of my other hobbies is the interest in radiation and nuclear related
> stuff and hobby gamma spectroscopy, for this i also have a table where
> all the items are.

so you can tell us how many Nixie makers used a radioactive additive to
ensure that gas fired right away .... :)

--
Charles MacDonald Stittsville Ontario
cm...@zeusprune.ca Just Beyond the Fringe
No Microsoft Products were used in sending this e-mail.

[Dan Harboe Burer]

martin martin,

Yes HP counters, 19" voltmeters, and smaller voltmeters; all with nixie tubes.. I even have another HP counter hidden behind a stack of instruments somewhere in the garage...

Dan 

søndag den 7. juli 2019 kl. 19.20.58 UTC+2 skrev martin martin:

[Paul Parry]

As I make Nixie things for a living, I have a rather nice building dedicated to the cause.. Caption above each photo to explain what's what..

This is my main workbench..

 

This is my Programming / coding area

Assembly area and admin

Workshop area

Components / Parts storeroom

Old equipment / Start points Storeroom

Completed Clocks Test cabinet

Front Reception / display area

Just over 1100 Square ft.

[Dave ZL3FJ]

Paul

The AVO meter case- is it a real one or one you made up- clock looks great, I could be persuaded to make something like that!

DaveB,NZ

[Paul Parry]

Hi Dave,

Yes it's a real Avo, I received a job lot of 50 of them all Ex-University / Collage, a lot of them toasted inside! I then CNC machine the dial plate to accommodate 4 Nixies.

They convert really nicely.

[Nick]

My shop is in disarray at the moment as it's an old (150 to 200 years) building.

It had three sections - electronic, wood/metal and office.

The photos below are as it was, including a photo of the test area, and as it is at this moment as I'm rebuilding it.

The floor was completely rotted and collapsing, so our younger son (who is a civil engineer) and I cut the old floor out and we're currently replacing it plus rewiring etc. at the same time. It's 20 years since I showed serious love to this building, and boy, did it need it.
At the same time we're dealing with a damp issue, installing Ubiquity networking linking it to the main house plus many other improvements... (clean power, UPS, emergency shutdown buttons, LED lighting etc.)

The photo of the lack of the main floor is taken from the only currently usable bit. Access is via the steps down into the cellar from the garden then up the ladder in the bottom of the photo. The bit of Ikea shelving across the gap is to stop me absent-mindedly getting up from a workbench, stepping through the door without thinking, and faceplanting on the concrete 2.5 metres below...

I'm chemically fixing a 6 metre steel beam to the back wall this weekend then the floor will go in next week after a bunch of damp proofing work.

Should have my workshop back by the end of July.

Nick

[Grahame]

I speak not of the workshop that is but the workshop that will be:

Should be moving in next spring  ;^)

Grahame

Highlands Scotland - Hence the rain...

[Bill Notfaded]

Not as cheap but this is the LCR meter I use and it's highly respected on the EEVBlog (one of my fav EE sites):

https://www.deree.com.tw/de-5000-lcr-meter.html

You can buy the bundle on ebay and amazon for around a C note.  I picked a spare TL-21 and then hacked it to add longer kevin clip cables... there are many videos on the internet showing it:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/de-5000-lcr-tl-21-mod/

These larger, longer kelvin clips have made testing things like these... I've upgraded some Hafler DH-500 amps recently with new filter caps:

24000UF 100V

Until recently I had always thought a really good LCR meter was kinda too pricey and out of reach for me.  Well like many other things technology has improved and reduced the price for very accurate testing gear.  One thing really nice is it's auto mode.  When testing surface mount components sometimes I've found it's hard to tell what's what.  Is that a resistor or an inductor?  It's not perfect but most of the time it's spot on.  The ability to change the test frequency up to 100kHz is really nice.  Most spec sheets for parts in the US use 120 Hz and it's got that too.

Bill

[Paul Andrews]

I bought the meter he linked to. It is really quite amazing. You can connect the component being tested, to any of the leads in any orientation. It figures out what it is and which way round it is, then measures it.

On Aug 7, 2019, at 12:16 PM, Bill Notfaded <notf...@gmail.com> wrote:

Not as cheap but this is the LCR meter I use and it's highly respected on the EEVBlog (one of my fav EE sites):

https://www.deree.com.tw/de-5000-lcr-meter.html

You can buy the bundle on ebay and amazon for around a C note.  I picked a spare TL-21 and then hacked it to add longer kevin clip cables... there are many videos on the internet showing it:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/de-5000-lcr-tl-21-mod/

These larger, longer kelvin clips have made testing things like these... I've upgraded some Hafler DH-500 amps recently with new filter caps:

<E36D101LPC243UDA5M.jpg>24000UF 100V

Until recently I had always thought a really good LCR meter was kinda too pricey and out of reach for me.  Well like many other things technology has improved and reduced the price for very accurate testing gear.  One thing really nice is it's auto mode.  When testing surface mount components sometimes I've found it's hard to tell what's what.  Is that a resistor or an inductor?  It's not perfect but most of the time it's spot on.  The ability to change the test frequency up to 100kHz is really nice.  Most spec sheets for parts in the US use 120 Hz and it's got that too.

Bill

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[Bill Notfaded]

For many things that's alright but most meters like that only test at one set lower frequency... often 100Hz or less.  The meter I posted is unique for the money because it can test in the high frequencies previously only expensive test gear would.  For the reason why this and also frequencies like specifically 120Hz are important TRX Bench can explain much better than I ever could:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivVSq0IiZGo&t=24s

I'm not an EE but a CIS major so I can really appreciate this explanation.

Best Regards,

Bill

[Dekatron42]

Don't forget to ask the manufacturer if it can measure high capacitance MLCC capacitors if you are going to use that type of capacitor as they are a bit tricky to test.

There are some explanations for this from the manufacturers, and this from Digikey: https://forum.digikey.com/t/testing-high-capacitance-mlcc-s/34.

I once got an earlier model (some 3 years ago I think it was) of the DE-5000 and then it didn't measure MLCC capacitors correctly.

/Martin