Let me know what you think of the workbench and what suggestions you have for things to add. I have a few things in mind that I would like to implement but would love to hear ideas from you! Thanks for watching!

@Ender_Wiggin

10 ай бұрын

I really liked your desk it is a great balance of features to complexity with plenty of room to add thing as they are need. Other then instrument shelfs there is nothing critical that is needed. What did ou have in mind to add?

@makernova8160

10 ай бұрын

@@Ender_Wiggin Thanks! That's what I try to aim for with most of my projects but don't always hit the mark ha ha. Having better storage for instruments for sure and probably adding more cubby storage on top of the hutch would be great. A few other things I had in mind would be a better place to put the soldering iron when it's not in use, a set of switches to control the lights and fan all in one place, and a better usb connection to the computer because it's a little cumbersome to plug Arduinos into it at the moment.

I love the clever touch of adding the white bin for all the dropped screws that roll off the bench and the springs that make a bid for escape.

@makernova8160

10 ай бұрын

Thanks! There are usually a lot of little bits of things hanging out on the desk when I work so that feature has really come in handy!

You asked about suggestions: I have a few after looking this over. Power outlets: in my experience I feel like there is no such thing as 'enough' power outlets. Your working environment is never an end-product, but instead is always an evolving work-in-progress. Stuff gets added. Integrating more (many more) power outlets in back and underneath will likely serve you well. Light: there's some nuance here in placement and angles, and there also seems to never be 'enough' light, both with quantity of light as well as selectable options. In terms of how lights are placed/faced/angled, you want your working volume well illuminated, but at the same time you never want your head volume (literally anywhere you will typically place your head while using the bench) to have direct light - this is to make sure you never have direct eye exposure to any of your light emitters, since that is annoying and makes your irises constrict which gives this inefficient 'I can't see well enough, more light! More light is in my eyes, now it's harder to see!' effect. Still on light: as a super cheap and fast prototype to experience the difference, pull off a long sheet of aluminum foil just more than the length of your light and form a cowl so that your table is still lit, but have the cowl block the light from getting a direct path to your eyes. Major quality of life improvement. Another quality improvement is extending out your main working lights so your work area is lit from not just above, but also from *behind* you, or at least from directly above where your head will typically be (as opposed to in front of you). Another angling consideration is that, ideally, you want light to also *not* touch your computer monitor directly for glare reasons, so there are lots of positional / angling / blocking options to play with to work towards ideal lighting. Solder/wire racking: having your wire like you do seems fine, but you may have an issue with the solder. It would probably be more convenient if the rack that holds the solder had an independent stand you could move around to place it closer to what you are soldering. Trash: I love the trash opening! If you put a little angled cowl behind it you can make sure stuff goes into the trash bucket (instead of past it) if something gets swept into the opening a bit too fast. Also on the trash: can you pull the container out frontwards? (without needing to pull the desk out) - if so, excellent. Now, as for what to add? This all depends on your personal use case, but there's a bunch of stuff to look at: Common / broadly useful: Bench multimeter, bench variable power supply, some kind of 'soldering helping hands' tool. A bit less common / somewhat situational: Oscilloscope, electronic load, hot-air rework station, USB power meter, kill-a-watt plug power meter. More niche / further less common: Function generator, vacuum desoldering tool, LCR meter. After those you can spin off into any number of interesting things which you may well have no use for. As always with personal workspaces, it is totally dependent on what you use it for and want out of it.

@makernova8160

Ай бұрын

Thank you very much for the suggestions! I'm always looking for feedback. I just checked out your more recent bench tour and I have to say, I have a lot of work to do to catch up ha ha. Good call on the power outlets. At the moment they're okay enough, but, my lack of disorganization and keeping the bench clean has made the outlets difficult to access. So that for sure needs some work. Ohhhhh, yes, the lights. Spot on with everything. Since this video I made a change to the lighting, which was to add a sort of blocker (just a strip of wood on a hinge) over the led strip so that it casts more downward and not directly into my eyeballs. It was getting tough to work sometimes when I would try to look at my monitor and had light blasting me in the face. 100% right about the solder position. For a while what I would do is just store it on the rod and then take it off to make it easier to work with (i.e. closer to the work). Eventually I just abandoned storing it on the rods and just sort of put it out of the way when not in use. I do like the idea of having something mobile but still sturdy enough to not move around when soldering. Perhaps even something that could be clamped to the bench or something when in use. Yes! I thought the same thing after about a couple uses. Having angled pieces to help direct the trash are a must. It's easy for stuff to get trapped in the corners, so that will be going on the short list of improvements. I've even thought about having some sort of "sweep" there that could help push things into the trash. That may be a bit overengineered, but that's what I'm good at ha ha. Yes, the trash can be pulled out from underneath the desk - I haven't put a front or back stop on the rail yet. It isn't ideal to have to pull it out from under the desk, but with the kinds of debris I put in it, I won't be filling it up any time soon. Bench multimeter, bench variable power supply, some kind of 'soldering helping hands' tool - yes, very much agree. At the moment I'm still more on the hobbyist side of things so I haven't needed too much in the way of controlling how much voltage / amperage input I need but it certainly wouldn't hurt! Soldering helping hands and a clamp-able vice are high up on my priority list though as I've been driven mad by boards moving around on me all of the time. I wouldn't have thought about a hot-air station but I can definitely see the value in that now that I've broken in my bench a bit. Thanks again for the feedback! I've been meaning to put together an improvements / evolution video but as you know life and other projects get in the way. As an aside, I would love to see you do a video on how you tackle non-tool / parts storage as that's probably my biggest issue at the moment.

@neverendingstudent

Ай бұрын

@@makernova8160 Power outlets and 'keeping your bench clean' - THANK YOU I forgot about this. I'd suggest a bit of a mental re-framing here. Your messy workspace **is a normal workspace that is being used** - it isn't messy, it just has a job that calls for it to get dirty and cluttered during it's normal workday. Look at it when it has stuff on it you are working on, then ask yourself: 'where can I add a power strip that I could get to without cleaning up?' For that matter, look at it with the same eyes and ask 'would any of the stuff I have on it / built into it make more sense being placed differently, maybe to a side or higher up? What *can't* I access easily when I have something on the bench?' You mentioned a sweep for trash: I do exactly that, I keep a painters brush as one of my bench tools to sweep off my desk surface into a trash can I hold at the side. There's always dust and little bits on it after I work on anything. As for the tools/equipment I listed off: don't feel pressured to get anything just because 'other people's benches have it' - every workspace is different and totally depends on your wants/needs/uses. Non-tool / parts storage: much (though not all) of what fits in that category lives in a 2-stack craftsman tool chest to the left of my bench that I got at an estate sale years back. I haven't made a video on it (it's kind of a mess at the top of it right now) but I can see that being a useful thing to show, so I'll add that as a to-do on my video list.

WOw really like the trash can

@makernova8160

10 ай бұрын

Thanks! It has come in handy quite a bit!

Looks good!

@makernova8160

Жыл бұрын

Thanks!