The Lair is my lab in the basement. This page has photos and descriptions of what I consider to be essential equipment. It also has links to suppliers and places you can get similar items.

Clik here to see a page showing recommended tools for starting up your own lab, essential, nice to have, and way cool items.

As this photo shows, I have an L shaped workstation that allows me access to my computer, prototyping station, soldering station, test equipment, frequently used parts, and a filing drawer (in the desk just below my right elbow). All of this is within quick reach. It is convenent, but it is not very handy if I have a buddy over to work as this setup is ideal for one person to be working only.

This is a good photo of me. It shows me how I look and where I am a lot of time. I need a sunlamp down here.

Here is a better view of the lab area. It consists of a table (which has the computer monitor on it) butted up to a cheap desk I got at a thrift place for $15. I didn't want a big hole where they came together, nor did I want to lose most of the desk's work space by shoving it against the wall, so instead I built a custom shelf with 2x4's that would fit there, being careful to make it the same height so it would all be one flat surface.

The cheapo desk is the soldering area mainly. It also has a single filing cabinet drawer where I keep component specs, etc. The corner area has a shelf where I keep my books.

Test Equipment:

Prototyping boards. A bread board is an essential item for any electronics lab. I know several guys for whom that is their electronics lab. If you can get a powered one, that's great but not necessary.

I went and got fancy on this item. My Proto Board, made by Global Specialties, is the workhorse of my lab. I use this item more often than anything else. It is a fantastic piece of gear, with a large prototyping area, Power supply (5V fixed, 2-20V variable, negative variable 2-20 V), Function Generator (1-100KHz, sine, triangle, and square wave with slide switch to control amplitude), 8 switches that can be selected to be tied to either 5V fixed or to the varible supply, 8 digital inputs with an LED to show logic state, 2 pots, 2 SPDT switches, 2 BNC connector inputs. About anything you need is right there to build up a circuit. A new one is $300. I found this one on ebay for $100 and $20 shipping. I keep handy a box of jumper wires from Radio-Shack (part number ).

Behind the protoboard is a power strip that is screwed down to the table so it won't fall off that gives me easy power access. I have a flourescent light fixture mounted on the shelf above the bench for light. And I keep a copy of commonly used IC pinouts taped to the wall above the proto station for quick reference. You can see my wire organizer hanging above the bench.

On the shelf above the proto station is a Velleman PCS-64 PC based oscilloscope that is an invaluable tool. I got that on sale for $300, normally $400. It has 2 channel input, 50 MHz frequency. The plot comes out on your PC monitor and you can easily capture a screen for inclusion into a report or presentation. I also have an old function generator that doesn't get used much as the proto station gives me what I need mostly, and a bench power supply from Elenco, model xxxx. It has fixed 5, 12, -12, and variable 1-20V with 2 amp current output.

Here is a quick example plot that I captured with alt-prtscrn key and pasted in. It shows 2 channel plot, using trigger, with markers to show voltage levels and calculated frequency value. I just measured the output of my proto-board function generator with 1 KHz sine waves.

Click here to see a larger image of this with more detail.

Storage: I stopped using junk boxes some time ago as they were threatening to overrun me and it was getting impossible to find anything quickly. I switched over to keeping everything in organizer drawer cases like those shown on my stoage shelf. Everything from resistors, to IC's, to connectors, switches taken out of old copiers and printers to those I buy new. Servo parts like control horns, batteries, IC sockets, etc. I have a thoroughly stocked electronics lab and it's organized to the point that I can find what I need. I'm pretty much a neat freak. I hate wasting precious tinkering time looking for something.

The shelf (another score from a thrift place, $7) holds 2 of the cases, but the rest is organized junk. I have two junk boxes on the bottom shelf that hold things too big to fit into organizer drawers, like gearboxes, or a fantastic set of optics from a 1960's copier. The two upper shelves are a mini "Island of Misfit Toys" where I store pieces of toys that I am either hacking into or plan to in the future. My cylindrical coordinate robot arm gets top shelf storage honors.

Behind and over the shelf you can see two of my nostalgia robot movie posters. Michael Crichton's early film, Westworld was one of many movies that had me determined to build robots a long time ago. Beside it is a blueprint looking drawing of the "Robby the Robot", that was featured in movies, the old tv series Lost in Space, the Saturday morning children's drama "Ark II", etc. All of the various manifestations of this thing are shown on this poster. On the back of the corner shelf unit I built I mounted yet another of my childhood movie influence poster, that of the film "Silent Running". You can see another power strip for that bench as well on the left.

Other equipment:

Soldering iron. If you don't have a good quality soldering iron, do yourself a big favor and get one. Lose that Radio Shack ratty thing. Look on ebay and get a Weller station like this one. I got this WTCPS station on ebay for $20.

Anti-static: And quit blowing off anti static warnings. Modern IC's are pretty tough, but anything with a FET or even some CMOS devices are prone to getting zapped. I've done it and got tired of spending money to replace it or worse wondering should I? And then spending hours assuring myself that I didn't need to. So I buckled down and put in anti-static equipment. All bench areas have anti static mats (guess where I found them, you got it,ebay). I'm in the basement a few feet away from the main cold water pipe, so grounding is very easy for me. I don't have any carpet in my lab area either. I just have to wear socks in the winter.

Whiteboard: Did I say my proto station was the most commonly used piece of equipment? I lied. It's this. From quick designs to notes, to phone numbers, the whiteboard is a must have for any lab. Why do you think that saying "Back to the drawing board" is so popular? Office Depot, $30 for a nice sized one like this. I also grille my two sons on their math homework on this baby.

Books: Or do I use these more often? Naa, not more than a whiteboard. But still very useful. Recommended titles: Jones and Flynn's Mobile Robots, McComb's The Robot Builders Bonanza, Karl Lunt's Build Your Own Robot. Iovine's Robots, Androids, and Animatronics. Clark's Building Robot Drivetrains. To name a few.

Computer: A modern robotics lab without a computer is difficult for me to imagine. All of my robotic projects are programmable, and to program I need a computer with a parallel and serial port. That's a pretty easy bill to fill these days. You can pick up an old 333 MHz machine with those ports on it for $200. I have a 400 MHz machine I'll sell you for that. USB hasn't made it into my programmers just yet, but it's coming. I also do video editing in the basement so I have my sweet machine down there (1.8 GHz Pentium 4 based machine).

Not necessary but very handy is a home network. I have a jack on the bench to plug my laptop into for quick swapping of data between portable and desktop machines. It is also great for multi-player gaming in the house with my family. My wife and sons all gang up on me for a game of Age of Empires. (I still trounce their combined efforts).

My machine shop is pretty basic right now. I have a drill press, bench vise and a bench grinder. I work a lot with aluminum bar stock on my bots. It's very light and easy to bend and cut. You really need a drill press to do precise drilling. I made do with a cordless drill for a while and really butchered a lot of stuff. The drill press should be your first major item for machining.

Moving up into 2nd place for me now is the bandsaw. Man, what a FANTASTIC piece of equipment. I spent 2 years finagling with a hack saw. No more. I can barely begin to sing its praises. I cut aluminum bar stock, copper clad board, plastic, plexiglas. Absolutely unbeatable. I got lucky and found this Craftsman model at Sears on clearance (they don't make it any more)It's an 11 inch bandsaw (clearance from blade to back of the saw, thus the largest thing you can get in there). For me a big plus was its relatively low stature. As you can see I have it on my bench in the garage which has a shelf suspended over it. The bandsaw goes right in under there.

3rd would be bench grinder. Why? Because you can throw sparks like this! Isn't that great? When you work with metal it never comes out like you want unless you mill it with a precise CNC like machine. I can't afford that yet, so I use the grinder to shape metal where a hack saw or a dremel tool doesn't quite make it.