Organize Your Workbench Wishlist

I guess I'm still focused on organizing the cables.  Someone in the Community mentioned using cable duct to store cables.

It starts as this - recovered from replaced switchgear.

Split it down the middle and add some 3M double sided foam tape and...

The other half is at work doing the same thing - only that one is held on by screws.

Although my work areas and computer desks are normally quite a mess, I do try to organize between projects - although there almost never seems to be any time in between .

For components like resistors and ICs, I use the standard storage cabinets similar to the Duratool cabinet.  I even have a few Akro-Mils cabinets that are 40 years old...

For project storage, I have a tower of plastic drawers.  I probably should label the drawers, but since the plastic is transparent - there really isn't a need to.

For projects that I am actively working on- I found some flat plastic bins at CostCo that are the perfect size (14'x14'x3') and have attached lids.  These allow me to quickly switch from one project to another in the same workspace (I tend to work on a few simultaneously).  I just need to get myself some anti-static foam inserts.

.

And for managing test cables and probes, I use fabric tool pouches.

I'm not really proud of my work spaces - less than 6 people in the world have ever seen this one in person, but hundreds of projects have been built here. This is where I solder PCBs and cables. If you look closely behind this mess you can see the bench where I do much of my video work. 

I will attempt to point out some of what is shown - starting on the right there are some water bottles, test leads, a vise, a couple of soldering stations. a hot air wand a solder sucker and an eraser. Note the wet sponges in the flower pot - it won't melt if the iron touches it. Then we have a stereo microscope, PCB holder. fume extractor and some arm rests. Behind that are a couple of power supplies, then it is over to a couple of solder dispenser and a hook-up wire dispenser. There is a DVM and an oscilloscope and in the foreground some tweezers an knives. There is a container of miscellaneous resistors on a power supply. Beside that is a tray of SMT capacitors and beside that a tray of all sorts of odds and ends. On the left is a highly organized jumble of SMT resistors and another vise. The resistors don't look organized in this view, but I will do a separate blog about that system. There is a flux syringe and a whole mess of other stuff within easy reach at the side, emphasis on mess.

For some easy bonus points you can explain what the eraser is used for.

To answer the 3 questions:

1: What is creative about this setup? I could point out the cute solder and wire dispensers, or the resistor organization, but the thing about this setup that I like the most is the highly productive stereo microscope and PCB holder system. The microscope is mounted to the overhead shelf at an angle so it doesn't interfere with anything on the bench. The PCB holder is very stable and holds the PCB horizontally, so it can be easily slid to any position for viewing a component with the microscope. There is lots of room for hands and soldering irons to access the card and the fume extractor prevents any fumes from drifting up to my face. With this setup, I never have to adjust the microscope, I just slide a PCB in and start working. There is an LED illuminator I built on a custom PCB around the microscope. It seems simple, but having a setup where I can sit with my head at a comfortable position without breathing solder fumes makes a big difference when doing extensive amounts of work, or even small jobs.

2: The list above by element14 has some really nice ideas in it. It could use a test lead cable rack. I have recently designed and 3D printed some, but they are not in this picture.

3: bench picture - see the picture above

So many different ways to organize. Power cables, somehow it’s magic, 6 times wrapped around my hand plus a loop thru the middle and it’s tidy. I’ll have to add pictures later

Love it. Funny thing is, I learnt this trick on the weather network channel.

Let's keep this theme going.  wolfgangfriedrich was first.  Someone once mentioned bread tie labels and I ran with it.

         I did do a little trimming with the nips.

Cables don't like to be folded, so coiling them up would be the natural way to store them, but they tend to not stay in that form on their own. Adding one or more "bread bag plastic clip" (I am sure there is a more scientific name for them) keeps them in shape.

And yes, most cables do have an expiry date, depending on how often they are used, plugged in/out, bent...

I wish the manufacturers could come up with 10:1 shrink ratio, that would be really handy!

For prototypes I use permanent fine markers a lot, just to indicate power connections against connector pins etc., and try to just write a Word document for each project, with any notes on pin labelling and so on, since I have no convenient way to label wires either. I try to keep 10 or so colours of cable, which helps.

At work, there can be hundreds of network cables in racks, and for that use-case, in the past we used colours in an unorganized mess, and lots of labels. but later moved to approx 4-5 colours only... two colours for primary and secondary connections, blue cables for configuration type connections (out-of-band), and I think one colour for anything else, and then rely on diagrams and Excel spreadsheets with all the labellings. And discourage disconnecting/moving cables, except at proper patching panels. The label printer was still used, but not very often after that.

And I thought I was chaotic  !!!   I don't prefer chaos - it just seems that things get that way when working on multiple projects simultaneously....

Marking cables is often still problematic despite all the methods available, especially if you are using pre-terminated ones as the heat shrink ratio is seldom large enough to slip over the connector and small enough to fit snug onto the cable.

Stick-on labels tend to either come unstuck or worse still, disintegrate into a sticky flaky mess over time.

Write-on labels with the clear tape wrap to protect the ink tend to cause the ink to bleed over time making them illegible.

Tie-on labels/flags can be problematic if you have to pull cables out of a bundle as they tend to snag.

I recall a long time ago there was a handheld dot matrix type printer being marketed that could print directly onto a variety of surfaces, including cables, but I've never seen one since.