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Cool Tools Bench Awards 2018

Hello Community Members and happy June.

 

It is officially summertime here at the element14 offices, which is enough of a reason to celebrate but as we batted around some ideas we thought - why don't we involve the Community in some fun?  We have already been asking you about your favorite tools for our RoadTest reviews and now we'd like to present to you the Cool Tools Bench Awards!

 

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Starting today and going through the entire month of June, we want you to submit photos and/or videos of your own bench or workspace for other Community members to see.  Then in the month of July we'll pick out some winners every week and send them some of our favorite Cool Tools chosen by us and other Community members like the ones below:

 

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Duratool PL 501 Cutter

Klein Tools 4-1 Screwdriver

Duratool PC Maintenance Tool KitDuratool Soldering Station
Milwaukee Bit SetDuratool Wire Stripper

 

We will have ten (10)  winners total for the following categories:

 

•      Where’s my Cat? (messiest bench)

•       Tony Stark’s Dream Bench (state of the art bench)

•      Fire Hazard Award (Worst cable management)

•       Pepped to the Post Award (Best coffee mug)

•      Totally Screwed Award (Worst organisation of screws, nuts and bolts)

•      Bat Cave Award (Award for wide range of tools)

•       Mom Would Be Proud (Neatest bench)

•       Man Cave Bench (Best use of personal space for a bench)

•      Jury Rigged Award (Most improvised or makeshift repair or bench)

•       Time Machine Award (Best piece of Retro Tech on display)

 

Along with the above, we'll also have a special “In Their Element" award (best representation and love of element14)

 

Let's have some fun with this and show us the benches and workspaces where all of your amazing projects come to life!

 

Comment with your photo/videos on this post through June 30th.

Attachments:
imageCool_Tools_Bench_Awards_2018_Contest.pdf
Parents

  • I have some serious workspace envy to get over. I don't actually have a specific workspace at the moment, so the table in the lunch gets pushed into service with an antistatic mat placed over it to provide some protection.

     

    image

     

    This is ok for doing small projects, but becomes time consuming to take get every thing out of the boxes and then packed away again when finished. Everything just gets shelved when not in use, that's a hint not to send me anything, as I don't have any room for it.

     

    If some more table space is required, then aluminium fold-away picnic table adds to the melee. This is the setup used to check the outputs of the injection test set before it is taken out to site.

     

    image

    This is the same picnic table that goes out to sites with me to act as a mobile work bench as seen below during the testing of a generator and step-up transformer protection panel.

     

    image

    I'll just have to wait until the new garage is completed before I can procure myself a permanent work area.

     

    Kind regards

  • in reply to three-phase

    Hi don,

    I can see that once you have the space you will quickly be able to put  an awesome electronics lab. what is the function of the large piece of test equipment with the colored spots on it? I couldn't get a good enough view in your picture to figure it out.

    John

  • in reply to jw0752

    A specialty grow light I invented!!

     

    Nice setup.

     

    Mark

  • in reply to mcb1

    Lol. No, not for that...specifically. I was the part-time R&D guy for a cheap grow light company but I broke off from them to do it right. I have a brown thumb.

  • in reply to clarkkent57

    Haha .....

    Yes I wasn't suggesting they were for that purpose .... although some would probably want to.

     

    Nice setup on the vehicle image

     

    Mark

  • in reply to jw0752

    Hello John,

     

    The large piece of test apparatus is an Omicron CMC356 Secondary Current Injection Test Set (SCITS).

     

    image

     

    This particular model has 4 voltage output channels at 0V to 300V, DC to 1kHz AC in the top left corner. Three of the channels can be configured to give a 3 phase + neutral output, or can be combined to give a 0V to 600V output. These are used to test synchronisers, power and impedance protection relays.

     

    Below the voltage outputs are two sets of 3 phase + neutral current outputs. Each current channel can output 0 to 32A, DC to 1kHz AC. These can be reconfigured to give a maximum 128A single phase output. These are for testing standard over current relays along the more specialised differential relays and generator protection relays.

     

    The larger round connector to the right of the current outputs is a standard speaker connector that has 3 x 300V and 3 x 25A output channels.

     

    Next to the voltage outputs is a specific DC output channel, 0V to 240V, to provide power for electronic relays being bench tested.

     

    The remaining sockets are a variety of digital input and output channels used for catching signals from the relays for recording trip times to simulating inputs into the relays for breaker operation schemes.

     

    I could create a more detailed blog on it if there is some interest.

     

    Kind regards

Comment
  • in reply to jw0752

    Hello John,

     

    The large piece of test apparatus is an Omicron CMC356 Secondary Current Injection Test Set (SCITS).

     

    image

     

    This particular model has 4 voltage output channels at 0V to 300V, DC to 1kHz AC in the top left corner. Three of the channels can be configured to give a 3 phase + neutral output, or can be combined to give a 0V to 600V output. These are used to test synchronisers, power and impedance protection relays.

     

    Below the voltage outputs are two sets of 3 phase + neutral current outputs. Each current channel can output 0 to 32A, DC to 1kHz AC. These can be reconfigured to give a maximum 128A single phase output. These are for testing standard over current relays along the more specialised differential relays and generator protection relays.

     

    The larger round connector to the right of the current outputs is a standard speaker connector that has 3 x 300V and 3 x 25A output channels.

     

    Next to the voltage outputs is a specific DC output channel, 0V to 240V, to provide power for electronic relays being bench tested.

     

    The remaining sockets are a variety of digital input and output channels used for catching signals from the relays for recording trip times to simulating inputs into the relays for breaker operation schemes.

     

    I could create a more detailed blog on it if there is some interest.

     

    Kind regards

Children
  • in reply to three-phase

    Hi Donald,

    I am very glad I asked as I would never have guessed. For my sake it isn't necessary to go into any more detail as I don't have any application but is nice to know that such instrumentation exists. Thanks again for bringing a window on your specialty to the forum. There have been several times recently where your expertise has helped answer a question that I was just guessing at.

    John