My workshop
Despite the fact that the couch was the most comfortable place to do anything, especially solder CMOS parts, I soon had to move my operations about six feet over to my large table. One of my friends had remarked that the stacked parts bins were starting to resemble a Soviet industrial settlement, but they did blot out the sun less than they did while deployed on the coffee table.The equipment consists of scopes, power supplies, and meters, and the mess on the table is a T-Rex Jr. motor controller running two propeller-equipped motors under RC control. I wanted to see if I could build a fan boat, and sure enough I could. Did I? No, but I proved that I could. Finishing projects will be a goal of mine in the coming year, because I often reach a point where all my breadboards are locked up with projects in progress. Yes, it's an abysmal mess, and an equally bad picture; this will be remedied soon.
To tell the truth, most of my apartment is a workspace. Not visible in the picture are the crates filled with scavenged boards, boxes of motors and gears, and my huge electronics book collection. Luckily, my parents visited recently, providing a good reason to clean up a bit.
Oscilloscopes
Before I developed a short-lived but serious laser habit, oscilloscopes were my gear of choice. On the right you'll see a Tektronix 5441 analog storage scope, and on the left is a Hewlett-Packard 54501 digital scope. Not visible in the picture is my Tek 535A (just for show) and HP 54200A. Each purchase ratcheted up the MHz, and now I seem to have hit a ceiling. Until my favorite haunts get some new gear I guess I'm out of luck. My fastest scope, the 54501, is 100 MHz.Having both an analog and digital is really handy. The more modern digital scope has all kinds of automatic measurements that can be performed on waveforms, and also has setup and display memories. The analog scope has simple controls and shows complex signals like composite video very differently. It's also nice to have a number of different displays available, because I like to probe different sections of a circuit simultaneously.
And the parts drawers? Everything from Nixie tubes to microcontrollers, sensors, motor driver ICs, standard logic, connectors, cables, crystals, regulators, transistors, transformers, transient voltage suppressors, inductors, and precision multiturn potentiomenters. I would go on, but it's not about how cool the gear is. Is it??
