Where is your work shop
smithdavidp
Posts: 146
I just thought it'd be fun to see where everyone does their robotic projects. As for me I am working in my bedroom. Come to think about it I do all kinds of stuff in here (keep it clean now). I've got a small desk that contains my HP2509 Monitor, and HP Pavilion Mid tower, a Saitek flight yoke sitting under the HP monitor, a VR Insight CDU II FMC and a double Saitek throttle quadraunt. Under the desk is a set of Saitek rudder pedals. I am a virtual pilot that flys for Deklta Virtual Airlines. I fly 757, 767, A300, A310 etc. Behind all that I have a 21" ViewSonic monitor for my back-up server. Against the wall is the cable companies cable modem and my Back-up Server. The backup server was a junk box project with the case and mobo (MSI with i3) comming from Tiger direct. The network hub sits on top of the Backup server and is both WiFi and UTP connectable. To the right of that is a night stand on top of a hope chest that holds a HP Officejet 7110 multifunction printer. To the right of the server is a Lowery church size organ which I play now and then with a Brother MFC-6490 CW multifunction printer on it. Above that a long bookshelf with various software, electronics, and parts manuals. The opposite side of the room is a dresser with a old JVC television, stero surround system, cable converter box, 3 DVD Blue Ray players. A shorter dresser with the woofer, from the sound system, sitting on it with an ols Karaoke machine on it. Between the dressers are a Gibson S.G., Oscar Schmidt Delta King, and a Vintage Alverez guitars tucked neatly in their cases and a Fender, Vintage, Twin Reverb Amplifier against the wall. Two boebots (Bs2 and Prop) sitting at each end of the dresser. A portable Robotics tool and parts kit on the floor along with a case containing various effects pedals for my guitars. And last, but not least, an Eddie that sits on the bed during the day and on the floor during the night. Almost forgot. 3 RC Helicopters ranging from a small electric to a .50 size nitro burner hanging from the ceiling. Anyway this is where I work and sleep.
Anyone got me beat? lol
Anyone got me beat? lol
Comments
So, I built a "man cave" in the walk-out basement. I have a room about 12' square with a large (too large) wraparound computer desk facing the windows. My desktop and wireless weather station are about the only things in/on the desk - along with a lot of junk. I have a 40" HD TV on the wall with a DirecTV dvr. There is a bathroom down there as well as a spare bedroom - both in stages of remodeling.
When I started to get interested in Parallax, I built the Boe-Bot on the desk, it was a mess. Then I built the Stingray - that was even worse. So, when it came time to build the ELEV-8, I bought a 3'X4' hobby table. There is a plastic shelving unit next to it with a 19" monitor/tv on top hooked to my old laptop, which is on one of those roll around tables like you see in hospitals. That went much better, but now that the ELEV-8 is built the table is starting to gather "stuff". Now it's getting to the point where I need a couple of days of "spare time" to clean the Man Cave. Hmmm, this is starting to sound familiar...
For efficient use of space? I don't think that's possible. You might want to post a photo, that is unless you don't want us to see your Hello Kitty bedspread.
_____________________
My workshop started in earnest in the living room of a tiny one-bedroom apartment, where I had a large desk with my TRS-80, an IBM electronic typewriter for output, and a side table holding a Sherline mill that I had converted to CNC for cutting out molds for the fishing lure biz I helped start. There was also a homemade drafting table and shelves of books supported by cinder blocks. This was in the early '80s. Life was all about the workshop -- and I guess continues to be.
By 1983 I had hooked up with a mechanical engineer from California who designed fruit-sizing equipment and who wanted me to do the electronics for him. He informed me that he was leaving Cali with a four-lane sizing conveyor and that I'd better have someplace to put when he arrived in Port Townsend. Yikes! I scrambled to find a rental with space for it and located a house with a double garage (two adjoined single garages with a wall between them) and signed a rental contract. The conveyor arrived the next day. Electricity in the garage consisted of a single overhead lightbulb, supplied via overhead wires from a 15A breaker in the house. The walls and ceiling were bare studs. But, as a temporary arrangement, it would work.
By 1984, I was neck-deep in fruit sizer stuff and on the road more than 100 days doing installation and service calls. Life had reached hectic overload when my landlords informed me that they were going to sell the house. Oh no! I never wanted to own property. Just having a lawn to cut was bad enough, but to be responsible for maintenance and property taxes besides? But I had no choice. There simply wasn't time to pack up and move to another location. So, flush with cash from the sizer stuff, I swallowed hard and bought the house.
By 1987, I was out of the sizer biz, but still collecting royalties. The conveyor was gone, and I had room to spread out a little with new computers, a printer, and an oscilloscope. Everything was set up on banquet tables. The shop was really cold in the winter, and I was working with a coat on. A friend of mine, visiting from the oil fields in SE Asia suggested that we install insulation in the walls and ceiling. With his help, we got it done. Another friend, who was my partner in the fishing lure biz, needed space for his painting and dipping operation and I agreed to let him use the back half of the garage. But he needed more electricity than my 15A service could provide and heat so the paint would dry. So he agreed to dig the trench from the house for the new electrical service, which got installed, and was capable of driving the heaters to keep the place warm. I was in hog heaven!
By 1992 my friend had found permanent digs for his entire lure manufacturing operation, and I had the entire garage to myself again, complete with a bare concrete floor and insulation dripping from the ceiling. That winter I went on a Baja adventure with another friend who had some electronics background, and we discussed a joint venture building PIC programmers to compete with Parallax's offerings. Upon returning from Baja, my friend informed me that the shop would have to be fixed up before doing anything else, and we spent a month installing drywall and painting. We never got around to doing PIC programmers, but developed some industrial vision systems instead. By the end of his tenure in 1998-- we were both sick of trade shows and industrial installations at that point -- we had transformed the shop with new ergonomic workbenches and shelving.
In the time since, I've acquired a decent CNC mill and a laser cutter, both of which have been indispensable to the business.
As you might guess by now, I'm totally remodeling averse. It's just not in my blood to initiate projects like that. But with a lot of help from my friends, I have a decent workshop. It's in a perpetual state of total chaos, but somehow it seems to work for me.
-Phil
Ultimately I want to move the machine tools out to out old out-bulding. It's been back there doing nothing but making a home for tree-rats and I intend to fix up the inside, insulate it up, get a spac heater and a window unit installed to keep it reasonable inside and move the entire metal shop out there. That will free up a lot of space in the basement and garage and keep the smells and smoke generated when cutting metal out of my home. If I ever pick up on a line of something worth the effort in making for others I will likely acquire a Tormach 1100 for the shop. I want some way to make enough money to at least defrey the cost a hair but I've been bitten hard by the bug to machine my own stuff and finally have the means now to design robots as see fit and put them together as time allows.
This summer I am starting to clear all the trash out of that shed and gutting the inside to clean it up, seal it up and start roughing in for windows and vents.
Being a room communist can be okay, tax-wise, if the whole room -- or definable parts of it -- are exclusively for my work. But one day, when I'm rich, I intend to go back to having an office/workshop outside the home. I've had an outside office on and off over the years, and last year almost got a nice 1,000 square foot place, but in the end had to abandon that idea because of the sucky economy. I actually prefer driving a few miles to a nearby office, as it helps me separate work life from home life. Otherwise, I tend to work 7 days a week.
I would love to find a place with a big ol' 20 x 40 barn out back that I can fix up and use as a workshop. Only in my dreams. Few Southern California homes have barns nearby. Unless it's an old house, basements and attics are rare, too.
-- Gordon
But within a year, the twins will get my robot room and I'll be forced into their tiny nursery.
Need... bigger... house...
Gotta sell my robot idea pronto and get some cash. KEN!
Dude, have I got the house for you! Pacific Palisades, classic mid-century design (THE perfect match for your Corvair), close to the beach, not far from your work, around the corner from Steve Spielberg's joint:
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1115-Donaire-Way-Pacific-Palisades-CA-90272/20544475_zpid/
Only 1 mil 7. Says the den could be a fourth bedroom, so that's a natural for your robot room.
In your neck of the woods anything under $1.7M is just going to be shack, you know.
-- Gordon
Garage for most stuff and inside when it's too hot or cold out there and I'm not cutting, drilling, soldering and stuff.
It gets really hot here in Georgia (Atlanta suburb) and occasionally chilly in winter so a garage with no windows or air conditioning is not optimal.
In the two months off during the summer, I sometimes put myself on a sleep schedule that lasts from ~noon to ~7:00 pm. The garage is still hot until midnight, or so but when I put the door open and get fans circulating the cooler air, it's not too bad after a while.
I have to schedule noisy activities for times when the occupants of my house are no longer sleeping but sometimes I violate the rules by creating a temporary sound-absorbing shield (working underneath two old quilts).
But sometimes, ya gotta do what ya gotta do, right?
That's a very efficient-looking workshop space! Banquet tables really come in handy, don't they?
-Phil
I've got my computer(s) stuffed into a homemade cabinet that wastes a lot of space, and sits in front of the original fire place in the living room. It's a 3-bedroom house, and since we have both a girl and a boy, ages (7 and 10) there are no spare rooms for me <grumble> This after we moved last summer, before that, I had an entire sunroom, very very large, and perfect for a workshop, and the overflow went into another workshop which was actually supposed to be one in the first place, built onto the house, but couldn't access it w/o going outside.
Now, after the move, I've just got these three compartments in the livingroom, (most of my work things got left behind) and although we're owner fiancing this house, (just like the last one) I'm really really trying to get a mortgage, to get it away from that situation, the last home owner tossed us out because he wanted the house for resale, guess he didn't feel like financing anymore. Kept our entire down payment and all payments up to that point, and lawyers did nothing <sigh>, At least here, we're hanging in there, though the owner keeps asking when we're going to get our own mortgage. I'd love to, but credit doesn't allow it.
Anyway, there is a storage shed in the backyard (used for bicycles, lawn mowers, miscelaneous flooring, some camping chairs and a few coolers, too small for much else to fit in there.
There's a garage too, but it leaks, so can't do much with it, though it does have some things in it, just nothing I use regularly.
That's about it, I keep all my tools piled up in the 3 little cubby holes I have here, but kept getting told to build doors so I can close them and the wife doesn't have to see the mess (I call it stuff).
Got all my parallax things on the desk behind the (broken) flatscreen monitor I use for when I need help with something on the computer, and since that's the best place to put things to keep them close at hand, it's quite full, (bs2 boards, propeller boards, and various chips and rolls of wire as well as cdrs, various toys my kids asked me to hold for them <sigh> The braille printers are up on top of the structure, and cables run down through holes in the top of it for computer connections, but I don't think that'll work for long, since parallel cables aren't long enough to reach to where I keep the windows xp tower <sigh> have to move it everytime I want to print something out.
Need to add some shelves in the two side units here, the center one has one, but the side ones don't.
I did add shelves on the sides (used some flooring pieces cut to size, and glued them into place, then stacked vhs tapes on them (yes, we still have more vhs tapes than dvds), though the dvds fill an entire drawer in the entertainment system themselves.
So, that's it, out in the wide open, but it keeps me connected, and allows more interaction than otherwise would be possible, so I guess I don't mind all that much.
It's handy when I need a pair of eyes to tell me what color a wire is, or what label is on a particular pin. :-)
To be honest though, I do more programming than hardware stuff, though I'm hoping to change that when parallax ships their new speech synthesizer chips, since then I can move forward with several ideas I've been kicking around, both for myself and others, it should be fun.
(first item is a talking thermostat) I can build one with parallax parts cheaper than I can buy ones on the market now, so build it I will. Will be nice to know what the air/heat is set to, and be able to change it w/o sighted assistance.
Anyway, as usual I rambled on too long, so I'll quit, but I sure do enjoy topics like this one, it gives me an idea of what folks do differently from me, and how it works for them.
Look, if you have a Cessna 182 NAV III cockpit poster on your wall nothing else matters! You must shop at Sporty's eh?
That makes two of us, so we should be in good company as we ride our bicycles through the countryside chatting about our ideas. ERCO!
Send your ideas over here. Matt and I would be glad to copy them and make them our own. But a quick check first - you don't have any helpful IP lawyers in your family, do you? If you could dispose of them before you call that would be great.
Ken Gracey
Oh my, that picture is a bad idea in so many ways. Looks like a future with no freedom. No thanks to that but thanks for sharing the possibility.
Ken Gracey
Let's see...
Bench picture: computer to the left with all the in-house network stuff and printer, on the top shelf (first stack) is a Philips 80MHz counter, Fluke 8810A DMM, and a Keithley 2420 SourceMeter. Second stack contains a Goldstar 20MHz CRT-based scope, and a Tek TDS754C 500MHz CRT-based scope. Miscellaneous tools & books finish the shelf off. There's a Tek TDS 210 on the bench proper, but I'm borrowing that from work.
Bookshelf pic: well, books, nick-nacks, and parts, parts, and more parts on top.
Closet pic: all the storage of various bits and parts for guitar tube-amps.
...oooooooooooooooh - tell me more! What years are the geetars and amp?
Yeah I still get a few things from there. I still have my Pilots license but with the Heart problems (Thank you Vietnam) Diabetes and such I can't pass a class 3 anymore. Was looking into sports aviation. They say the Sky Catcher falls into that catagory and I can live with the 3,000 ft limit.
And they say I have too many guitars? You got me beat.
The Twin Reverb amp, and the Alverez are from the 70's. I had to pay $980.00 for the amp from a garage sale. Guys father passed on and he was selling all the stuff he didn't want so when I saw the amp the guy says he wants $1,000.00. I checked Guitar Center and they want $1,300.00 for a re-issue so I went back and told the Guy all I had was $980.00 cash. He took it. I had to replace a couple of tubes and the thing sounds great. The Alverez is from 1977 and was one of the last made in Japan before Alverez moved their operation to Korea. It's rare and no one can even find it in a guitar Blue Book. The Oscar Schmidt Delta King is actually made by Washburn. Don't know what year it is but when I got it I tore it apart and rebuilt it. The action on it was awful and it wouldn't fret right either. Now it plays pretty good. Think I paid $150.00 for it. The SG is new. Or should I say two years old anyway. Set me back $800.00 but I love to play it. I get it out and play it when I am home alone. Crank up the Fender amp, get the Fuzz out for some crunch, and the Wah Pedal for some old time Rock. Thought I was getting to the neighbors but they like it. They say it sounds good. I'll try to post some pix of them.
...problem is, I can only play one at a time!
I've heard of the MIJ Alverez and they've always been well complimented. Lucky guy!
Tucked underneath the guitar shelf (behind the hand made amps) is a '65 Pro-Reverb that I bought for $250 in '68, and a '67 Super-Reverb that I bought for $200 (yes two hundred) in/around year 2000. The Pro definitely needs to be re-capped just because of its age, and the Super is in (has been in) complete disassembly for years (needs to be re-capped). It has the original Jensen open-frame magnet speakers. I could probably sell one for what I paid for the whole amp. Hiding out in the garage is a Bassman (BF) chassis that needs all the tubes and probably a power transformer. Picked that up for free from a local guitar shop that was throwing it away.
Step up to this year's science fair, erco, and we'll figure that one out for you.
The Sky Catcher is perfect for sport flying. It climbs like a 172, has all glass cockpit (G300 synthetic vision with aural alerts and TIS), and a stick/yoke with electric trim. It's a BLAST to fly. Usually around $110/hr wet. I don't know what you've flow previously but it's worth checking out either way
The altitude restriction is up to 10,000' MSL or 2,000' AGL, whichever is higher. VFR only, and of course it's a two seater so only one lucky person can ride with you.
So much for confidence in piloting skills. I have time in Cessna 150, 152, 172, Piper PA28 and Baron B55. Ohhhh you said ride with you. I thought it said die with you. lol
That's exactly what I want to know, where is MY workshop?
Currently I don't have a garage or even a shed, every Englishman should have a shed. Always having to sneak build time on the kitchen table and having to clear up before "her indoors" gets too nervous.