Post a pic of your Electronics Bench

The 1700 is a finicky old gal, if not used for a while needs her buttons pushed and knobs twirled a bit but once she is fully awake still capable of measuring down into the weeds :)
In fact I often find that not being careful using well shielded cables and proper device under test grounding raises the noise floor up into the measurable range.
Of course all of the gear I use is about as old as I am and the siren song of new digital test equipment is always calling.
 
This is a one of kind pic, where you can actually see the bench...

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Well, I'd been threatening to rethink my bench. So while the girlfriend is away for business I got a friend to help me. So it's now looking like this:

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See post # 49 in this thread to see the old bench.

It's not finished yet, but is it ever? I think any working bench constantly evolves, as your needs change or you see a better way to lay it out.

Thanks to spinroch for starting this thread and motivating me! And to everyone who posted pics; I took what I considered the best of each example to wind up here.
 
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Martin.M: I used to carry a little battery powered Tektronix scope like I see on your shelf when I used to fix Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometers for a living in the 80s. :beatnik:
 
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I added an HP 653a test oscillator, an HP 3325B synthesizer/sweep function generator, a Fluke frequency counter and an HP 0-60VDC 1A bench supply recently. The cool part is that they came from a truckload of surplus telecommunications equipment I took in a couple of years ago (and they all work, too!) Too bad there wasn’t a distortion analyzer in that load, as well!
 
Martin.M: I used to carry a little battery powered Tektronix scope like I see on your shelf when I used to fix Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometers for a living in the 80s. :beatnik:

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my µTek Collection, 212, 213, 214, 221 and the little DSO 222 :)

212 is a 2 Ch.
213 is a single Ch. with onscreen DMM
214 is a 2 Ch. storage
221 is a single Ch. 5MHz
222 is a DSO.. (2Ch, 10MHz)

213 at work .. : DMM

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and Beam

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greetings
Martin
 
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Here's my bench. It's mostly purpose-built for electronics work, but it resides in my garage. So it gets used for everything.

The bottom is a nice deep surface for working on large TVs. I built in two Waterloo toolboxes underneath with various electronics emblems on the drawers (held on with magnet-tape). The bench top is MDF, and I counter-sank a home-made swivel for my magnifier light. That way I can pop it off and still have a smooth surface. Ideally, nothing has a "home" on the bench top. I wanted it to be open completely for working on large TVs.

The top is a test fixture of sorts. I was motivated to build this because I was tired of the mess each of these items made on the bench top. I wanted one place where everything was built-in, connected, and ready to use, without junking up my bench top. The box has a 19" LCD in the center, with the input jacks routed to the patch plate on the left (there is also a tiny hole where the remote signal passes through). It is flanked by two 4" LCD monitors too. Why? Because I had them in my parts bin, lol. And it's nice to be able to test multiple streams simultaneously. I used plexiglass to cover each of the monitors, with back-painted black trim.

There is a large server power supply inside the cabinet to provide 12v and 5v to the banana jacks (this also provides power to the ancillary video devices). There are 4 4-ohm speakers wired to a terminal plate for testing audio devices. I can pair them up in series or parallel if I need 2 or 8 ohm loads too.

Across the bottom from left-to-right I have a SD-Card video player, it has 4 HDMI ports, a VGA port, a component and composite output too. This provides test videos for when I do burn-in testing on TVs. The second white device is also a SD player but it only has VGA and composite. I use this one for stills and test patterns. Then on the right is a small car amplifier that I use to test speakers.

There is a fan on each end of the cabinet to pull air from the nearby AC vent through the cabinet interior for cooling.

I have a couple blank plates in there for future expansion. I might add a variable power supply at some point. The monitor on the back wall is just for security cameras. And of course the trusty Tektronix scope on the right. There is also a PC in the rack to the right (not pictured), but that's what's displaying on the LCD (Will Ferrell's "You're Welcome America")

Total cost for me was about $150. I had all of the parts in my junk bins. The only thing I had to buy was the wood, the plexiglass, the two Waterloo boxes (black friday sale $35 each!), and the AV jack plate.

Sorry for the crappy cell phone pics.

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Bench Multimeter + Audio Tester Wandel+Golterman SPM11- PSE11 - SPMZ111
(frequency selective AC µV mV V Meter with tracking generator and sweep unit, XY output lin/log for plotter systems, the resonance bandwith is only 8Hz or 40Hz by selection, a full sweep runs from 15Hz up to higher then 22kHz)
for testing signal level, s/n, K2 K3, frequency linearity and so on :)

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about bigger scopes ...

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greetings
Martin
 
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thats my hobby, to restore them ..
one of the most amazing Tek is the small one with the black frame.
This glowing Tek works with Sampling Sweep + Sampling Heads, the GHz-Voodoo of the RockNRoll Era..
In the scope mobile of the 551 Dual Beam is a 1L5 Plugin, this is a complete Spektrum Analyzer System for the Audio Range, also build in the late 60s
greetings
Martin
 
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