I hope not to start a "long running" philosophical discussion here. But after hard negotiations I've got the approval to create my small electronic lab in our boiler room. Ok, its mostly rearranging all the stuff that is already there and sorting out stuff that is not needed anymore (is this really possible?? )
Maybe I'm also able to silently add some new toys ...

What I want to ask for is how to arrange the following things on a 160cm x 80cm desk with the ability to add shelf on the back wall over the desk.

I own the following things:

- soldering station
- digital oscilloscope
- lab power supply
- logic analyzer that needs to be connected via USB to my old 2008 MacBook Air
- all the tools like pliers, screwdrivers, etc.

I'm a left-hander, so the soldering station need to be on the left side of the desk.

I don't want to end like this: http://www.mikrocontroller.net/attachment/135238/291880-Jim_Williams_in_his_lab_2007.jpg, so I need some best practice advices from our "old dogs".

Mario.

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How should I know what I think, until I hear what I've said.

Wow, and I thought my workbench was bad!

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http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources
The "second front page" is http://wilsonminesco.com/links.html .
What's an additional VIA among friends, anyhow?

Huh? Looks fine to me. My motto is, "A place for everything... and everything all over the place!!"

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In 1988 my 65C02 got six new registers and 44 new full-speed instructions!
https://laughtonelectronics.com/Arcana/ ... mmary.html

_________________
http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources
The "second front page" is http://wilsonminesco.com/links.html .
What's an additional VIA among friends, anyhow?

My only advice is to have a plan before you buy material because they end up in a junk box before you use it and to get some bins or parts organizers because you can get more room by stacking things vertically.

I don't care where you shop but I went to Wallmart and got one of those large plastic containers usually made for clothes for $7 or $8 that you can shove under the bed. It has a lid and keeps dust out.

A search at Kmart dot com using the search words "small parts organizer drawers" found 114 products.

This deal was the best I found:

Stack-On 60-Drawer Storage Cabinet Kmart Item# 005W045098511512 | Model# DS60

http://www.kmart.com/stack-on-60-drawer ... ockType=G1

Similar products were more expensive on Amazon.

And if you get these things, either put heavy things in them or anchor them so that they don't readily tip. Filled with a bunch of light stuff, they're not particularly stable, easily jostled or tipped. You do not one of these filled up to tip over and dump the drawers on the ground.

Get a labeler as well. Label everything, and relabel them when you repurpose. Post it notes are not labels.

The warehouse on Mythbusters should be an inspiration, since they likely stuff junk in to dark recesses akin to the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, "just in case", "for later".

Also, use SMD components. I use these little boxes: http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/653914.pdf. Even the little 1x1 size boxes (about the size of 2 sugarcubes) easily hold a few thousand 0603 resistors. There are different sizes, different colors, and they have a tongue and groove system to fit together. You can put the whole standard E12 range of resistors in less than the area of a sheet of paper.

Then you pull a couple of drawers out and screw the unit to a wall or a board anchored to a wall if the material supports it.

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

_________________
http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources
The "second front page" is http://wilsonminesco.com/links.html .
What's an additional VIA among friends, anyhow?

Thanks for the responses, I've just returned from the local hardware store with everything needed to build two shelfs on the back wall of my workbench, to mount some tools on the wall too and little boxes to sort some things. I had already bought a small cabinet placed beside my workbench waiting to be filled with all the paper boxes with the presorted bigger objects like lcd-displays, sensors, shields for the arduino etc.
The system for the shelf is flexible, so I can easily rearrange both shelf-floors, because they have different widths and I have to try out the best arrangement.
If you all are interested, I'll keep you updated even with some photos.

Thanks for the hint with the SMD boxes, but I live in Germany and it would be hard to get those boxes for a reasonable price here I think. But in fact that I'm related to mice and rats, I'm really thinking about it, because of the "Mouse loo"

Building up vertically is an option, but height is limited, because I have only 1.9 meters from the ground to the ceiling in my basement. But if I will find the strength to sort some things out, I think there is enough room to store everything and still being able to work

Mario.

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How should I know what I think, until I hear what I've said.

That's a really clever idea Garth.

I think if I were to do something like that I'd want to have either a solid wall of equipment/drawers across the back, or a lip (say 2"-4" high) in the gaps to keep things from rolling off the back.

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

Ouch, my roommate wouldn't fit there!
I always end up taking over the living room, and turning it into a lab.
I don't have proper shelfs either, and I would like to have those, but since I keep moving back and forth when the summer break comes it is a bit unpractical.

Two years ago, I had the chance to completely rebuild our study from scratch, starting with the bare concrete floor and naked walls (if anybody is curious, there is journal on my wife's blog starting at http://wsdha.de/2011/09/06/ein-arbeitszimmer-fur-den-autor-teil-1-was-bisher-geschah/).

What has worked great are hooks for cables on the wall so you can hang them there instead of putting them into a box where they get tangled by some sort of strange variant of brownian motion. In fact, since then I've put up two rows of coat pegs just outside the door in the hall for power cords and whatnot. You can probably find a place to hang them from the ceiling, too.

Mario, is humidity a problem in the boiler room? I'd be interested in pictures, too, of course ...