Office Evolution

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History

Over the last 20 years there have been many, “Show us your workbench” threads on both the Parallax Forums as well as my original vBulletin-based forums. I remember one such thread in 2007 that really got me started on taking photos of my bench setup and sharing them with people who asked how my bench was set up.

2007

The very first photo I shared was from July of 2007 when I was working on a robot. I didn’t have very much space to work, using my older son’s old computer desk when he got a new, larger desk. At this time we had just moved to rental home in CA and I didn’t have the room for a larger bench (my computer desk was to the left, perpendicular to the one you see in the photo.

While I didn’t have room inside for a bigger bench, I did have room in the garage for a tall, metal-top bench, shown in the photos above. In these photos I was working on the Motor Mount & Wheel Kit (MMWK) demo platform.

2010

In 2010 my workbench setup at home hadn’t changed, however at work (Parallax), I had recently moved into a new office in engineering and had an opportunity to arrange things to try and make my workspace more efficient.

These two photos show the view of my office from the doorway. In these photos, I had just moved in, so it’s still quite a mess. You can see some of it cleaned up later in the first nine episodes of Savage///Circuits TV.

I would later redo the entire office. Though I don’t have any photos from the redo, you can see the revised office in this video I sent to Tektronix for a contest.

2011

In mid-2011 my late wife and I bought our first home in CA. This was a 4-bedroom home where one room was used as an office.

This was my initial setup, though it did morph a bit over time for various reasons. This setup shows the equipment I had at that time.

A little over a week later, I was already making changes, moving the bench to the right side of the room, instead of the left.

2014

In 2014, my late wife was facing the return of her cancer. At Stage 4, she was in a much worse state than the first time and I was faced with making some tough decisions. She really needed me to take care of her, but I worked 45 minutes away. I came up with a plan to do my job from my home office and this required me to come up with a new arrangement so I could work from home efficiently.

I completely switched up my workbench to be more reflective of how I worked in the office at Parallax and less like I had been doing at home. This involved installing a VOIP phone, a docking station for my work laptop and an extra monitor so I could keep the tech support email, forums and call screens handy no matter what I was working on. For over a year I did tech support and engineering all while taking care of my sick wife. Sadly, she passed in 2015. Behind the far left monitor is my personal desktop PC and my Battery Backup system. The cabinet holds all my bench hand tools.

One of the articles I wrote was, Tools of the Trade, which was published in Nuts and Volts magazine. I had my bench set up for the cover photo for that issue. The article was about all of the tools I use both as a hobbyist and as an engineer in the field of electronics and microcontrollers.

In this photo you can see the PC behind the far left monitor, which has the side off because this PC kept overheating when I played certain video games. On the right I added a small shelf to hold my PanaVise bench tools and some of the project cases. I also added a wall shelf to hold the DSL Modem, Buffalo NAS Drive and under it is a poster with Isaac Asimov’s, “Three Laws of Robotics”.

I also hung up a cable organizer for power supply and scope probes and related cables. There’s another on the left for USB cables. And of course, I had the 2015 Tektronix calendar.

2015

In early 2015 I moved my bench to the right once again to make room for a more dedicated setup for work on the left and my own stuff on the right. This meant moving my PC tower to that bench so the cables would reach both benches.

As you can see, I had also added another large scope to the bench as well as a second Agilent Programmable Power Supply. I really liked this setup.

You can see the wood surface of the new workbench to the left of my original bench. I can’t find a photo of that side, but the top was made from plywood, while the frame was made of 2″ aluminum tubing and had caster wheels. That bench was created by former Parallax employee and author of The Microcontroller Application Cookbook and The Microcontroller Application Cookbook, Vol. 2.

2016

In the wake of my late wife passing, I made the difficult decision to sell the home we shared as it was difficult to be there without her. Everything was a reminder of her. The estimate was my home would sell in a month. It was sold in a week, leaving me 30 days to get everything packed and moved.

I still had to be able to work, so I reduced my workbench down to simplest terms, then started to move all my electronics related items to my living room. Everything I didn’t need to use for work got piled out here to be packed for storage and transport later.

2017

This year saw me laid off from Parallax after 12 years and in the wake of my wife passing. I really had nothing left and so I moved to ID to make a new start.

While living here, I converted the upstairs master suite into my new office. This was the initial setup. My plan was to create something similar to the setup I had in CA, but more efficient. I used the shelf on the left for the cable modem, router, NAS drive and several external USB drives for backups. There is also a battery backup system for the modem, router and NAS.

In the middle photo you can see that the small table has both my gaming PC (Alienware) and my development PC. Each is connected to a battery backup unit underneath, and the desk has dual monitors. The desk provided me a place to do bills and other office work as well as programming. The bench on the right was where I worked on the hardware. The monitor on the hardware bench is for devices that have video output, such as the Raspberry Pi. It was also there as a larger view of my scope output.

A few months later I moved my gaming PC down into the den. This made my desk setup a bit more compact and streamlined things a bit. The toolbox was moved in place of the small table that once held both PCs. The bench now had room on each side. I also created a custom cover for my printer (HP LaserJet).

Having moved the bench away from the wall on the right, I was now able to hang my cable organizers up. Probes for two scopes and the signal generator as well as my USB cables were now organized and easily accessible.

2018

Sadly, I was promised work and income from the house I bought. But, nothing is guaranteed. Instead, everything fell through, causing me to burn through my savings until I had no choice but to sell my house, rather than lose it to foreclosure.

This meant getting everything ready to pack up and move again. So I started piling up my parts again to pack them into boxes for storage. With everything in storage, I shut down my website, sold most of my furniture and started traveling the United States in my RV. I did this for 6 months before settling back where it all started…NY.

Once I made the choice to settle back down in NY (mainly due to the effects of peripheral neuropathy), I had to go back for the things I had in storage. All that I had left were my bench and some tools that were in a storage unit in ID. So I drive all the way back across the states and then back again, towing a U-Haul trailer with all that I had left.

The first thing I did was set up my work bench. Fortunately, the bench breaks down pretty flat, but had to be put back together again. I set up my gaming PC as well as my productivity laptop that I had from the RV. I also set up my printer and my tools so I could do smaller projects until I could raise the money to start replacing my scopes and other test equipment, lost when I left ID.

The apartment I stayed in had a very small extra room which I used to setup a small office just for eBay related stuff. This way I could make some money to replace my lost test equipment and tools. The L-Shaped Glass Desk fit perfectly in this room, leaving me enough room to set up a small tray table for testing, and some shelves for storing things. I had two scales set up on the desk for measuring the weight of packages for shipment.

2020

Eventually I found a better job which meant moving, yet again. I moved two hours away to another apartment building.

The start of my office this time involved first getting a media rack set up. This rack contains my router on top. The shelf below has the cable modem, new NAS drive and external USB backup drive for the NAS. The next shelf down holds my Google Nest Hub Max.

The office is in the spare bedroom and this was my initial setup. By once again, combining everything into one work center seemed to take up a lot of space, but not avail me of all my resources.

Eventually I got around putting the rest of my stuff in that room. I added a third monitor, a 2.1 speaker system, my new test equipment and my Google Nest Hub. There’s a battery backup and even a Blu-Ray Player with streaming apps for entertainment.

This was a compact, yet full-featured workbench. However, as soon as I started working on projects I realized I didn’t have much room to work. The L-Shaped Glass Desk took up a lot of room and seemed to just attract clutter.

I brought the printer into this room, having built a new printer stand for it.

To the left of that was my metal storage shelf. Things quickly got cramped and even worse when I went to buy a laser cutter. And I still didn’t have a place to solder!

2022

I decided to split the system like I did in ID, moving my gaming PC out to the living room. I got a new bench and an extra monitor, since I took the third monitor from the office. I sold the L-Shaped Glass Desk.

Of course, this left the PC tower sitting on the step-stool and in the way of my coffee table, so I will be revisiting this soon.

2023

I had installed some development software on the gaming PC when I moved it out to the living room, since I stole a monitor and the sound system, I kind of left the office in disarray for a while.

It was some time later when I got back to working on my office space. In between, my laser cutter / engraver arrived.

I also installed a dedicated development PC. With the xTool Laserbox Rotary installed, you’ll notice moved my metal shelf to the back wall.

I decided to do like I did in CA and set up shelving to hold the networking stuff as well as some knick-knacks and power connections. I also added a battery organizer and another cable organizer rack.

I still don’t like the electrical power connections.

More cable organizer racks to install.

Once I got the electrical wiring the way I wanted it, it was time to get the bench back together.

Now that the bench is set up the way I want it and the shelves are organized, here is a video pan of the new workspace.

I added a small desk for my soldering station, however it ended up covered with everything that was piled on the bench. I really need to sort this stuff out. My old printer served me well for years, but started acting up, so I got a newer one. The door behind the printer is a small closet where I have stored some parts, including all my project enclosures, as well as solar panels and other stuff.

I decided to revisit the gaming PC bench in the living room, since the PC was sitting on a step-stool and things weren’t very organized. I found a wire shelf unit at Lowe’s that could handle the extreme weight of this Alienware PC Case. I was also able to put the Battery Backup unit on it, as well as the power supplies for the monitors and even an external USB backup drive.

There’s plenty of room now that the PC is behind the bench. There’s room for the Battery Backup, and after this photo was taken, an external USB backup drive was stored down here as well as some cables for the drives (USB and P/S).

I got this Sabrent USB Hub from Amazon and it makes it easy to connect the plethora of USB drives and my phone / tablet to this PC without having to get at the ports on the tower, now behind everything. Yet, it is still easy to get to it if I need to.

With any luck, my wife and I will be moving into our new home soon. When we do, I will have to start over again, so there will be a new traunch of photos of the new office. Stay tuned!

2024

We finally got an offer accepted and own our new home. While looking at the house I found that I had two choices for my new workshop. The upstairs has two bedrooms and a bathroom, and these all connect to a room-sized landing, which is essentially a bonus space / loft.

These are the two upstairs bedrooms. The first one is the larger room and will be the new workshop. Not everything will fit in the workshop anyway, so I will be utilizing the entire upstairs. Bedroom two will be a media room for shooting videos and working on music. The landing will have shelves for storage and my inside toolbox will be stored there.

Okay, I am fully moved out of the apartment and everything is in disarray between the house and my storage unit! That said, I have a plan for my new workshop. The room will be setup similar to how things landed during moving. I was going to put the toolbox outside the workshop, but the landing is actually being set up a bit differently than how I envisioned it. It’s amazing how much things change once you start putting things into a room. So the toolbox is where it will stay.

The Laser Cutter is where it will be. The motorized desk with the monitor on it is where the workshop PC will be. The workbench needs the legs installed and will be sitting along the wall to the right, perpendicular to the desk. That small bench on the left will be my soldering station and just needs to be cleaned and moved against the wall. I’m still waiting for blinds / shades for the windows.

This is the second, slightly smaller bedroom. I’ve got plans for this as a media / gaming room. Right now it’s a complete mess! I was basically staging everything in this room to put away later. Much of it goes on the shelves in den / landing.

The landing also ended up collecting much of the boxes and containers that were packed up. It really needs to be organized. The black shelves and the metal shelf unit are staying where they are. The rest is uncertain at this point.

My priority was actually to get my wife’s office together first since the internet connection goes into that room. I have a media rack that holds the cable modem, router, NAS drive, backup drive, smart hub, switch and battery backup units. Since that’s the core of the network, that’s where everything begins.

In this photo you can obviously see the router on top of the media rack. I left the next shelf down empty for my wife. The next shelf holds the cable modem, NAS drive, it’s external USB backup, the switch (hiding toward the back) and the white box on top of it is the TP-Link Hub for my front and back doorbells and some sensors. On the bottom are the two battery backup units. I could get away with one if it wasn’t for the fact that all but one of the devices plugged in has wall-warts!

Here’s a shot of that wall almost done. The printer always has a “dust cover” on it when not in use. Adds years to the life of the printer! The shelf in the middle has additional shelves, but my wife needs to decide where she wants them. That TP-Link hub is also the storage unit for the doorbell camera footage, as well as the remote “bell”. So, when someone rings the doorbell, it rings in the office too. You can change the sound it plays. In any event, this rack feeds the entire network, which will run up to the office switch.

Not having a network connection upstairs is really the inhibitor to getting anything else done up there. I didn’t want to put everything together and then have to move stuff to get the network installed. Last night, despite being exhausted and sore, I went downstairs (basement) and ran the ethernet cable over to the bedroom where the Spectrum coaxial cable used to come in. Once I got that up through the floor I was essentially committed.

This is not standard CAT6E cable, but rather FLAT CAT6E cable that I had at the apartment. I used the flat because, not only did it blend in with the paint over there, but I was able to run three cables in the same space as one along the hallway ceiling. I’m worried about longevity, especially if any critters might find this soft cable tasty.

I had no choice but to use the existing hole where the coax came up through the floor. It turns out the reason they had it so far from the wall is that there’s a beam under the floor in the way along the wall. Once I got the cable up through the floor, I drilled into the ceiling and realized the same issue…a beam along the edge, in the way. I used a cotton ball for now to fill in the hole. Obviously this whole situation needs to be cleaned up. I used my endoscope with a hook attachment to fish the cable up through the floor upstairs. That worked quite nicely!

Unfortunately, this puts the cable inside the closet in my media room. The cable needs to run along the wall to the back of the closet, around behind the shelf and through the wall to the workshop. There it will connect to a network switch. Another cable will have to follow it back through the closet to come out in the media room where it will connect to my main PC.

With the network available upstairs now, I carried the parts to my new computer desk upstairs and moved the rack for the computer tower, the tower itself, the monitor arms and the monitor into the media room. I also found the UPS and the subwoofer for my speaker system. This is where I left off that night. I got the desk together and attached the monitor arms and monitors, as well as adding the rack and tower. The UPS is plugged in and connected to the tower, but nothing else is connected yet. I still have to find the other two speakers and the cord that connects to the tower. In that box should also be the power supplies for the monitors, as well as the video cables.

Eventually, I found the cables and power cords and got everything up and running. This PC has been offline long enough that there were 7 Windows 10 Pro updates, iTunes, NVIDIA drivers, etc. But, we’re back up and running enough to do some stuff in between getting the house together.

Since the Media Room is full of boxes to be unpacked (as you can see), I decided to go get the Workshop together, so that I could get that PC up and running as well. One of the glaring realities of working at night in this house is that everyone who walks by is watching me work through the windows, which have no curtains or blinds. I decided to tackle that first.

These windows are very narrow. I couldn’t find blinds for them in this size (22″), so I found these shades on Amazon. These windows are the same size / configuration as the ones in the Media Room, so I am doing the exact same thing in there.

Moving to the Workshop, my priority was to get the PC in there running and updated, but I decided that it would be more efficient to get the shelving up first, since several of the network devices will reside on one of these shelves. First I installed the shelves that go behind the workbench itself, so I could get the workbench out of my way and where it goes. This also let’s me see how much room I have available.

I installed track shelving so I could adjust the shelf heights to what I was putting on them. The priority was to get as many of my parts cabinets on the lower shelf. Everything is even and level. Another set of shelves just like this one will be installed on the wall to the right. The shelves that were in my old office at the apartment will be installed on the wall to the left and hold the upstairs network devices, including my security camera.

Moving to the left wall, the PC will go here, but first I needed to get the shelves up behind it. These were the shelves from my office at the apartment. Three tracks and two shelves (different sizes). After putting up some of the knick-knacks, the security camera and the ethernet switch, I installed the anti-static mat on the workbench and placed the shelf for the test equipment.

Okay, the final wall is done, as far as shelving goes. All the rails were installed, then the brackets and shelves were installed, and finally the cabinets were placed on the shelves.

After the shelves were done, the soldering station was set up. On the left is a YIHUA 853D Soldering Station, which has a Hot Air Unit, Soldering Iron, 0-15 VDC Power Supply and 5V USB charging port. To the right is a KOTTO Solder Smoke Fume Extractor. In the middle is a KIRKAS USB-powered 2-in-1 Stepless Dimmable LED Magnifying Desk Lamp. Finally, on the right is a YIHUA 948 80W Desoldering Station. I still have to connect the ground for the anti-static mat and the outlet strip for this bench. Speaking of mats, the blue mat in the bag is an Anti-Static Silicone Soldering Mat. None of these items have ever been used up to now since I never got the soldering station put together at the apartment. So this is a welcome new addition to the workshop.

Some updates to each section from above. The workshop PC is not up and running (FINALLY) and I ended up using the lift desk, though I will be keeping it unplugged when not in use. The battery backup and my Google Display are on the white shelf. On the workbench I got the magnifying light and some of the test equipment connected and ready to use. On the soldering station wall I got one additional cabinet for the top shelf and started placing my other smaller organizers.

The last wall with the windows has the laser cutter and the toolbox. I am considering moving the toolbox after all. I need to smaller tool cart available and am out of room! I may put that tool cart where the toolbox is right now. We’ll see how that works out.

There were some updates to the Media Room as well. I’ve mostly wrapped up the media PC / desk and cleaned up much of the mess in this room as you can see compared with the earlier photos above. The bookends, one of the roll-around benches and the extra white shelf have all been moved against the other wall. There’s still some stuff to be put away.

The den was an absolute disaster in the photos above, and while it still looks messy, I got a lot picked up and mostly have things sorted out here. Just a little cleanup left to do. The gizmo in the center is a Honeywell Air Purifier.

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