Any takers on how long it will take for the religious people to find this thread and turn it into a big nerd-vs-religion flame fest?

*ducks and hides*

I meant FCC...lol...

LOL, spot on!

Also, to continue where I left off last time (one of our clients came in the office, so I had to make the list short, work first, fun second!).

7) continues... A nice spectrum analyzer is good to have around, especially for spotting those parasitic stray oscillations that you won't be able to escape when the time comes to commercialize your projects, the FAA are fairly strict, and your inventions need to be approved first, so better have a Spectrum analyzer handy, and make sure those stray oscillations doesnt emit from your construction. Its also an excellent instrument for designing filters.

8) Soldering equipment. Something you dont want to skimp on is a good soldering station, preferably multiple stations as one of them WILL break down one day, usually when youre in the middle of an awesome project. Not to mention the different jobs you need done, a bigger station for those DIP/DIL discretes and cables, a smaller tip/solder for those SMD oddjobs (you may want a SMD hot air rework station as well), and a desoldering station instead of just a pump. Pump works fine, but they are a big mess, solder waste goes everywhere. Hakko and Weller are two brands professionally used, Pace too...but Id reccommend the first two as I have long term experience with these.

9) As our long time friend and foe mr Anonymous Coward explains, a good Microscope for SMD rework - is a good thing to have around, dont need one myself yet, but I have one...just to read the darn numbers and characters on the smallest SMDs :)

10) ESD equipment is nice to have, and some claim even mandatory. Well...Unless you work at Intel/Amd or handle million dollar test gear on component level, all you need to have are some good ESD habits. A) Always get rid of any built up charge in your body when handling sensitive components, I always touch my metal-rack before handling anything sensitive. My metal rack is big, and works well as a discharger. Also dont touch pins of switching diodes, sensitive transistors (especially HF transistors), or chips...most of the time...you wont need to...its all down to habit. Once youve worked this into your system, itll become second nature rather than an annoyance. In my MANY *MANY* years of handling components, I cant even remember destroying anyone due to static electricity, but then again...were all different, I have plenty of knowledgeable friends whos nearly infamous for zapping circuits.

11) A logic analyzer is also nice to have if you work a lot with MCUs or/and logic based constructions. Get one thats at least 100mhz, or you wont hang with the times.

12) Always treat your tech-friends nicely. And build yourself a solid network of regular engineer guys and hobbyist...dont be stingy, share the wealth. Because you never know that day when you desperately need that missing component that even Mouser cant help you find, and then your network saves the day. I know theyve saved my butt numerous times.

Good luck

By no means is my workshop the coolest in the world, but its a combination of years of experience, building and designing, and this is how it is:

1) Raaco shelves, these are absolutely essential, youd hate to run out of components in the middle of a project, so you need these, fill the walls! http://images.toolstop.co.uk/product/6651eea4432e327d9f2017ea860bef09.jpg

2) You need HEAPS of components. Now, youre probably not a millionaire, if you where...you wouldnt ask us geeks, youd just purchase whatever, so here is how I get my stash. I go to ham-fests, the radio amateurs usually have thousands if not millions of surplus components theyve grabbed from a run-down electronics shop or factory closedowns. Make a HUGE list of your essentials, and go collecting. Itll take a few years, but youll get there. I have MILLIONS and MILLIONS of NOS (new old stock) components from all over the world by now. Ebay is your friend, but beware of FAKE components, expensive components sold for peanuts...could be fakes, but its still relatively rare imho. Go hunting for closedowns of electronics labs, stores and much more, 70% of my components comes from there, and usually for pocket-change. Hang out...befriend the managers...listen and pay attention. Before you know it, youre the "buddy" who gets everything for nothing.

3) Get SMD reels too. Have a copy of your DIL/DIP discretes as SMD equivalents, this is when youre finished prototyping with the discretes. You need the full size discretes in order to experiment properly. Far too many wannabe designers design everything in CAD and scratch their heads endlessly over their designs, lacking on-hands experience with the easy to handle components. This is understated today. A lab like this is essential for quick and good development.

4) You need ROCK SOLID tables rather than fancy glass tables, so purchase some old super-solid office equipment rather than shop IKEA. Sometimes youll throw a 50-100 kgs of instrumentation on your table, and bye bye IKEA. And itll get dirty, and itll drown in solder waste (which you will eventually get everywhere). So it must be a surface solid and easy to clean.

5) You wall should also have a tool-rack, here you need the rough tools such as screwdrivers, mini drills, bits, cutters, pliers and whatnot. Youll also need some hangers for your endless numerous test-cables. Hang the test cables within easy reach so you can keep your shop tidy and neat. This will become more important than you may think.

6) Speaking of which, numerous of testcables you need (Yoda talk)... banana plugs, soft-silicone cables for power connections, extendable banana plug cables are essential, dont skimp on quality here. In fact, you may nearly skimp on everything except this. Test cables are notorious for going bust, and killing that spirit when you finally discover that you bought cheap crap...and spent hours just to find out your test cable is leaky, crappy and such. You need 100mhz range probes, probably higher...and more expensive, but start out with common 100-250mhz scope probes.

7) As for test instruments, you need these basic things: 2 Benchtop multimeters, 1 portable multimeter, 1 frequency counter (min 2.6 ghz), 2 Benchtop oscilloscopes, preferably one analog and one digital...Ive got 4 of them for various reasons...you can never get enough scopes and multimeters. Function generator is essential for repair and design, a 10mhz will do, preferably with TTL level output as well as variable analog. Get a Signal generator too, 1 ghz minimum...the 1+ghz something...needs to be very stable if you operate above these frequencies. Benchtop lab PSUs... get some with both analog and digital readouts, the older generation analog psus tend to be less noisy and better at delivering at high peaks. Switchmode PSUs are needed for those higher power needs, but have at least one of each.

Now that was money well spent.

Dust!

We just dont have enough dust here on our planet!
Anyone who has visited my home, can tell that Im addicted to dust.

...wed be able to eyeball a patch of forest, live - streamed - from a satellite?

Man, I almost had my voyeur hopes up there for a second, imagine all the action in the forest, unknown to man and beast, till now!

Oh wait...Seti...

Thank you for bringing me a community with people that are more than willing to give me sleepless nights.
Thank you for giving me a reason to surf on the job, just to check if that rat bastard Anonymous Coward has brought insult to my name, once more.
Thank you for bringing us a site that is immediately quoted on a bazillion dupe wannabee sites once it gets slashdotted.
Thank you for reminding me that I am a geek, no matter where I work, whom I work for - ultimatively Im really your bitch and nobody else.
Thank you for occasionally making me a moderator and handing me anything between 5 to 15 moderator points just to take it away from me a few days later, just to tell me that every geek is created equal.
Thank you for posting subjects making it possible to discuss no one else but us geeks would ever dream of discussing.

And ultimatively...

Thank you for being the one and only site out there, reminding us all of - that we have no life, really - we dont! ;)

Typo!

But youre right, thanks for noticing.

We ads on TV for 200gbit internet here in Sweden, yet - most people dont have anything above 4mbit. Sweden is pretty much a long forest country, and only the few big cities we have can enjoy really fast internet.

I live in a small city here, 10K+ something citizens, and Im the "lucky" one to live nearby the city core itself, so I get around 12-14mbit on a good day, this is far more than my peers get, they are lucky to hit 2mbit, and live only 2-3km away from the city core.

But you know what? I do just fine on 12mbit. With that, I can even watch television in FULL HD without any jumping or skipping, even directly from the USA via proxies.

...man, thats a bad joke.

Is old Bill in there?

Ah, here is where things get real dangerous. Who decides whats BS or not?

My research shows that signs with BOOBS in them, whether this is just women showing off their BOOBS on the roadside (which is, for some odd reason, quite common in Denmark)...is the main source of distraction. ...Now, show me a typeface that will affect YOUR distraction away from the BOOB-signs.

My steam account was hacked a few times, I believe that was twice, it was however quite easy to get it back, they asked me to provide a picture of my Games Box with the serial number IN the photo, at least two photos for verification, and I got my account back because the "cracker" could not provide the same.

My google mail was hijacked once, and google support provided me with information about a Chinese Cracker as Google kept my IP Adresses on file and realized that I probably wasnt a Chinese living in a Chinese Net Cafe in China all of a sudden :) For once, ID tracking provided useful, and on my side.

... shows that their government and people are far different from the rest of the world. As a DIRECT result of this, narcotics and drug abuse is actually LOWER in that country than the ones where this is totally illegal.

Maybe their reasoning works for software as well?

...of pleasure savoring the flavors of a juicy burger, makes the hours of obesity, farts and suffering seem like a walk in the park.