Do any of you use these grounding wrist-bands?

I do. Better safe than sorry. And they are so cheap.

If you are working on other peoples stuff, use one.

You dont want to fry someone else's hardware because you didn't take precautions .

 

@ Bear_2759: How did the work bench work out?


Jens

 

well, the desk is setup, I've got some storage sorted for parts, but that's it at this stage. I've got a 15A 10 point rackmount power rail. 1x 12V DC 5A power supply, some other mixed equipment but nothing too special. I've got a few other projects to finish before I start some of the things I'll need to make for this desk. every time I get a few min's though I'm up there pulling usefull parts out of dead equipment, steppers etc.

I'm looking for an old analogue o-scope atm because I don't have the $$$ for a decent new one. will be trying to make as much equipment as possible rackmount so I can keep bench space clear.

 

will be trying to make as much equipment as possible rackmount so I can keep bench space clear.

Not a bad idea.

 

You should also use a magnetic bench so your parts dont slide around.

I know how you Australians can get when drinking your Fosters Oil Cans. You could end up knocking your bench over! If you used a powerful magnet, then the next morning, you just flip the bench back on its feet and everything is in the same place!



Im guessing thats why Dave Jones from http://eevblog.com doesn't drink.. He doesn't have a magnetic bench!



By the way, I am kidding to the n'th degree.

 

I remember magnetic benches, they used to work miracles. If you had a computer program that wouldn't work, sometimes if you recorded it on a floppy disc then let it sit on the bench overnight it would correct the errors in the code.

Sounds like you've got a good start, I certainly realize how hard it is to get started and some of my early work was funded by mowing yards for $4 - including hand edging with one of those old push-type thingies (probably don't exist anymore) and hand clipping around all the trees and flowerbeds. We didn't have weedeaters back then.

Oddly enough I made a weedeater sometime back around 46 years ago. I had an erector set (another rarely seen item anymore) and put one of the pulleys that had holes around the perimeter on an old synchronous phonograph motor. To this I tied some pieces of fishing line.

It often kills me when I think back at some of the things I could be rich from now had I just been a bit more astute about the future. 40 years ago when we first moved into where I currently live the land around here was going for about $100 an acre. At present what litle is left of it is miles away and commanding around $250,000 an acre or more. There are places within a mile of me that wants over $1M for just small areas.

 

I remember those 'hand' powered edgers. They were a shovel handle with 1 wheel and a "throwing star" connected to the wheel. The "throwing star" blade was about an inch or two larger than the wheel.

You placed the wheel on the concrete and the blade in the lawn so one side of the blade was against the sidewalk/driveway and the other side was against the lawn.

I remember when my folks bought our electric powered edger.. That make lawn cutting MUCH LESS of a hassle.

I ran around our neighborhood for the next month getting $10 a yard for a mow and edge.


ahh.. the memories make me sneeze.

 

The one and same turkeys I was talking about. Not too terrible once initially edged by hand to dig a decent groove then done on a regular basis but a backbreaker regardless.

I was into a bit of chemistry at the time those tiny bottles of Gilbert chemicals were 0.25 each at the hobby shop and test tubes were a nickel, I kept myself going by thinking of how much stuff I could add once I got paid.

We also finally graduated to a gas powered edger, had to learn to control that blade or you'd be changing it quite often and it seems no matter how careful I was my dad always insisted the blade should have lasted longer; that I'd been abusing it.

 

ha, I saw one of those push edgers only a few weeks ago and a kid having a very hard time trying to work out how to use it. you can still buy them but they're not common.