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Building up a electronics / phsics lab with little to no money ?

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Vigh holtage

Sat Dec 23 2017, 02:01AM

Registered Member #61739 Joined: Wed Aug 23 2017, 04:43PM
Location:
Posts: 44

I thought i would post this because i am quite poor, so poor in fact that i can barley afford gass to get to work. Yet when i come home i have what i consider a verry decent physics/electronics/machinist lab !
Well if i am so poor how the heck did i get all this stuff ? (A lathe, drill press, band saws, chop saws, drills, high voltage power supplys, dc power supplys, mosfets diodes transistors of all types, ham radio equipment, fm transmiter, even all kinds of large ac motors ?

Well i dont have money to spend but what i do have is time !
My lab cost me time, countless hours of looking in the trash and searching the salvage yard for broken electronics and junk apliances or even useable equipment that can be repaired (rare but it happens) and also time talking to all my local salvage yard guys asking them hey if you find this or that dont crush it set it aside i will come get it,
I take all of those salvaged things appart and remove all the good componants ! Because of this i now have the componants to build ... power supplys and then i can start on circuits for repairing other things like recievers or ham equipment all wile constantly salvaging.

So over time it builds up and i keep making new things from salvaged old things i get for free or near free.
One day you have nothing but a shoe box of basic hand tools and 6-7 years later you look around and find youself sitting in the middle of a formidable physics lab !

But what do i do with all the junk i dont use ?
Well those salvage yards i made friends with ... they take circuit boards for 10c a pound even if there stripped bare ! They take all kinds of metals and pay me for it ! And the junk wires i cant use anymore 1.50 a pound ! And with the money i get from the recycle part i buy new tools at no cost to me aside from my time ! Most of the time they have good power tools that work or just need some restoration set aside for you waiting in the corner for you to buy with the mo ey they just gave you for the stuff you didnt even want ! This is how i got my band saw, circular saw, power drills, angle grinder, and even my large transformer cores .

So recap ..
1 take everything electronic out of the trash
2 take it tottaly apart and save and organize everything
3 recycle the rest for money
4 make friends at the recycle place and tell tjem what you are looking for they will find it and hold it
5 use said money to buy new tools and componants !
6 repeat steps 1 - 5

Vigh holtage

Sat Dec 23 2017, 02:16AM

Registered Member #61739 Joined: Wed Aug 23 2017, 04:43PM
Location:
Posts: 44

I thought I would post this simply because a lot of people when they come over my house they come down in my lab and the very first thing they say when they see it is " how on Earth did you get all this stuff" and "I would never be able to afford this or that" and I laugh to myself and think neither would I, yet I have it !

I thought it would be helpful for beginners and people starting out and wondering how they going to afford these things.

What I'm looking for here is tips and pointers on where to get equipment especially more complicated equipment now that I have the basics for instance, we're does one get , or how does one go about getting a working oscilloscope for very cheap ?

I would also like to know if there's anyone else out there who have built their lab out of nothing vs buying equipment off the shelf or if anyone else out there that salvages components off of Old circuit boards regardless of what they are knowing that they would probably have to use them later to repair something else, or to build something else ?

Average Joe or maybe middle-class Joe can afford to go buy an oscilloscope and then an inductance meter and then maybe a month later pick up a frequency counter and then save a little money and pick up a power supply but for Not Your Average Joe or people living in poverty or people who have little to no money buying this equipment can seem like a fairytale because that is exactly what it felt like for me at first ! I kept thinking jeez how am I going to afford a DC power supply? how would I ever be able to buy this or buy that? I just didn't have the money! but with enough time and ingenuity things just sort of built themselves around me. I started with a shoe box of hand tools and a few years later was sitting in the middle of a lab with ham radios, trancevers, power supplys, a lathe, drills exe exe.....

So if all you have is just a box of hand tools and and some inginuity, you can spend time instead of money !

ragnar

Sat Dec 23 2017, 06:58PM

Registered Member #63 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:18AM
Location:
Posts: 1425

That's a comprehensive setup, and the especially cool aspect: it's tidy and well taken care of!

Definitely will serve you well in pursuit for knowledge. What we learn is more important than what it cost.

Back in the day they were a luxury, but second hand digital scopes (eg Rigol) are pretty reasonable on eBay.

Happy xmas Roger and thanks for sharing your pics.

Patrick

Tue Dec 26 2017, 03:38AM

Registered Member #2431 Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639

this is what im using, the physical units are better, but with HV i dont want to blow the whole thing out if something goes wrong.
For $55 i can take that risk.

radiotech

Wed Dec 27 2017, 09:19AM

Registered Member #2463 Joined: Wed Nov 11 2009, 03:49AM
Location:
Posts: 1546

Very nice.

All you need is a farrier's hammer, and you could make extra money shoeing horses !

1514366359 2463 FT181039 All You Need Is A Farrier Hammer

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