Hi, Why are there lifts behind me? Why am I echoing in a basement car park? Well I'm under the building for my new lab I Thought we'd check it out. it's still under construction, but let's go have a quick look, shall we? Let's go! Exciting stuff. Take a lift every day now and well, it's not that fun. There are fire stairs but well, they're on the outside of the building and you can't get bottom access at least I don't have a key for it yet so I don't know.

Anyway, I might be able to find a better way around that, but every day in the lift, let's go. and Tada here is the new lab. Check it out! It's exactly the same one that uh I showed you before but with the headlamps cuz the power wasn't turned on then but the power is turned on now. so I'm I'll give you a look around.

as you can see it's still an absolute mess. totally under construction. um I've just finished painting the walls uh here. at least uh in this part of it I haven't finished painting the uh office, uh cubicle over there at all.

But anyway I thought I'd give you a quick look around I give you a better uh tool when it's done. but a lot of people I've been tweeting the photos, a lot of people have been asking about the bench build and I've got some time-lapse uh photos of the whole thing. but I thought I'd show you some details and this is the main bench. Check it out! It's Huge! It's actually as I think somebody on Twitter pointed out.

it's actually uh, the same size or slightly bigger bench space than my entire previous lab. So it's crazy. Now it's actually uh, 6 .3 M long by uh, 900 mm deep. That's about 19 ft or something like that for you.

Yanks so uh, 19 ft long and uh, it's 30 mm Pine everything. Well, all the main bench, all the legs, and all the bracing and stuff like that is made out of uh Plantation Pine so this is 30 mm thick. Uh Pine each piece is 900 Deep by 2.1 M wide. and uh, they're all, uh, individually separate benches.

so I can, literally there you go, lift it up. No worries, each individual bench moves, but I might actually, uh, join them together. um just to give it just to make it a bit more rigid and things like that once it's finally complete. So that's the main bench and uh, we'll take a look at the bottom part of it here.

let's have a look and here we go. This is what it's like underneath. if I've just got uh, cross bracing pieces, they are pine as well. they're are I think are 70 mm by 19 mm or 13 mm Pine or something like that.

um and I've got a top strip up there with the power boards. Now the power boards I've actually got a total of 60 6 Z power boards I've got uh 10 strips of six each I figure that should just about Do It Um, so I'm quite happy with that. Uh, by the way, there are 920 mm High posts I I've pretty much over the years I've come to think that's a pretty ideal uh height so that doesn't include the thickness um of the bench itself. So they're 950 mm uh, total height and uh, as you can see, I've tried to duplicate the main uh, hopefully if you compare this to my previous videos, this will probably be where my camera will sit something like this in this corner here.

and uh, that will be the view where I'll do most of the talking head shots anyway of the new video. so um, it you know I've tried to keep the same look and feel now. this. uh, all of the rack stuff up here.

um, this racking is exactly the same stuff I just reused it from my old lab. so the old lab has been, uh, totally dismantled now. but the uh benches are all new. um I didn't reuse the benches from my old lab I sort of kept them there cuz they're on like a swing up type arm so I can move them out of the way.

but the uh, all the metal shelv in. a lot of people have been asking about that. It's actually um Ikea a lot of people don't like Ikea but I think that they're really quite nice. there are these are all galvanized, um steel and it's called the uh Broa system.

So if you look up uh, broer shelvin from Ikea you'll actually find it and they're are just metal legs. They're not attached to the wall or anything like that. You can actually attach them to the wall. Um, but technically, if I do that I think that's uh, probably counted as an office, uh, fit out.

so I would have to get strata approval and all sorts of things for that. But um, as it stands, this is all freestanding stuff. and uh, as you can see, they' got legs on the bottom and they do freestand. um and they can't fall forward of course cuz they're just sitting behind the benches so the benches aren't attached in any way now.

I did have these metal ones in the old, uh lab, these galvanized metal, uh, shelving and I rather like those. but I did get um some Pine once again Plantation Pine ones for these shelves I haven't actually, uh, screwed those down yet. they're just, uh, sitting there I'm not actually entirely happy with the wooden ones I actually prefer the metal, but they're more expensive. so I don't I don't know I guess I'm going to have to live with the wood ones, but there you go.

that is the main bench and it should provide a lot of bench area. I think now time and time again. I Get people asking about this blue uh bench top material and exactly what it is I'm sure I've mentioned it uh before, but uh, in case you haven't actually seen this uh, blue stuff before, it is actually a uh rubber ESD uh mat. That's basically what it is.

It's an ESD mat. It's got a static dissipative top uh surface. which means it doesn't build up a charge. and no, it is not conductive.

it's static dissipative. So it's in the order of many gig ohms uh uh surface resistance. But it does have a conductive uh, back layer on it which is in the order of uh, tens of K or you know, hundreds of k or something like that. and we should actually get some probes out and actually measure that.

Now this is the rubber stuff. You can get vinyl bench matting, but the rubber stuff is far superior and it is actually more, uh, expensive to cover this entire bench actually. Um, the problem is I I thought I Had you know a decent amount of this bench uh material. but it shows with these new bigger uh bench tops.

I've got I really don't have um much of it covered. This is not a bad work surface. I've got another tiny mat there, but they're not deep. They don't go all the way to the back of the bench.

but uh, here in Australia to buy this um uh, blue rubber. uh uh. quality Mattin to do the whole thing 900 mm Deep by a 10 m roll is about $330 Australian dollars to cover that entire bench. and that's more than what I paid to actually build these benches.

So um, that's you know I don't know whether or not I'd do that I'd love to do it. And the good thing about this stuff is that it's um, chemical resistant. It's durable and it will not burn if you put your soldering iron on it as opposed to the vinyl ones which will just just burn straight through instantly. So they and and they won't cut either.

You can actually get your knife and you can. You know, try and cut these things and you will score it like that. You will put some score marks in it but you won't actually cut it. They're very difficult to actually cut these mats, so if you're going to buy they, they're not just an ESD mat, they're actually they actually protect your uh, workbench and your surface.

and uh, in case you're wondering, no I haven't uh Tre these pine benches in any way, I've decided to leave them raw I think um because I didn't want to smell. you know I didn't want to stink up the entire lab with uh, some sort of, you know, uh, finish or something like that. they're They're pretty awful stuff to actually protect these benches. So I thought I'd I'd just leave them raar and uh, see how it goes I can always change my mind and clear off the gear and actually, uh, coat them with some sort of, um, you know, tongue oil or something like that.

uh, some sort of linseed oil or some sort of finish like that. But anyway, at the moment, I've left them raw. so that's the main bench I Love it. It's bigger than my entire previous lab.

the whole floor area. It's great. and just to prove it, we'll measure it. here.

you go. This is the static dissipative surface on top. We'll uh, try and measure the Uh Seamans in a minute. but uh, you get nothing of course.

and if the conductive rubber backing there you go. it's you know, in the order of 100K or something like that for like a cenm distance and it will obviously go out as you increase the distance like that. but that is a conductive bottom and no, you can't really Pierce through this thing because as I said they are, they are incredibly tough. like I'm really putting a lot of force into those probes and I am not going to pierce that particular mat.

I've made a little a couple of little indent marks there, but you know it's It's really difficult to penetrate this stuff, so let's actually switch that over and see if we can measure Nano Seamans Okay, I'm on my Nano Seamans range here. Okay, and it's pretty darn close settling down to zero. Let's put it, say a centimeter apart like that. Okay, we're getting roughly about2 Nano seams and to convert that to Mega ohms all you do is invert it on your calculator.

so23 Nano Okay, and if we invert that bang, what do we get? We get 4.3 gig. There you go and there's my Airon control panel. It's currently 23 C in the Uh room, but if I actually, uh, switch it on, is it Wh? There we go? It's a bit. It's a bit tricky, but there it goes.

and you can hear a hum. Not sure if you can hear that, but there is a hum and you can see the uh see that they're actually blowing. Now we've got those little indicator Rags up there to show that it's actually blowing. So probably when I'm filming I I don't know I haven't listened to this uh back yet and uh I'll determine if the airon actually you can hear it on the video or not I'm not sure so um, may possibly when I'm filming I may have to switch off the uh airon for a little bit.

Um, it does get it's summer here in Sydney it gets up to about 25 when I first come in in the morning the room's at about 24, maybe 25. C So it's a little bit on the warm side so I am going to have to turn the air con on every day for a bit. Not sure what's going to Happ happen in winter time now. I've got some uh indoor plants here.

excellent because I don't want to, uh, just breathe the whatever craps in here I want to, uh, want some fresh air? So I've got uh, two of those. This one will probably sit at the front door. There you go. but I love some uh indoor plants.

Brilliant! And of course, no lab is complete without the arcade machine and here it is: I'll um I'll have to do a separate video on the arcade machine, but uh, it's great. It's actually made in Australia not made in China or anything like that a guy down in Woolen gong Woolen gong arcade machines and uh, it's a really nice machine I Love it. and I've got my sink over here of course I showed you that before in the dark there's my thermal chamber up there. um I can put some other stuff in there I got the cupboard up the top which is empty.

uh, cupboards down the bottom which has got a hot water system and some. Taps and uh, there's my phone. um, switch? uh well. my phone.

uh, interface panel, whatever you call it and I determined that this actually this office has eight phone lines. No short. no, no less than eight. There's one down there.

There's another one there. There's another one over there. There's uh, so it's three along this wall that one's duplicated into to the office cubicle in there. and there's another three along the walls here.

it's crazy one. two and we got three over here. and uh, I've got an ethernet cable coming uh through the wall there I'm not sure what I'm going to do with that and I've got a rather, uh, mysterious, uh, looks like an Ethernet pulled on the wall here I haven't actually taken that off yet and see where the cable goes? I'm not sure I'll have to, uh, take it off and actually, uh, TR that? I'm rather curious. Now here's the Dilbert style office cubicle and uh, this is where I put the main, the main computer and if you're wondering, yes, I can actually see daylight out there.

although there's not much daylight in uh Sydney at the moment it's the worst summer in like 50 years. it is awful. absolutely terrible weather. but there you go.

I'll eventually get a table in here. haven't painted a bench? uh, sorry and oh, I don't know I might put some more benching along that wall I Haven't really figured out what to do with sort of this. uh, part of this whole area of the lab yet? I'm not sure. Plenty of room for expansion I got the massive bench.

um, which will probably do me for uh, quite some time, but um, if I need to, uh, install some more benches, I can do it along those walls over there no problem and in the center I don't know if you got any good ideas, let me know. I've got get some bean bags and uh, various other things and you know, really? K This place out acoustically. um I'm not sure now if you look at the roof tiles. if anyone has any experience with these sort of roof tiles I think that they're not bad acoustically.

they may even be sort of, um, you know, they're like some sort of uh, uh, cork type, uh, rubber thing and they've got little, uh, not, uh, rubber. but um, I don't know, some sort of cork type material and uh, they've got little holes and pits in them and I'm not too sure. So I'm going to have to test out the audio in here, but I'm going to have to install some audio uh panels, uh, acoustic absorbing panels just like I've got in my uh, office and the Ow recording studio back home and you notice this uh, area where I'll film most of my stuff is rather dark. It's probably, uh, been enhanced by the camera here, but it's not.

The light isn't that great. I've just got a single 36 w strip fluo. I've got a total of nine, uh, 36 w strip fluos in the office here now. I I Eventually want to replace them with um, uh, leads or something like that.

some cre leads or something like that, but a very expensive solution. haven't really looked into that yet. Probably what I want to do is put some front lights on this wall. So I probably want some sort of light huge Light Panel that goes on this wall that lights up my face and the uh front of lab here.

I've just got some uh, uh, work lamps here, but uh, these are just for working with I occasionally use them for, um, adding extra light to, uh, tear downs and stuff like that. but I really need some better lighting I've got my studio lights uh, they're down in the car I'll set those up here, but really? I want some sort of permanent, uh, uh, permanent light solution that just sort of works, you know I don't have to muck around with it, mess around and stuff like that. so that's probably my work bench over there. I'll probably do tear Downs on this bench.

I'll do other builds and current. uh, you know, probably build my Quadcopter there or something like that. So anyway, there you go. that's a, uh, well, not a quick tour.

It's probably taking 15 or 20 minutes, but that's the new lab under construction. Oh, keep you posted and if you want to, uh, follow it, uh, follow me on. Twitter I'm posting uh photos and stuff all the time and if you got any good suggestions I'd love to hear them so as you can see, there's no shortage of rack space left. and I it's a bit of a shame actually.

I Don't think the lab's that well kitted out. I mean I don't even have a spectrum analyzer, a network analyzer. There's power analyzers, all sorts of things. I could fill this lab up with just saying anyway I better get back and do some real work.

Uh, even though it's a bit of a mess, I might get onto some tear down so think I'll get on to these. Had them sitting around for a while coming up.