Hi Welcome to the Eev blog an Electronics Engineering Video blog of interest to anyone involved in electronics design. I'm your host Dave Jones Hi. It's a bit of an unusual one today. I'm going to expand the lab here.

If you haven't seen the lab before, you haven't seen my lab tour video. It's tiny. You get the illusion that it's actually big cuz I put the camera up there and I shoot the background here. but it's actually only 2 m Deep by 2 and 1/2 M wide.

You Yanks will have to convert that for feet. but uh, it's absolutely tiny. And as you can see, here's the Bonnet of my car. It's in the garage.

The car actually noses up pretty much right up inside the lab itself. So the only way I can get an extra bench in here I Mentioned this on the live show is to actually extend the Uh another bench out over the Bonnet of the car. and that's what I'm exactly what I'm going to do I've got a new uh Pine bench top. It's uh, 2 m long which brings it out to about here.

and uh, it's 900 mm deep. so I plan on actually mounting that above the car and um, having, uh, attaching it to the wall over there where this toolbox is and extending out this main bench. So I've almost got my entire Um lab enclosed in a big U-shaped bench kind of thing and there'll only be a tiny entrance way here. Have to soore off some of this bench anyway.

I'm going to sort of make it up as I go along and uh, should be fun. So uh, hopefully, uh, you'll get some footage of me building this thing and some before and after shots. so hope it goes well. suck it and see which ways the wind blowing.

All right. Well looks like this tool box has got to go I fixed it to the wall. uh back when I built this thing thinking oh yeah, it's great but uh, unfortunately, it's uh, it's uh, actually below the level of the bench. so maybe once I put the bench back on here I might be able to put it back or something.

but for now I've got to unscrew the thing from the wall and uh, get rid of all this and probably anchor the bench directly onto an existing Mount that I've got there. Not sure what I'm going to do on this side and uh, the other side of it, it's going to be anchored up to the roof that ain't light and of course Murphy will get you every time. my existing Mount here for the Um for the toolbx I Thought it looked like it might be the perfect level for the Ben so I wouldn't have to build another support. but uh, if I look at the level here n it's pretty much way out.

I've got to knock off probably half of that 9 mil Pine there. so I've probably got to go for like a I don't know, is there. like a 12 mil Pine or something. but I can use my existing Uh bracket um, my stayed bracket I've got here on the wall.

it's really strong and it's level from side to side. I've actually got uh two of in there so uh, that that should uh work out well that will be a nice support for my new bench. It does actually extend out far enough so Beauty I think we have a Wi there I just have to get uh another thin board which goes on top of that and it just so happens up in the roof I have a bit of 13 mil Pine Fantastic and that is that is absolutely spoton. I Call that a win and there it is the completed bench.

I've uh swn off some on the side here so that I can have a Passage through the workbench but it's basically 2 m long, 900 mm Deep by 30 mm thick and uh, should give me at least some extra bench space. we'll see. Let's take it in and find out. Beauty There you go.

That's what it's going to look like. the uh leg's not going to be under here like this. It's going to have one leg over here so that and nothing on the other corner so that the car can actually drive under cuz I think the car actually comes out to the end of the bench here the car Bonn it even slightly over. so um, yeah, the nose of it can't have a leg there.

but the whole idea is to have one leg over here anch it over there and potentially another one. uh, another beam actually. uh, post going up to the ceiling to a uh, another rafter up there and anchoring that in that way so that should hold that corner and then all this space is completely free under here. That's the plan anyway.

but uh I was thinking that I might have to shave a bit off this bench but doesn't look like it. it looks like I can just Walker straight through. Beauty I like it and I'm just about ready to uh oil the thing I've got to finish it off. You can't just leave it uh raw like that.

you've got to have a nice oil finish uh to it like I've done with the other benches here and um I've done it so it's actually flush with the other bench there which is nice and uh I've used I've counter sunk uh, some bolts into here which screw into the existing brackets I had uh, the existing stayed brackets that I used for my toolbox. my red toolbox I had conveniently with some extra Pine there it uh, sits nicely I've um I've got an extra leg which has to go on it but apart from that it's uh, ready to be uh, finished off and then at least uh and bolted into place. It's complete time for the drive-in test. Let's give it a go and it's even with plent of room at the back for the garage door and it doesn't touch I got the height right? So there you go and there's a fair bit of Gap uh down here from the front of the car.

I'll give you a look at that. there you go, the front of the car to the uh post I've got there. So uh, I I probably am going to add like a little sensor onto that post, some sort of distance, um, sensor, one of those ultrasonic things I think I'll have to make something like that so it tells me how close I am to that uh post and also how far the car is in from the garage door as well. but uh, there you go.

It's uh, complete except for uh, this corner here which isn't, uh, held up at all. it's got, uh, nothing holding it up whatsoever. but uh, there you go. I'm going to have to if you got any good ideas for that, let me know.

But uh I I'm going to have to add, um, something on here to screw it into the roof. uh, perhaps now I've actually moved the car back a bit. Uh, so it's just a couple of inches out from the garage door. basically as close as I want to get it.

and I've got a good a 40 cm there or something like that. uh, distance between the car so I could and I've got some distance here as well so I could actually get another post in there. It's not cut to size, but I got some left over there and there's no reason why I couldn't put that right on the corner there and that would actually be quite reasonable. I think if I put that if I stabilized it there the rest of it because it's anchored twice over there.

once here and once there, that should probably do it. I don't know. might might have to mull it over a bit, but uh, that's good enough for today. anyway.

I think I'm done for the time being I like it. See you.