My New Electronics Bench

Recently I had to give up my larger mini fridge. So with the new space left in my room I extended my computer desk with some plywood to add a proper Electronics Bench to my room. I also mounted a power strip on the wall, built a Soldering Station, a small Component Drawer Set, and a Bench Power Supply.

Here's the Soldering Station. I apologize for the poor quality photo. I lent out my camera. If you can see it, the pipe i used was a heavy duty piece of conduit. I cut it with a saws-all and used the already threaded side to fit into the hole i cut with a spade bit. The switch is a normal wall switch however I had to slim it down to fit it to the base. Before adding the switch to my iron I had to plug/unplug the iron every time I needed to use it. Now I can just leave it plugged in on my bench and flip a switch as needed.

My new Component Box allows me much easier access to some basic parts like resistors, caps, transistors and what not. These plexiglass drawers were originally from Starbucks. They were displays that were getting thrown out. I have been using these for this purpose for a while but before this I had them stacked in a drawer of my toolbox and had to sometimes pull 3 trays out to get to the one I needed. Also I only air nailed the bottom and top, so if need be, I can add more drawers/compartments later.

 This is the Bench Power Supply I just finished building. It was made from an old PC Power Supply.
The three red banana terminals output a +12V, +5V, and +3.3V respectfully. And then a black common ground terminal. The yellow light indicates that the PS is plugged in and receiving power.
However the terminals wont output power until the button on the top left is switched on. In which case the second LED (Blue) turns on. I'm not sure if I will keep the LED blue or not. I love blue LED's but it is very bright and it may get annoying.

Here you can see the inside of my Power Supply. The PCB above I designed to be able to switch out the existing Power Supply for a new one just in case the old one burns out. It just plugs right in using the original motherboard plug. The top is a thin sheet of plywood that slides into two dado's.

The Power Supply fits right under my other one. The reason this Supply is so handy is because of the fixed voltages rather than variable. They both have their uses. The variable Supply is very good at measuring how much voltage a component takes and what current it draws. The fixed supply has regulated voltage. So it is safe and quick to just hook up to a circuit or Dev board. Very Happy with the Build.