LED lighting

Electronics Workbench LED Upgrade

I guess I forgot to post an update to the update of my workbench. Not only did I clean up the gigantic mess that had accumulated on it, I improved the lighting and workspace availability: Electronic Workbench LED Lighting Upgrade

Prior to this upgrade, I had fluorescent lighting under the blue cabinets over the bench. They extended down about 3 to 4 inches and kinda got in the way. I also didn't think through the placement, so they were back about half-way under the cabinets. This meant they didn't put light out on the front edge of the tabletop like I would have hoped. Here's the old lighting:

Old Fluorescent Lighting

The monitor on the left barely fit behind the light and the light extended down lower than the top of the monitor. Dumb. I might have been drinking bourbon that day. Like, more than a shot or two. No matter. That is history. Today, we have wonderLEDs!

Also, notice I suspended my oscilloscope above the desktop. It freed up quite a bit of desktop space. I added some more plastic storage drawers to organize my tools and miscellaneous other parts that usually wound up spilled all over the work mat. I labeled the drawers for quick searching and fun:

New Small Plastic Organizing Drawers

I believe I found those at Target. They were inexpensive and they work very well. They have little rubber footies to keep them from sliding around on the glass tabletop when opening and closing the drawers. As you can see, it's easy to tell what's in each drawer... If you're me. My wife needed a few seconds to interpret the labels in order to find the scissors. Scissors cut things. They're for, "cutting." BOOM! Easy-peasy lemon squeezy.

I picked up the two LED bars under the cabinets and the two gooseneck LED lamps at Lowe's (maybe Home Depot, can't remember). All told, I maybe spent $100. The best thing about the bars is that they're quite flat, leaving plenty of headroom for monitors and whatnot. The two flexible lamps clamp onto the little shelves I built between the cabinets:

Gooseneck LED Clamp-On Lamps

These are about $20 each. They put off great light, stay cool and I can point them individually to light a component any way I like.

I set up the power to go through a single multi-outlet toward the back and under the ledge of the workbench table top (please excuse the fuzzy photo):

Main Lighting Switch Under Table

It's an easy reach to turn the lights on and off. The two gooseneck lamps have their own switches on the shelf above, so it's easy to switch them on or off without taking down all the lights.