1.5 Setting Up Your Workbench

Good assembly follows good design. Building these projects in a frustration-free environment will help keep your procedures and your sanity in check.

Work in a well-lit, well-ventilated area. This is especially important when soldering. Open a window and use a small fan to push the fumes outside. Use a soldering exhaust fan if an open window isn’t an option.

If your work space can afford it, have a large table to spread out your electronic parts. Keep it close to power outlets and have a power strip on the table for easy access.

Organize your components with small craft containers, baby food jars, pill boxes, Altoids tins—anything that helps keep the variety of capacitors, resistors, LEDs, wires, shields, motors, and sensors sorted will make it much easier to keep track of your parts inventory.

Have your computer stationed near or on the work space. This is a no-brainer if it’s a laptop. If it’s a desktop, minimize its table footprint by only placing a monitor, mouse, and keyboard (both preferably wireless) on the table to leave as much unobstructed working space as possible.

Keep clutter away from underneath and around the table. Not only does this aid fire prevention, but doing so will also make it far easier to find that elusive component when it rolls off the table and bounces toward the unknown.

Lastly, keep the work space dedicated to project work. Some projects can be like building a jigsaw puzzle. You need a place for the half-assembled pieces to sit while life goes on. Being able to sit down and start working, rather than start unboxing and repackaging a fur ball of wires and parts, makes building projects a joy instead of a chore.