[Lab] Makerspace Wish List

[Justin Hornosty]

steve at envirolaser.com writes:

> I am putting together a wish list of equipment that would typically be used in a Makerspace.
>
> Here’s my list so far, feel free to add to it.
>
>       Arduino
>       Raspberry Pi
>       Soldering Station
        ** Good one and cheap ones
        - Hot air rework stations (perhaps built into one of the soldering
        irons but a stand alone station might be more practicable)
        - Reflow oven (I have heard great things about hacking a off the
        shelf toaster oven)
>       Multimeter
        ** multiple multimeters (of varying quality)
>       Oscilloscope
        perhaps logic analyzer?
>
>
>       Sewing machine
>       Hot glue gun
>       Scan and Cut
>       Foam cutter
>       Plastic former
>
>
>       3D printer
>       3D scanner
>       Laser cutter
>
>
>       Drill press
>       Rotary tool
>       Shapeoko 3 CNC
>       Handybot
>

I would also say lots and lots of small random parts.

- mini breadboards (you can go as low as 10 for ~$6...
  http://www.aliexpress.com/item/10pcs-lot-170-Tie-points-Mini-Solderless-Prototype-Breadboard-for-ATMEGA-PIC/1951855843.html
  I have a bunch of these and they are not top notch quality but handy
  for small things)

- Lots of various leds. (again super cheap in even small bulk - they
  usually come with matching resistors if you get them from china)

- Lots of resistors of varying values.

- Lots of random cap values

- common IC's - 595's 555's, LM78XX, etc

(I'm sure people can think of lots of other parts)

- Whiteboard!!! (or chalk board - whiteboard markers can be pricey and
  never seem to work when you want them too) a couple of those small
  ones are nice to have around too! It would be wicked cool to paint the
  walls of the makerspace with that paint you can write on with chalk!

- scrap paper and pencils/pens (dumb but i'm sure we have all been in a
  situation where we are hunting for some scrap paper)

- If money permitted a few cheap tablets (of course loaded with lots and
lots of datasheets - maybe put them centrally on a samba server) are
super handy to have around.

- Couple computers (don't need anything fancy - stuff with parallel
  ports and serial ports are handy) running linux with
  various useful software (GEDA,kicad,eagle,arduino,msp430 gcc
  toolchain, etc)

- USB->RS232 & USB->TTL (both super cheap from china)