Weekend Mod #2

For awhile my workbench has been overly crowded with spools of wire, tools, and test cables. In the past few days I have made some mods to clean up my work area in an attempt to get more organized. Since I haven’t had much time to write any entries about theoretical concepts, I thought I would just do a post about some of the smaller stuff I have been doing. In the next few days I will put up some of the projects I have finished recently. It hit me a weeks back that only real project I have ever posted is my RGB cube I threw together almost a year ago. So, I think it’s probably time to rack up some more entries in that category.

One of the first mods I took on was to create a wire spool holder above my main work area so that it would elevate the wire off my bench while giving me easy access to my hook-up wire during prototyping. This is a pretty simple mod that can be done in a few minutes if you have the right materials.

First on the list is a ¾” wooden dowel. I got one from Michaels for a few dollars. The only other item necessary is a set of curtain hanger wall attachments, which you can find in any hardware store (Home Deport, Lowes, etc.). In my case, I wanted to mod my bench without drilling into the wood so I used some double-sided stick-on poster board tape (see the pic above) to secure the rod holders. If you don’t care about drilling into the wood, adding a few wood screws for support should work nicely. After getting all the materials together, simply secure one end of the rod, slide the spools on and secure the other side. In just a few minutes my bench was much cleaner. 

Wooden Dowels and Curtain Attachments

 

Granted, this isn’t the most complicated mod I have ever done, but my focus lately has been on building up some equipment that will be useful for working on projects in the future. Look for my solder smoke fan build in the next few days and for other projects down the road.

 Finished Wire Spool Rack