For the past 20 years, Bruce Black has been tackling DIY electronics projects in a spare bedroom in his home, located in Clearwater, Florida, on the Gulf side of Florida. Years ago, he built his own computer using an SWPC MC6800 kit. (Perhaps some of our long-time readers have done the same?) These days, the retired electrical engineer enjoys working with Raspberry Pi, Teensy 3.5, and ham radio.
 
Bruce Blacks gulf coast workspace
Bruce has easy access to essential tools and equipment like his scope.

What's your current occupation?
Retired EE, currently doing a free design for a man who purchased one my toys from the late eighties. It was missing some boards, so I am doing a new controller for him. The system was an optical missile tracking system. It originally used an VME controller chassis. I am using a Teensy 3.5 and designing interface boards for the system. A lot easier to do when I didn't have to do it all myself.

Tell us about your eletronics workspace.
I have a main desk for my ham station, computer, and to do general work. I have a closet where I do serious design and supposedly can close the doors to hide the mess. In here, there is a Tek scope, 60 mHz function generator, an Intel NUC workstation, power supply, reflow soldering station all in reach. There is also a Tek frequency counter, supply and multimeter available. In between the two workstations, there is a third under the window. I generally play with a Pi here, and on the file cabinet to the right is another Intel NUC, which is my file server. I also have a GPS plugged in here and know my location down to a few inches by doing a 24-hour running average on the data. All files are backed up at 2:00 AM on another computer, including my wife's computer, which is in another room along with two printers, one of which is a wide format printer for schematics. So I don't waste power, most of the computers are set up to process data from LHC and Rosetta. It also did SETI, but that seems to be pretty well shut down.

Where is your workspace situated?
It is a four-bedroom house. The smallest bedroom is my wife's office and one of the larger ones that is next to hers is mine. I bashed a hole between the two rooms for cables.

How long have you had the workspace?
About 20 years or more. Soon after the kids left.

Did you have any requirements when you first set up your space?
Just a small spot to use as a computer workstation and shelve books. My wife and I shared the smaller space.

What are your technical interests? What sort of designs attract your attention?
I do designs that interest me from audio to gadgets and processor designs and controllers. These days, when isn't software design needed? When I was a young kid, I was always fascinated by watching lightning. I guess that was my undoing. It went from there to code practice buzzers, crystal sets to Tesla coils and a career. I used to say I ruined a good hobby when I became an engineer, but in retirement, I'm back to a good hobby. And, to make it interesting, sometimes I participate in stage shows and musicals even though I can't sing worth a hoot.

So what equipment do you have in your space?
It’s just a good collection of basic test equipment, though my definition of “basic” has probably expanded over the years.

What's your most important piece of equipment and why?
I would say my Tektronix 2012 scope. It is able to do a lot of nice extras like read frequency and do analysis. I think I remember it will do spectral analysis. I haven't tried it yet.

What's special about your space? Did you build any of it?
I did build two desk hutches for books and things. My wife has one and I have the other. The lower fixed shelf has holes in the back for wires in case I want to stack electronics there.
 
Bruce Black's desk
Bruce's desk and book shelf

Are you planning updates or anything new for your space?
Not really. I did do new lighting a few year ago. I replaced the somewhat bulky lamps with light LED strips over both workspaces. Works great and I used double-sided sticky tape to install, except for the desk where everything wants to fall down every few months. One of these days, I will fix it permanently.

Do you have a favorite electronics-related project?
My first computer. I was spending a lot of time out of town working on a project at the Naval Academy. I would spend weeks at time there and then go home for a short break. I had gotten interested in the idea of a microprocessor and wanted to build a computer. The MITS Altair seemed kind of pricey for my budget, so I settled on a SWPC MC6800 kit. I would come home, buy a board kit, and then build it while out of town. After several months, I had a computer. In the meantime, Radio Electronics had published an article for a terminal using a modified TV set. A friend made several circuit boards for the project and gave me one. With an added mtape recorder that be became my first computer. The project I was working on took two years to finish. My homebrew system wound up at work and was used as a development system for a while when I talked the company in trying a processor design. Later, I convinced them to buy a PCB layout system from Gerber. It cost a little over $100,000.

What are you currently working on?
I mentioned the project I was doing using a Teensy 3.5 to replace missing boards for a tracking pedestal controller. It consists of schematic capture, PCB layout, programming, specifications, and a design manual.

Do you have a dream project or something you'd love to tackle?
At my age (84), I am just happy to be doing as well as I am. One of these days maybe I can figure out how to just push the buttons and operate my new Ham SDR transceiver!

Do you have any advice for the engineers, students, and makersn in our community?
Think carefully and always stay curious.
 


Want ideas for your own electronics workspace? Check out these electronics workspaces.
 

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