EEVblog 1565 - UNSW Electronics Lab & Makerspace Tour

[@nhand42]

What an amazing facility. Like Dave says, I could only dream of a setup like this when I was studying. And absolutely agree that theoretical alone is not enough. It needs to be balanced with the practical. This is the kind of facility that enables students to reach their full potential. Pun intended.

[@edgars53]

Agreed. High Voltage Lab is essential to reach their full potential.

[@mschwage]

Once upon a time, I was a young lad in a EE course at the University of Illinois. I was in a lab where we had to figure out the value of an unknown capacitor using some sort of bridge and a signal generator. My lab partner and I couldn’t get it to work. No matter what we did, we got no results. So I grabbed an ohmmeter and measured the resistance of the capacitor. It was 0. We called over the ta (PhD grad student) leading the class. We told him, “look, the experiment didn’t work. We can’t get a value. The capacitor is shorted.” The TA told us that we couldn’t use an ohmmeter in the experiment. I told him we couldn’t do the experiment with a shorted cap. He told me… well, we went back and forth. Finally, he told me he’d talk to the professor. A couple of days later, in the lecture part of the class, the TA told us that the cap was bad. This sort of practical instruction shown in this video is invaluable.

[@td4dotnet]

Awesome to see these young guys getting hands on! Good luck to them all! I wish the lab I learned in was half as well equipped as this beauty! Thanks for a great video Dave took me right back to my student days!

[@GrandePunto8V]

If you want to be a real one (electronics guy, mechanic, plumber, electrician, programmer, whatever) you must start it as a teenager, as a DIY, hobby. Not as an adult in school lab. That's too late to learn basics.

[@KeritechElectronics]

Cool to see a uni that teaches electronics the right way. Nice labs! I'd love to take a closer look at the HV one :). The makerspace looks mighty cool too, big and spacious, and well equipped too. Seeing that much yellow and blue makes me want to call it the Hakkospace :) I'd never imagine EE studies without working with actual electronics. But then, I dropped out of mine after half a year out of disappointment and burnout, meh.

[@markharwood]

All I can say is that it's changed a lot since I did EE in those labs 35 years ago!

[@StuartCGadgetRev]

Wow! Makes me want to go back to Uni. What wonderful facilities.

[@AndrewJones-tj6et]

At RMIT Melbourne we use to have PCB manufacturing facilities to create layouts on Intergraph workstations or manually with Bishop Gaphics tapes and targets, produce the photo-tools and expose onto the Riston photoresist film that we coated onto boards. First we would drill the holes and through plate them, then etch double sided PCB's followed by gold card edge plating if I remember correctly. There were innumerable steps and cleanliness/accuracy was king. Was great to go through that process to make our projects.

[@Graham_Wideman]

Ugggg, you're prompting memories of creating pcb layouts with 1:1 footprint decals and 1/64inch tape, cuz our company was too cheap to get the 2:1 or 4:1 size. And so the negative could be made by contact instead of large format camera.

[@AndrewJones-tj6et]

@@Graham_Wideman That would've be painful. Yeah they had a rather large reduction camera in the lab so we manually taped our designs at larger size and photo-reduced it to the photo-tool. Might've be 4:1. Was very cool to do the photo tooling as well.

[@jim9930]

@@Graham_Wideman IBM PC xt with an Aussie program called Tango pcb and an HP D size plotter were an absolute joy after tape and mylar. Remember how hard revisions were?

[@Graham_Wideman]

@@jim9930 Revision: literally rip up and reroute. Yep, pretty much similar progression here. Except I think I used Orcad for schematics and netlist, and Tango for the PCB layout. From Tango of course eventually came Altium. (Not that I use Altium.)

[@Petertronic]

No EEVblog multimeters?!! This was great, excellent facilities there, it took me right back to college days when I did by BTEC National Diploma, back then (about 30 years ago) we just had 20Mhz analog Hameg scopes, simple sig.gens with a big dial on the front (AF only of course), and Thurlby Thandar power supplies. When our lab was moved to a much bigger room I helped design the layout of it. Good times. Back to the present, the old college building has now been demolished for housing, and I heard that our excellent tutor passed away a couple of years ago. Times move fast.

[@digitalradiohacker]

I live and work about half a mile from Thurlby Thandar in Huntingdon. We have all TTI power supplies here which are decades old, and a while back I contacted TTI to ask if they had the service manuals so that we could fix / calibrate some of our units. They handed the lot over in less than 24 hours. Super helpful company in my experience.

[@Petertronic]

@@digitalradiohacker I'm very pleased they are still going, and support all their gear, and are still in the U.K.

[@Brono25]

Dont worry, I bring my EEVBlog multimeter to this lab

[@organiccold]

Thank you for this amazing video Dave 🎉 this is amazing stuff

[@fmashockie]

Wow I am surprised by how new all their equipment is! When I was in school for my chem degree, the analytical chem equipment (GC, HPLC, MS, etc) were ancient beasts! What a neat course and lab!

[@tocsa120ls]

I haven't been back in my Alma Mater since 15 years, even back then we could use a sort of 'makerspace'. It just wasn't called that back then :) We could do PCBs, weld and cut metal, stuff like that. Had a HAM shack too. I wonder what they are up to nowadays, I know the callsign has been retired which makes me a little sad.

[@phyzzip]

Brings back memories of my undergrad. One thing I remember just before I finished in 2014 was the lab manager complaining that it was getting harder to get DIPs of various components for breadboarding. Hope that m6 uni's lab is getting SMD tooling.

[@KeanM]

Wow, things have changed a bit since I went there. I actually don't remember doing much in the EE labs, I think I spent more time in the Chemistry labs and on the CS and Maths Unix systems.

[@drew6017]

That maker space was awesome. I'm with you Dave, would of loved a space like that in uni.

[@anthonyshiels9273]

I would have loved to do Practical Electronics for my University Degree in the 1970's. This option was not available then. We had to do a compulsory project for our Physics Degree. There were 2 (TWO) Electronics projects available and I managed to grab one of these.

[@dav1dbone]

We got up to drunken mischief at uni, once filled a drinks cup up with loose protons and quarks from the matter dispenser, poured them out on the stairs and the professor slipped on them, he landed at the bottom and a Bose-Einstein condensate formed, although that might have been dust from his person.

[@BioniChaos]

EEVblog did way more for students than most unis ever will, when adjusting for cost, of course..

[@milesnapue]

If any students see this, make your end project a four legged BEAM walker. Freeform solder the brains and get 4x 360° servos. It utilizes a neural network and is awesome.

[@dilhanmert1987]

For which course

[@x0j]

dumbass @@dilhanmert1987

[@BGTech1]

Ok

[@Veptis]

having such a space to also use for some personal projects would be really dope... maybe I pivot towards and EE degree

[@johnyang799]

Glad to see Torsten here.

[@alexpark681]

It would be nice if they teach them how to repair/troubleshoot/diagnose. I run a extremely busy electronics repair business in a rural area, and even offering $100K/pa, cannot get a technician/engineer who can perform repairs/troubleshooting/diagnosis. I am not alone in this, I know others in the same boat, one who is an electronics manager for a very large university installation, and even they cannot find technicians/engineers who are competent with repairs/troubleshooting/diagnosis. Maybe prospective employees just don't want the peace of a rural lifestyle, we just can't figure it out. Even a mine offering $180K couldn't find a suitable prospect and had to revert to an apprenticeship with training through an industrial robotics company.

[@samh6761]

That place is chock full of nice equipment. Not necessarily bleeding edge, but pretty awesome for a school budget.

[@anthonyshiels9273]

The "towel rail" with the cable reels looks very familiar to me.

[@ecercuit]

It's an amazing Electronics Lab facility. This is everyone wish to have one. It's a big advancement since I last did my Masters 15 years ago at UNSW. I wish I can afford to setup my Electronics Lab or Electronics Workbench when I was studying. Only this time I setup my own Electronics Workbench when I'm already at 50s and have family. Dave, you're in my first KZbin channel if you don't mind.

[@amjadiqbal478]

It typically looks to be a Hollywood movie lab. Excellent😮

[@michelfeinstein]

Is the Maker Space open to the public? I would love to be able to use it as not a student

[@JeepinBoon]

As a fellow electrical diag that broke my leg in June, I can relate to the test lead setup. I hung every test lead on any BNC that could hold it. Was quite a mess but all within reach. You got zero hands and one good foot when you break a leg.

[@BGTech1]

I’m just beginning my first year of college for EE. It’s going to be a while until I get into the actual labs, but I can’t wait.

[@Brono25]

If youre at UNSW you will be in the labs day 1

[@electronpath]

Nice tool organizer at their Makerspace. I took a few screenshots 😄

[@volodymyrzakolodyazhny]

A teaching electronics laboratory of a healthy university.

[@MrKelaher]

video was there ... then it was not ... very relieved I can watch this, love those spaces at NSWU :) We are blessed with great Engineering programs in Sydney at multiple Unis :)

[@優さん-n7m]

Dave there is a mass confusion over the difference between bead, choke and inductor. They all have inductance but are not the same thing. I still do not understand the difference between these.

[@jonothankaplan]

I was in that room on the day you were at UNSW!

[@abzaman77]

Hi, can you take a loot at the UNI-T UT117C DMM? TIA

[@davekreskowiak3258]

Wow, that's a nice setup. Much better than where I had to go. As a side, am I the only one who initially read UNSW as "University of Not Safe for Work"? Did Medi walk through that lab?

[@andymouse]

I hope those scopes are nailed down....cheers !

[@uni-byte]

Did anyone else notice the Fluke 8000 (LCD) series bench DMM in the maker lab?

[@KeritechElectronics]

And now, let's try that once again to see if it was not a Fluke...

[@uni-byte]

@@KeritechElectronics Try all you like dude, it was a Fluke. @21:02 bottom right hand corner.

[@j.f.christ8421]

@@uni-byte Gunna need more than that Fluke to repair that broken joke detector unit of yours, that's if it was ever installed at the factory.

[@AP-nb7in]

(my 1st comment... please be kind...LOL...) As usual, great video. Thanks Dave for sharing so many amazing stuff about EE. Question : sorry if I missed the info, I didn't see any VNA on these awesome benches !? Do you know why ? I guess a lot of these students have a NanoVNA at home 🙂 but why not in their lab ? A VNA brings so much info about "what's going on at PCB level". An oscillo gives a clear picture about V=f(time), very useful as such to learn at Uni. But a LiteVNA gives indirectly the same info about V=f(time), given that time=1/f To be franc, I'm not an EE, but a chemical process engineer. Fortunatly, the school was good : at the output, the awesome gift I had is to be aware of : "I know nearly nothing, but I can learn". I moved to electronics as an hobbyist a few years ago, to tweak the digital part of my audio gear (5VDC is the max voltage I deal with 🙂; of course cause at PCB level we have =

[@WacKEDmaN]

nice one Dave...thanks for the look!... reminds me of a TAFE lab... just better stocked! ...i like they way they think... > 30v is high voltage!.... i dont like touching anything above 12v!

[@mozismobile]

HA! #backinmyday we learned to test important things like "does this opamp actually work" after making sure it was actually the chip we expected, thanks to loose trays of parts on the bench for us to build out circuit out of.

[@Graham_Wideman]

I hope R&S feel complimented to hear their scope referred to as a "CRO". Hahaha.

[@RiyadhElalami]

I was so confused when he said CRO. He doesn't even look that old to have worked extensively on CROs

[@Graham_Wideman]

@RiyadhElalami hahaha, yeah, I too was going to say he looks too young for CROs.

[@MrDoneboy]

Good luck to the students that chose this path today...I would choose biomedical equipment repair, as people will always need it!

[@shubus]

Not compulsory to do soldering? OUCH!

[@ncolyer]

doesn't matter as anyone interesting in anything electrical does it regardless

[@darrylr]

Grandpa what is a cathode ray?

[@_BangDroid_]

He's not even that old, it just comes off a little pretentious

[@darrylr]

@@_BangDroid_ I grew up in Australia, taught electronics labs at university, etc in the 1980s when they really were CROs but we normally called them ‘scopes’ or the full name when first talking with students. I preferred the more American ‘scope’ and lots of folks there had spent time in US research labs. It might depend on how many bloody Poms you had around in the department :-) It was weird to hear them called CROs here.

[@mitchdunn3115]

I studied in these labs 😊

[@henrychen8028]

meanwhile @uwa, im just gonna sit here with my rusty hako and hope for the best on my 0402's

[@czarodzi9967]

20:12 Hammers in an electronics lab, teach 'em right!

[@MatthewSuffidy]

There's all that ozquiip that will be available in the dumpster room soon.

[@Bobby-fj8mk]

Good video - they have all the top stuff now - I hope they learn them proper. LOL

[@gordonwedman3179]

You only learn properly when your probe shorts out and destroys part of your circuit😁

[@armandine2]

not too many students with their heads in their hands😕

[@alch3myau]

Wooo 360p... damn

[@SeanBZA]

Had a similar computer controlled system years ago, a lot less sophisticated, based on a Z80 computer in each station, and a serial link to each station with a central PC. The test sessions were 3 hours, but I was able to get it down to under 6 seconds, so the actual duration was zero minutes, as resolution was 0.1 minutes. This was the first class, so they learned not to let the students have full unsupervised access, and only use it on the test, because it was only capable of introducing a single fault out of 8 at a time. Not a good idea to have students smarter than the lecturer.

[@Science-Vlog]

as school are getting more pointless we need to build independent education camps for smart kids.

[@Mr.Leeroy]

I am going to sound jelly, but in this day and age these spaces should be free far all (properly managed too OFC) in every city at least like public libraries and not just for a subset of students learning basics. You know, to be actually used to create and not only learn. Not saying that students do not innovate or make breakthroughs during their research, but merely pointing out how many talented people are simply throttled in their creativity without access to proper setups and spending too much time (often burning out in the process) of jerry-rigging their own limited environments. Just criminal.

[@charlesballiet7074]

i saw nsfw lab tour and had to click

[@jasonquin7343]

I was in that lab yesterday 😂

[@tarkozkan9816]

Liked it

[@tannerbass7146]

I keep trying to watch this but I think your video hasn't loaded in America yet 😂

[@jasonquin7343]

Some racist comments are getting ridiculous here. Without international students, the uni cannot have such a good lab like this. The tuition fee for an undergraduate international student is 6k AUD per course on average, where an Australian student only need to pay about 1k per course.

[@digitalradiohacker]

"the uni cannot have such a good lab like this" Okay? How does the uni having a good lab benefit Australians who are priced out of a market which is based on profit, rather than education?

[@Willy_Tepes]

I want to make makerspaces in every school, but sadly the teachers are to stupid to handle such a project and the union protects them. I guess a change of political regime is needed.

[@lutfi1596]

Wait, do you think cryptocurrency will crash? I dont think so. More and more companies are integrating cryptocurrency into their operations: Amazon, Cannafarm Ltd, Burger King, even Starbucks, dude!