My Workshop

This is my tiny little workshop. It has to coexist inside a real house with real people living their lives in it, so I have to exercise restraint in my tools collection!

Greg's workshop

That being said, I can get a fair bit accomplished with what I’ve got here.

Desk and Frame

The desktop is a 40” by 100” monster of a surface, made of reclaimed elm by the very talented Bernard v. Bieberstein of BeReclaimed. It sits on a dual-motor Ergo Frame, which lets me work either sitting or standing.

Laser Cuter

XTOOL S1 40w Laser Cutter My laser cutter is an XTOOL S1. I love this thing. Although it is a diode laser cutter (as opposed to CO2), with 40W of power, it can cut through almost anything I need it to, including plywood and cast acrylic sheet. It has a huge 24” by 16” cutting area, and is fully enclosed and ventelated. I connected its exhaust fan to a new dryer venting duct so that the smoke and fumes get vented outside. The first time I fired up this machine without proper ventelation, I filled my house with smoke and made my family very unhappy.

Oscilliscope and Other Small Tools

Siglent 1104X-E Oscilliscope

Fluke 77 Digital Multimeter

I bought this second hand (probably 20 years ago) and it’s still going strong. The current version of the Fluke 77 looks a little different but is still hands-down my favourite multimeter for general-purpose electrical testing and measuring.

Siglent 1104X-E Oscilliscope

For more complex electrical measurements, I use my Siglent 1104X-E oscilliscope. This model has 4 channels, a 100MHz bandwidth (way above what I generally have to worry about) and some very handy serial bus decoding features (in particular, the ever-popular I2C protocol use in Qwiic, Stemma and Grove based prototyping components).

HOTO Precision Screwdriver Kit Pro

For taking apart anything tiny, this electric screwdriver kit is my go-to. It has two torque levels and a LED at the end to illuminate dark crevices. The bits can be magnetized or demagnetized inside the case (which also acts as a charger base for the driver).

3D Printer

My first 3D printer: the legendary Prusa MK3S+. They don’t make this model anymore, but it still reliably churns out prints for me in the materials I use most: PLA for prototyping and PETG, PP or TPU for final parts. Its still hard to beat the robustness, repairability and print quality of this classic Prusa printer.

Workstation

PC case

Louqe Ghost S1 PC Case I’m a sucker for expensive Scandanavian design, and the Louqe Ghost S1 is about as premium as it gets for a small-form-factor (Mini-ITX) case. The build quality is top notch, and the case layout itself is a joy to build in. I’ve got their top hat extention on top, adding two additional Noctura fans, making a total of 4 case fans crammed inside this fully aircooled little white toaster. Its hard to imagine building a PC in another case. I almost feel bad that its so tucked away, under my desk.

Chair and Monitor

Herman Miller Aeron Office Chair I bought this Samsung’s Odyssey G9 49” monitor primarily for gaming (particularly flight and space sim games) but these days I also use it for CAD and coding as well.

A used Herman Miller Aeron is my daily-driver (or daily-sitter, I guess). Designed over 30 years ago, it’s a bomb-proof classic and keeps me comfortable for hours.

Wish list

I definitly should stop buying tools, but if I was to allow myself just one or two additions, here’s what I’d get: