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Hard work(shop)

Today I call on my readers to share some of their brilliance and insight.

This week I start the construction of my new workshop (well not really, I'm just going to throw up a couple of walls and make a few work-benches) and thought I'd canvas the readership for ideas and tips.

The basics are simple... lots of workbench area and lots of power points - but what else have people found to be *essential* aspects of a workroom-build?

I will have three separate areas being:

1. my filming bench where I'll try to keep things tidy and organised for the display/demonstration of products during reviews.

2. The "build area" where I'll be putting stuff together -- sometimes out of camera-shot but sometimes it will be the focus of a video.

3. The electronics lab where I'll be doing my R&D work for the SAA as well as evaluating various bits of electronics that are related to my video work.

The walls will be lined with Gib and painted a flat-white colour for maximum reflectivity without nasty glare.

The ceiling will probably be Pinex -- because it's not a bad insulator, relatively fire-proof and can be finished with a single coat (or two) of flat-white.

So it all sounds pretty simple -- but I'm picking there are a number of things that others have encountered when doing their own work-room fitouts.

Oh yes, it's about 6m by 3.6m so it's not huge but it's certainly large enough for what I plan to do.

Perhaps the key unresolved points to date are:

1. Lighting. I was thinking of LEDs but the spectral composition of most white LEDs is not so good for video work and they *are* still rather pricey on a per-lumen basis. I'm also a little concerned about the reliability and longevity of the cheaper Chinese LED lighting systems.

Incandescents are pretty straight-forward, although getting decent diffusion in a relatively small room requires some work with point-source bulbs. Halogens seem to be nice and white, regular tungstens are a bit "warm" for my liking.

Fluro tubes are probably another sensible option -- but with the relatively low ceiling (2.4m) it might be hard to keep them out of the frame sometimes and (as with the incandescents) there could be a strobing issue to deal with when using non-standard frame-rates (29.7fps NTSC for example).

There's also a need to consider heating/cooling. A heat pump would probably be great - but in such a small space the noise might be an issue (is it - I've never used a heat-pump before?).

A small heater would likely work just fine in winter, given that the room will be insulated with expanded polystyrene but some form of cooling will be required for summer as temperatures in the workshop quickly reach 35-45 deg C at mid-day in mid-summer.

So go for it all you home DIY people. Throw your ideas and innovations at me. If you've had the occasional faux pas in the past when building similar work areas, share those also.

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