I want to make a relatively inexpensive Electronics desk that provides

• A basic adjustable power supply
• Basic F-gen
• Basic digital I/O capabilities
• Basic analog measurements

A rough sketch of what I am going for.

To do this, I am considering using

• Raspberry Pi to handle all the logic
• An arduino Mega to handle the I/O logic processing
• Two monitors to display I/O information
• Misc custom components to supply power and protect the I/O ports

First, I want to talk about the physical makeup of the desk and the layout of the ports.

The desk viewed from the top, front, bottom, and back.

Obviously, as this is an electronics work desk, static dissipation is important, but I also want to be able to solder without worrying about destroying the desk. I believe an anodized piece of Al should work. The by varying the thickness of the anodizing we should be able to have high enough resistance enough to prevent shorts, but low enough to prevent static buildup. This would be the large yellow cross-hatched section below. It may also be helpful to have some small slits for fume extraction, such as seen here, although I would go with much smaller holes. That is for a latter discussion though,

This is an earlier drawing in which I was going to have a separate static and soldering area, the orange area would extend all the way to the right. The blue ares would be routed out to make room for the power outlets and switches.

Top-down view of the desk.

Each of the four blue areas show above would contain (shown below) an outlet with

• 2 NEMA 5 receptacles
• 1 USB data port
• 1 USB power port
• 6 Banana jacks offering different power rails

Layout of the power ports.