The shop where I build the inventions is attached to my garage,
and the electronic lab is in the basement of my home.
Every trade has tools that are required to work efficiently, inventing is no exception.
My shop is equipped for fabricating with the following machines:
Band saws, both horizontal and vertical, drill press, drill press with tapping head, Bridgeport milling machine with digital readout, Lablond metal lathe, surface grinder, horizontal and vertical belt sanders, box and pan brake, 4' 16 gauge sheet metal shear, spot welder, acetylene torch, TIG welder, Mig welder, Plasma cutter, table saw, 15" wood planner, wood band saw, radial arm saw, hand drills , routers, wood lathe, laser alignment tools, and a large assortment of hand and portable power tools.
For the electronic work, the electronics lab has oscilloscopes, signal generators, power supplies, frequency counters, pulse generators, volt and amp meters, Picmaster and ICD2 in circuit programmers and debuggers for the Microchip PIC microcontrollers.
The most important component of efficient inventing is a large and varied assortment of parts. I frequent the MIT Swapfest in Boston on the third Sunday of each month in the summer, and have amassed a large electronic and mechanical assortment. DC motors1, motors2, motors3, fans, temperature controllers, robotic parts, bearings, linear stages, hydraulic and pneumatic valves gauges and cylinders, power supplies, wire, electronic components, gears, and so much more .
The designs are sometimes worked out on my CAD computer and plotted out on my pen plotter.