For many years (decades even) I've been building my own electronic gadgets and fixing the occasional electronic device.  Just recently a power supply for our main computer gave up the ghost, and that was one thing I'd never even tried fixing before.  Partly this is due to the inherent danger of a switch-mode power supply, where there are quite a few components at lethal voltages - and that is the section that quite often breaks. Partly it is because I haven't really looked into the design of such devices.  With the colder months there is less time for doing work outside, so I thought it would be good to upgrade my skills and to invest in some tools and equipment that would make the job safer and easier. I've had a decent DSO (Digital Storage Oscilloscope) for a while, so the only major piece of equipment I needed was an isolation transformer.  I've also got on order a nifty little component tester that should make checking those problematic electrolytics a lot easier.

So, over the weekend I cleaned up my desk and moved stuff around to try and get an ergonomic workspace that meant I wasn't dragging cables across the desk during soldering or desoldering or other testing.  I'm reasonably pleased with the result.

 So far I've manged to fix my Samsung S7 Edge that I ran over with a tractor, and a solar fence energizer that had stopped working.  There are a number of items (including the power supply) waiting for parts, and a seemingly endless list of devices that need poking at.  I guess my winter nights are sorted for the foreseeable future.