SparkFun Electronics Forum

I'm a graduated EE student and now (shock) I have no lab anymore! Where do people go, or what do people do, when they want access to a lab facility with variable AC and DC Power supplies, function generators, oscilloscopes, microscopes, electronic loads, etc., as well as a computer with professional grade software (e.g. LabView, MultiSim, PSPICE, AutoCAD, etc.)?

Do places exist where you can just pay for time at a place like this, or do people mostly just try to make due? I feel spoiled now that I had so much freedom to use a great lab.

Anyways, since I haven't heard of a place like that before - how would you (hobbyists, professionals, students, ...) like to have a place like that? Would you pay to use a facility equipped with all the design/test equipment and software you could want? Would you want it to include generic components and wires free of charge? What would you pay to use a place like this for 1 hour? 1 day (24 hours)? or 1 month of 24-hour access?

Thanks for you feedback and suggestions!

You know, that's a problem I haven't fully run into yet... I'm still a EE student. Honestly, I think the best bet is something like:
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/produc ... ts_id=9263
or ebay equipment

I have wondered about why nobody has set up a lab that you can pay for access to like you mentioned... the only thing I can come up with is profitability. I think most people that would use a place like that are either students (who already have lab access) or professional engineers (who have lab access at their employer, presumably)

I've seen various clubs, typically associated with universities, that have labs that they allow people to use. If you're in a big city you should be able to find something. Certainly I've heard of a couple in Boston, where I am.

As for me - when I was interviewing with companies I made sure to find one that had a good lab.

Im curious about this aswell.
As an bit of an noobie to the world of circuit design and making my own pcb i've been wondering if there was an Cad-like program that will also allow for testing of the components.

Ideally some sort of virtual circuit builder would i think be very handy so that we can place components in an virtual environment and it would test where possible faults would occur.

Anyone know of anything?

If budget is ok, spend more and get less headache.

For a single day? <$100 definitely, otherwise i'd just save up and pick up a lot of the equipment used. A great place to pick up electronics equipment on the cheap is ham radio swap meets

If you want some software to try out, try Oregano, ngspice, gEDA, nutmeg, and the likes