Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange
Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [tools]

130 questions
54
votes
8 answers

Personal electronics tool kit

What are the items you have in your personal electronics tool kit?
mad_z
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50
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Why isn't stripping wires by burning with a lighter a more common practice?

I see people suggesting specialized tools, or trying it manually with sharp knife or scalpel, why not just burning the rubber for a second or two with a lighter and just pulling it out a more suggested option? Is there any con to this approach that…
appwizcpl
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44
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8 answers

What tools, equipment, and techniques do you use to solder fine-pitch SMT parts?

Possibly many questions have been asked on soldering smd parts, but I haven't found specific answers, Like: Do you use a watchmakers lens or some other type of magnifying glass while soldering these miniature components? What would be most optimum…
Kevin Boyd
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32
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12 answers

Opinions on an oscilloscope suitable for hobby electronics on a budget

I'm thinking about getting an oscilloscope as my next tool purchase but I don't really know what I should be looking for or what the options are. Ideally I'd prefer something that was stand alone, but I expect a device that hooks up to a PC for the…
Len Holgate
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24
votes
5 answers

What is the purpose of the pin and hole on some pairs of tweezers?

I use a set of tweezers as part of my toolkit, and they have a hole in one arm and a corresponding spike in the other. Why?
user32885
24
votes
5 answers

Which soldering iron tip should I use?

This is a pretty open-ended question intentionally. :-) All of the soldering I've done to this point has been with through-hole components. I hope to move up to some smaller surface-mount parts at some point in the future. I've got a Weller WES51…
blalor
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17
votes
4 answers

Why do cordless tool batteries have a circuit board connected?

The other day I got tired of buying replacement 18 V battery packs for my power tools (drill, ripsaw, etc.) and I thought to myself, surely by this day and age the price of lithium-ion batteries can't be that high? I know people who have built a…
Alfred
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17
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4 answers

Do I also need a multimeter if I buy a digital oscilloscope?

This is probably a newbie question, but I am looking to buy some tools and start playing around with more embedded electronics and robotic stuff. The digital oscilloscopes such as the DSO nano…
Chaitanya
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12
votes
1 answer

Identify these wide ended tweezers

Working in an electronics lab, we do micro soldering and I came across the tool pictured. No Idea what it's is for. I'm guessing its some tool for holding or removing chips as you rework a PCB. I don't even know what to call it (forked flat plate…
Jack
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12
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4 answers

Good filter design software for Mac OS X/Unix?

I need to implement a simple lowpass filter for a data acquisition circuit (using stretch conductive fabric as a resistive sensor). Various sources have recommended that the best way to go about this is to use filter design software. I haven't found…
terrace
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12
votes
5 answers

Freescale Kinetis KE - writing to flash

I've been using various microcontrollers and microprocessors for many, many years now but I seem to be stymied by the Kinetis KE series (specifically the S9KEAZN64AMLC). Jan 17, 2015 TL;DR: Freescale confirms that v2.0.0 of their Kinetis Design…
akohlsmith
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10
votes
3 answers

Why might a multimeter ask for "wrong" fuse sizes?

Why might a multimeter ask for the "wrong" sizes of fuses? On the front of my Fluke 87 multimeter, the two probe ports for amperage are labeled as fused at 10A (max) and 400mA (max). When opening the multimeter to check the fuses (both are burned…
Coldblackice
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10
votes
3 answers

What is the name of the oscilloscope-like software shown in this screenshot?

I'm trying to figure out what this tool is, to use it as an oscilloscope. I found it here.
kovac
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10
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1 answer

What is this soldering tweezer like tool called?

I long ago used a tool in a workshop which looks very like a metal tweezer but unlike a tweezer its holder arms are normally tightly closed and opens when one pushes it. So it was used to hold lets say a resistor to be attached to PCB holes firmly…
ty_1917
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10
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5 answers

How can I identify lead-free solder if it's unpackaged?

Is there a test to determine whether solder is leaded or lead-free? Perhaps conductivity/resistance?
Joe Stavitsky
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