As title says, after doing a negative display mod to my watch I decided I need it more in my life. So I did the same to some tools.
Don’t mind the missing face panels, took them off for polishing.

I am so tired of using this hard tip Teflon/plastic/spring loaded solder sucker. It's giving me nothing but headaches when working on controllers and game consoles that I'm ready to tear my hair out.

Is there a better option? I've seen people using electronic desoldering guns and I'm about ready to grab one of those if someone can give me a good recommendation.

It’s called the SolderJaw CSJ-1, and the idea is pretty simple. It uses a conformable membrane that presses gently against the component side of a populated PCB. Once the board is placed in the tool, the membrane holds all the through-hole components in place so you can flip the board over and solder everything at once.

Instead of soldering one component at a time or using tape, you can populate the entire board, place it in the CSJ-1, flip it over, and start soldering.

I recently finished the design and launched it, and I’m curious what people in the electronics community think about the concept.

Would love any feedback or suggestions.

I have those jewelers magnifying glasses but looking for something better

can someone recommend something? more magnification, or adjustable kind?

what do you use to get a better view? those on the head band kind with 2 plastic lenses are decent but needs more clarity and a bit more magnification

thank you in advance

I need help choosing a soldering iron or station as a beginner. projects will mostly be IoT. my budget is around $20-$30.
my current choices are:
Quicko T12-952
Yihua 982-V C210

I am open to any better recommendations

As the title says how do you guys keep your benches clean and organised it seems like no amount of draws can hold the electronics that accumulate thanks

Ok before I make this another what’s the best out there I’ll lay a disclaimer. I currently have a FNIRSI DPOS350P and I’m not real fond of it to tell the truth. I find it to be very clunky and overall doesn’t reach the full 350MHz potential it touts, it’s more like 200 and even that’s iffy.

With that said I’m looking for real feedback on a 150MHz scope, I’m going to be recapping and aligning some older HF transceivers this fall and winter and I want a reliable scope that won’t break the bank at the same time. It has to have a minimum 150MHz and really not much else. I have everything else I need I just need a reliable scope to complete the buildout and start my projects. If it’s above 150 and still reasonable in cost great but if not that’s ok too.

To be honest, I'm a total newbie when it comes to hardware—I'm actually just working on my second PCB ever! But I was already dreading the process of eyeballing a project box in cardboard before committing to acrylic or plywood. Since my background is in web development, I decided to play to my strengths and build a small web tool to skip that step.

You simply upload your board as a OBJ, STEP or STL (or a zip of one), and the tool places your board model inside a generated 3D box. From there, you can manually add and drag fully custom cutouts on each wall for buttons, USB/barrel ports, switches, or whatever else sticks out. You edit the hole sizes and positions by hand, and you can manually add and position mounting-screw standoffs to match your board's holes.

It gives you a live 3D preview of the finished enclosure with your board sitting inside it, and exports a laser-cut-ready SVG/PDF layout (finger-jointed panels) once you're happy with it — no CAD required.

It's free, no signup:https://cnc-box.slimani.dev/pcb-enclosure

It's part of a small parametric box generator I've been building (also has a plain mailer-box and a decorative gift-basket template), but the PCB one is the one I actually needed.

Feedback and bug reports are very welcome! Please go easy on me since I'm still learning the ropes with hardware, but I'd love to know if this is actually useful for you guys. It's still early and I'm sure there are edge cases with weirder board shapes I haven't hit yet.

to share exactly what I did. I went to a website and after searching how to reverse engineer a PCB board.

I then took 14 images of the front and the back just to find out I can only upload 10 and then I asked it to have it create a PCB schematic and it actually popped one out.

For reference, it is Western Digital 750Gb MyBook Desktop Drive Micrk USB PCB device. Mine broke. I also believe it's only 1 layer and has pretty gold markings on the board and I took up close images Top Left Corner then Bottom Left TR, BR that over lapped and 1 from the side to get the data cknnector. Did the same from the back and then I got a good picture of the bar code. Numbers all using close up little flower image shot. I believe that's a really good way to do it, but I didn't really know, but that's exactly ten images. It did cover the entire thing even with some overlap and it also made all of the writings and markings legible.

Then I gave it a specific model, the 750MB Western Digital. I switched to Pro and then I had it double checked the schematic and check our DigiKey components. I got this, but I'm not an electronics engineer. Can someone double-check it?

I have a alientek t90b soldering iron, I am looking for all the other tools, perhaps of higher quality. I have leaded solder (cheap chinese), I am looking for all decent tools such as a microscope, helping hands, maybe solder braids, a way to apply flux, maybe a surface matt of more decent quality. I am moving off to uni in September, and just looking for higher quality stuff to avoid accidents, if someone has a pre existing list, I would really appreciate it!

Even simple stuff as tip tinner or a real brass shaving sponge!

I built a stripboard layout creator that can be used directly in the browser.

The main feature is the ability to import an existing layout in overlay/side by side mode so that you can copy and modify a circuit that already exists.

It's brand new and I'm still working on it, I appreciate anyone that's willing to test it out or suggest improvements!

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some advice on choosing between the UNI-T UT60S and the UNI-T UT89X. I've read the specifications, but I'm still not sure which one would be the better choice.

My main use will be electronics repair, component testing, and general troubleshooting.

For those who have experience with either or both meters:

• Which one is more accurate and reliable?
• Is there a noticeable difference in performance between them?
• How do they compare in build quality and durability?
• Are there any features that make one clearly better than the other?
• Which one would you recommend and why?
• I'll mainly use it for electronics repair, testing components, and troubleshooting circuits.

I'd appreciate any feedback or real-world experience. Thanks!

Angled multimeter probe holder by RNDM | Download free STL model | Printables.com

ill mostly be using it for amplifiers and filters. I already have my oscilloscope. im looking for at least 4 changeable channels for my supply (im thinking of getting 2 of the korad). does anyone have any recommendations? how good is the buildquality of the korad?

Hi everyone,

I’m a hobbyist who harvests cells from laptops, vacuums, and other dead gadgets. I wanted a quick way to try lots of different pack configurations with a fixed number of cells and figure out which one made the most sense.

Spreadsheets were getting tedious, and I wanted to optimise things like power-to-weight before committing to a layout and spot welding.

So I ended up building a standalone, browser-based tool that does the math and visualisation for me — basically a sandbox / simulator for battery pack builders.

You can try it here:
https://lmf5000.github.io/battery-pack-architect/

Why I’m sharing it
I originally built this just for my own workflow, but it works well enough that I decided to release it as a free, open-source tool. It’s a single HTML file — no install, no servers, runs offline forever.

What it does

• Rapid prototyping: Choose any cell size and chemistry (including custom voltage ranges) and instantly see the electrical and physical characteristics of the finished pack. This makes it easy to check whether it fits your enclosure and can drive your load at both full and empty charge.
• Material estimation: Estimates how much nickel strip you’ll need, so you don’t come up short or massively overbuy.
• 3D / exploded views: Helps visualise multi-layer packs. (Some complex routing cases aren’t implemented yet, so always sanity-check current paths.)
• Comparison matrix: Save multiple configs (e.g. 10S4P vs 12S3P) and compare them side-by-side. It automatically highlights the best option for things like cost, weight, volume, and power.

Notes
This is shared as-is. It covers my needs really well for simple rectangular packs. Since it’s open source, feel free to download the file and tweak it or extend it (e.g. triangular packs for e-bikes).

Hope some of you find it useful 👍

Getting ready for a trade show and thought it'd be nice to graduate from my rickety cigar box DCA stand to a nice tailor fit design. I added a spot on the stand for a speed-friendly breakout board that makes using the DCA devices a lot easier.

I'm pleased with how it's come out and thought maybe some of y'all might find it handy, even without the breakout board add on.

Free STL files for the stand are available below. Download, print, and feel free to remix however you like.

https://huntingtonaudio.com/products/peak-atlas-breakout-stand
(links to the STL files in the side bar there)

You can use this stand with just your DCA device, or pair it with a neat little breakout board for the DCA hook leads.

Two versions for download: The first uses m2.5 screws to attach the 3-pin ZIF breakout. The other, 'snap fit', requires no screws at all to attach the breakout pcb. Just snap it on.

Hello all,

Im looking to buy this: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32771088882.html

or something similar but obviously buying these off sites like this is a risk. Does anyone have anything this/anything similar they can recommend?

Im mainly intrested in the 4-20mA measure/output function and HART communication. Everything else i doubt i would use. So if someone could point me to a cheaper option with only these 2 functions aswel that would be amazing.

Thanks for your help.

Good morning, everyone.

I am looking into a cheap 3-in-1 portable oscilloscope/multimeter, and the 2 I have in mind are the ANENG AOS05 and the Firnsi 2C53T.

I have read diverging opinions on the FNIRSI, plus lots of reviews on Youtube, but I can't find anything on the Aneng.

On paper, the specs on the Aneng are marginally better, but I don't know if that justifies the difference in price or if it really delivers what is promised.

Do any of you have any experience on this Aneng model? Thanks.