MN-S Electronics Wish List

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What do we need for the Electronics / Robotics lab? New bench equipment? Better soldering tips? A shelf? IF we had money to spend, what would we spend it on? Some new stuff? Maybe a refresh of stuff we have that's too well used? It could be inexpensive, it could be expensive. If we have it on this page, then maybe we can arrange to get it.

You can use this page in two ways: specific or general.

  • The specific recommendations should point us to a particular make/model of what we could make use of, or at least enough specificity that someone who isn't an expert could go buy it. You might consider that there could be a "cheap and cheerful" version, a "wow to the max" version, or maybe something in-between is just right.
  • General recommendations could be your description of what you think we need, but you're not able to be really specific because you just don't know. Or maybe you have a gut feeling of what would be good, but want others to take it to the specifics for a shopping list.

Our overall goal is to have an electronics lab equipped with things a normal hobbyist might not have at home. Maybe it's too specialized or expensive or big or they just wouldn't use it enough to own one. We'd like prospective members (and actual members) to peek in the electronics lab and think, "wow, I could do some good work in here."

Let's keep the discussion of each item in its own section on this page. Questions? Post on Slack #electronics-robotics

Specific Recommendations

Connector Crimper

It would be really handy to have a Dupont connector crimping tool and sample pin/body set. We only need one of these, not one per workbench. The connectors are compatible with wireless breadboards and all 0.1"/2.54 mm spacing connections.

Soldering Irons

We have a mishmash of different soldering irons. A few are temperature controlled, most are just one temp stick irons. We should have one like this on each bench.

Wire Strippers

The wire strippers in the Electronics-Robotics Lab only go down to #20/22 awg wire. A lot of electronic work requires #24 - #28/30 awg wire. We should equip each bench with an additional, small wire stripper; something like: this.

Jeweler's screw driver sets

It would be nice to have a small set on each work bench. We'd need 6 sets. Almost any would do, like these.

Soldering Tip Cleaners

One of these on every bench would be nice. There are many choices, but this one is nice.

General Recommendations

Reflow Setup

  • A good stenciling setup
  • A pick and place
  • Reflow oven
  • Board preheater for rework (ideally coupled with hot air pencil)
  • A variety of tweezers, ideally with a way to make it clear that these shouldn't be abused for mechanical purposes (i.e. DO NOT BEND, similar to the notion of scissors marked "Fabric use only")
  • A couple of good magnifying lamps
  • A couple of ultra-fine-tip soldering irons
  • A component dry storage/baking box (a box which can sustain an internal temperature of ~120ºF and reduce the internal humidity to ≤5% within 10 minutes of being closed. (e.g. https://smtdryboxes.com/t40w-480-baking-cabinet/)

High Frequency Digital Oscilloscope

We have some digital scopes but the old Tektronic scopes handle higher frequency. Do we / should we replace the Tektronic monsters with some new HF scopes?

Protocol Analyzer

Something to sit on an I2C bus and display hex as the conversation flows by.

  • We have at least one oscilloscope which has this capability already - the Rigol.
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