Geeky holiday gifts

December 27, 2009 in idle by Ian | 7 comments

Did you get any hardware or geek toys this holiday?

We received two replacement soldering irons for the Aoyue 968 rework station in the lab. The plastic handle on the old iron broke, but it still worked so we epoxied it back together. Not a fan of high heat, the epoxy often came loose in the middle of long soldering sessions. We kept gluing it back together, but it was high time for a new iron. Like most tools, this is a gift we’ll appreciate all year long.

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  1. EGHM on December 27, 2009 at 10:20 am

    Got myself a couple of shiftbrites (http://www.flickr.com/photos/eghm/4213826479/) and preordered a couple of your web platforms.

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  2. Michal on December 27, 2009 at 12:47 pm

    I got a big Lego train set with electric train, bridge, rail switch, etc. Santa knew I’ll be having much more fun with it than my preschool kids so he put *my* name on the box. (/me now has to find a way to keep the little intruders’ hands out of his toy ;-)

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  3. John on December 27, 2009 at 4:32 pm

    Been trying to find a seller of these in the UK for a few months, so I don’t have to pay a fortune for postage. Does the fume extractor work that well?

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  4. Ian on December 27, 2009 at 4:55 pm

    @John – I’m not sure about the UK, but Wiltec in Germany shipped cheaply to the rest of EU when I got mine.

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  5. Ian on December 27, 2009 at 4:56 pm

    @John – I’m not sure about the UK, but Wiltec in Germany shipped cheaply to the rest of EU when I got mine.

    Yes, the fume extractor is fantastic! I could never use an iron without one now. It changed my life! No more breath-hold-solder-blow-breath cycles to keep the flux fumes our of my nose.

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  6. George on December 27, 2009 at 9:05 pm

    Tektronix 2465 :D

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  7. Brett on December 28, 2009 at 12:35 am

    i got approval to buy a Bus Pirate pre-xmas on teh proviso I didn’t want anything else for xmas – so I guess that means technically it is a xmas gift :)

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