Our favorite tools have a new home on the wiki. Each week we’ll muse about one of them. Have your own tool review? We’ll post that too! Our photo studio is setup for quick and easy photographs. It’s on a table right next to a computer in the development area so we can do demos […]
Category Archives: tools
How cops hack your cellphone in 90 seconds
You may have seen reports in the media recently, such as this MSNBC report highlighting the practice by police of extracting data from the cellphones of innocent civilians. While we’re not going to discuss the political or legal aspects of this practice, from a hacker perspective it’s interesting to know what type of tools and […]
TOOLS: OptiVisor magnifier
Our favorite tools have a new home on the wiki. Each week we’ll muse about one of them. Have your own tool review? We’ll post that too! Magnification makes soldering faster, easier, and more comfortable. The classic helping hands have a detective-type magnifying glass. Pros often use a stereo microscope. We discussed some DIY USB […]
VirtualBreadboard 4.3.3
VirtualBreadboard 4.3.3 is a Windows GUI program that lets you simulate and develop embedded applications that use microcontrollers. It essentially lets you assemble virtual components on screen and auto generate code. Currently some Microchip PIC16 and 18 devices are supported, as well as Arduino. In addition a wide variety of simulated components such as LCD’s, […]
TOOLS: Soldering supplies
Our favorite tools have a new home on the wiki. Each week we’ll muse about one of them. Have your own tool review? We’ll post that too! This week’s tool is a collection of stuff: the things we use for soldering. We regularly work with surface mount (SMD) parts down to 0603, but it doesn’t […]
Degate reverse engineering tool
Degate is a graphical reverse engineering tool for Ubuntu and OS X. Degates’ purpose is to aid reverse engineering of digital electronics in integrated circuits (ICs). Degate helps you to explore images from ICs. It matches logic gates on the imagery given by graphical templates and it assists you in tracing circuit paths. Degate is […]
Reverse engineering the HRD remote serial protocol
Sivan Toledo likes to use Ham Radio Deluxe (HRD), a free program that serves as a user interface to radio transceivers. Modern transceivers can be controlled either from their front panel controls (if they have a front panel), or from a computer through a serial or USB connection. He writes: One cool and useful feature […]
TOOLS: Atten ADS1062CA oscilloscope
Our favorite tools have a new home on the wiki. Each week we’ll muse about one of them. Have your own tool review? We’ll post that too! The Atten ADS1062CA is a dual channel digital storage oscilloscope capable of 1Gsamples a second, and an analog bandwidth of 60Mhz. An oscilloscope is a useful piece of […]
DIY Vacuum part lifter
Trouble holding and placing tiny SMD parts? Sjaak improvised a vacuum part lifter with a needle and the fume extractor on an Aoyue 968 soldering station I did ran a quick test and the fume extractor is strong enough to lift 0603 and 0805 passive. The diameter of needle is big enough to hold the […]
TOOLS: Storage, binders, boxes, drawers
Our favorite tools have a new home on the wiki. Each week we’ll muse about one of them. Have your own tool review? We’ll post that too! Hardware hackers build up a sizable collection of parts over time. Keeping them well organized makes it faster and easier to stuff prototype boards. We started out with […]
Fedora Electronics Lab Linux distro
Kelvin writes to inform us of a Fedora Linux distribution particularly keyed toward electronics experimenters and developers. The Fedora Electronics Lab includes design tools for ASIC Analog Circuit Design and Simulation, ASIC Layout, DRC and LVS, Digital Simulation and Verification, RTL and logic synthesis design flows, Circuit and PCB Layout, Micro Controller (µC) Programming and […]
opendlp: data loss prevention suite
OpenDLP is a free and open source, agent-based, centrally-managed, massively distributable data loss prevention tool released under the GPL. Given appropriate Windows domain credentials, OpenDLP can simultaneously identify sensitive data at rest on hundreds or thousands of Microsoft Windows systems from a centralized web application. OpenDLP has two components: a web application and an agent. […]
TOOLS: Flatbed scanner for PCBs, sketches, bookkeeping
Our favorite tools have a new home on the wiki. Each week we’ll muse about one of them. Have your own tool review? We’ll post that too! A cheap flatbed scanner is super useful in the shop. We use it to post design sketches, scan PCBs, and archive receipts. You might remember that Free PCB […]
TOOLS: Brother QL-550 label maker
Our favorite tools have a new home on the wiki. Each week we’ll muse a bit about one of them. Have your own tool review? We’ll post that too! Sometimes it’s the small things that bring you joy. That’s definitely the case with this spiffy little label maker. It does one thing, and it does […]
Mini AV tester in Altoid’s tin
Chris from PyroElectro was looking for a way to miniaturize his previous VGA test box to make it more suitable for portable use. He came up with this design for a Mini AV Test Box for portable testing of VGA displays and speakers. His project fits a full fledged AV tester into a mint-tin can […]
Parts: pogo pins, jumpers, resistor kits, more
Today a parcel come in with lots of goodies from MDFLY. We are prototyping a lot so every useful gadget that helps us a lot. Follow below for a look at the jumper cables, resistor kits, and pogo pins in this order.
Clarke CRT 40 rotary tool kit review
DrF has a couple tool reviews: Clarke CRT 40 rotary tool kit, a glue gun, and a screwdriver set Via the tips line.
TOOL: Aoyue 968 3-in-1 rework station
Our favorite tools have a new home on the wiki. Each week we’ll muse a bit about one of them. Have your own tool review? We’ll post that too! Our trusty Aoyue 968 was the first real electronics tool we bought. It’s a three-in-one rework station with a soldering iron, hot air rework tool, and […]
MPLABX beta 5
There’s a new beta 5 release of MPLABX, the multi-platform development tools for PIC microcontrollers. Check out some MPLAB tips on our wiki page. Via the forum
DIY hot air rework station
omegat shared his hot air soldering station in the project log forum: I saw an inspiring post on here; which made me creative. The whole thing should be cheaper than an Aoyue hot air soldering station (~85€). Pictures, source code, and Eagle files at the link. Thanks omegat!