Dangerous Prototypes tool list
From DP
Tools we use
Contents |
Aoyue 968 3-in-1 rework station
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 solder fume extractor, all for around $100. Ian looked at it inside and out in a Hack a Day article.
The adjustable temperature iron is a huge step up from the cheap fixed-temperature tools we used in the past. It takes standard Hakko tips, but we just replaced the first one recently after more than 5 years of heavy use. The first part to actually break was the handle of the soldering iron, probably from rough use while desoldering. A replacement iron assembly, with cable, tip, and everything, was only $14. The replacement iron came a chisel bit we didn't like, so we swapped in the original and continued to use it instead.
Fume extraction won't appeal to everyone, but we sure like it. A tube near the tip of the iron sucks up rosin fumes and blows them out the rework tool. It makes soldering a lot more pleasant, though the pump can be a bit loud. Not everyone hates solder fumes, but they make Ian sick and this has been a huge help.
Hot air is a must for surface mount prototyping. The hot air tool worked great for about 5 years, but recently it appears to have developed a short in the temperature sensor wire. When the canle bends the wrong way, the temperature display jumps to maximum and it goes into an auto-shutdown mode. We bought the Aoyue 852 below to replace the hot air part, but we wouldn't hesitate to buy another 968 because it provided years of great service for a ridiculously low price.
We love this tool and highly recommend it to anyone.
The Aoyue 968 is pictured with the OptiVisor magnifier available at Adafruit. Buy it, it will make your life better.
Aoyue 852 hot air station
The Aoyue 852 is a dedicated hot air rework station. Hot air is probably the easiest way to remove soldered parts from a PCB, especially large chips with 100+ pins.
We recycle parts between prototype versions. It's cheaper and produces less waste, but most of all it saves times because the correct parts are ready to go. Hot air is a must in our workshop.
We bought the 852 when the hot air part of our trusty 968 went on the fritz. We got a dedicated hot air station because it was cheaper than a new 968, and the 968 was on backorder.
This is the cheapest Aoyue with digital temperature control. Set the working temperature and it will stay there automatically. An 850C is a few bucks cheaper, but the temperature is set manually by referencing a series of graphs.
Temperature and air flow are adjusted with knobs. A display shows the set and current temperature, up to 550degrees Celsius. Air flow is shown on a not quite helpful ball gauge.
The hot air tool is lighter and easier to use than the old one, and pump is significantly quieter. Our 968 is 5 years old though, new units may have the same upgrades. This has been a great addition to our workshop, but we do miss the extra table space.
Soldering supplies
Prototypes don't solder themselves. This is the workstation where most of our experimental boards are stuffed. We regularly work with surface mount parts down to 0603, but notice that none of these tools are expensive or fancy.
- Flux. Flux helps the solder flow better, and keeps it out of places you don't want it. Don't even try to solder without copious amounts of this magic goo. This syringe of flux came from a surplus store. According to the label it expired in 1991, but it still works great!
- Solder. We use 60/40 tin/lead solder, it is the only way to go for hand prototyping. It makes recycling parts with hot-air much easier than lead-free solders, which is probably a net positive for the environment. Most solder has some flux, ours lists 2%, but it is never enough, use more! We had been using a 0.7mm wide solder, but recently found a 0.5mm reel. The 0.5mm solder is thin enough to solder SSOP and QFP pins individually, which means there's less excess solder that needs to be mopped up with wick.
- Solder wick. In surface mount soldering you usually end up with solder bridges between tiny pins. Apply a little extra flux to the pins and mop up the excess with wick. Wick is the trick to soldering SMD without attending to every tiny pin - glob down a bunch of solder and soak up the excess with wick, enough remains behind to attach the part to the board.
- A sponge. An iron covered with soldering gunk doesn't conduct heat well. A clean iron is much easier and faster to works with. We use a giant natural fiber sponge moistened with a bit of water to clean the iron whenever it looks dirty. The tiny sponge in the iron holder is totally insufficient.
- Tweezers. We use '00' size surgical tweezers to hold parts in place while soldering. The pointier the better.
- Jewelers loupe. A loupe magnifier is a must for inspecting small surface mount soldering connections. We won this loupe in Hacked Gadget's Halloween contest a few years ago.
- Sticky tack/poster tack/Blu-Tack. This is a sticky putty often used to hang posters in student dorms. We use it like many people use a helping hand - it can hold a board steady, keep parts in place, or put some on the end of a pencil for a vacuum-lifter alternative. Also used heavily in the photo studio.
- A bright desk lamp. The importance of a bright light cannot be understated, especially for surface mount soldering. The smaller it is, the harder is is to see in the dark.
- Soldering stations and Storage are within reach.
Proxxon TBM110/220 drill press
- Trusty drill press for breaking traces and modding circuit boards
- Safety glasses, you'll need eyes to solder later
Scanner
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 Sunday used to look like the image on the left. This photo was taken in a light tent, but we could never get PCB shots without reflections of lights of the camera lens. This is probably the best of a dozen shots.
On the right is a scan of the same board. Clean, square, done in one take. This image is ready for a post, or open it in your favorite graphics program and sketch notes for the next revision. The only problem we've run into is that the level of detail is high and the resulting JPGs can be huge, a despeckle filter helps a little.
This particular scanner is a Cannon LiDE-100 that cost about $50. We chose it because it was the cheapest scanner within biking distance. It's powered over USB, so no adapter to worry about. It works fine, but any cheap scanner would do.
Brother QL-550 label maker
Sometimes it's the small things that bring you joy. That's definitely the case of this spiffy little label maker. It does one thing, and it does it well: it prints labels.
We don't sell anything, so we don't printing shipping labels all day, but we do mail lots of PCBs and business stuff.
For a while we used inkjet labels, but we were lucky if half of them turned out. Out of total frustration we started trolling classifieds and auctions for a label maker. Brother was our preferred brand because it has some degree of Linux support. We went with the QL-550 because it was $35 at a business bankruptcy auction, but any model would have been fine.
Labels are quite expensive, probably 10 cents each, but the convenience is worth it for a business. You can save money buying loose rolls on eBay, but we haven't run out yet. So far the included roll has lasted through a year of Free PCB Sundays and light business administration.
The included software is poor and you're forced to enter the serial number to download updates, but we do use it regularly. You can also use it as a normal printer from any app, which is interesting when you forget to swap printers in Eagle (anyone get that label on a Free PCB Sunday envelope?).
We consider this one of our best investments ever, but that probably says more about how much we hated inkjet label sheets.
Photo studio
- Small light tent
- Cannon EOS 500D
Digital Storage Oscilloscope
Having a good oscilloscope is necessary if you are doing any kind of debugging especially analog designs.
The ATTEN ADS1062CA is a two channel 60Mhz digital storage oscilloscope with a sampling rate of 500M/1G samples/second, with 1M point memory depth and USB flash drive support.
The full feature list is too long to list, however here are some of the more impressive points.
- FFT
- Averaging from 4 to 256 samples
- Multiple trigger modes including rising/falling edge, pulse, slope, video
- Math + - * / invert
- 5.7" color LCD
The ADS1000 series portable oscilloscope is a good choice for a serious electronics hobbyist.
Storage
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 a heap of silver anti-static bags, but it's really hard to find the parts you need in a pile.
This chest of small drawers holds the most common 0805, 0603, and other surface mount parts we use. These parts make up about 90% of most hardware, having them directly in front of the soldering station saves a lot of time and digging. Currently, we have these parts in the drawers:
- 0805: 100R, 390R, 1K, 2K, 10K, 100K, 27pF, 0.1uF, 1uF, ferrite bead, red & yellow LEDs
- 0603: 100R, 390R, 1K, 2K, 10K, 100K, 27pF, 0.1uF, 1uF, ferrite bead
- Case 'A' surface mount capacitors in 10uF
- 3.3volt and 5.0volt regulators in various package (SOT-23, SOT-223)
- Crystals in 10, 16, 20, 25MHz
- Oscillators in 20MHz and 50MHz
- NPN and PNP transistor in SOT-23
- Diodes (DO123, DO323)
- Buttons
- Straight and right angle header
- USB MINI-B connectors
- Big drawer of microcontrollers
We buy most of these parts in reels because it's cheaper, so we're pick and place ready should the need arise.
Less common SMD parts are stored in three ring binders. Parts are divided into categories and filed in inexpensive plastic sheet protectors. These binders hold resistor and capacitor kits in 0805 and 0603, other SMD capacitors, crystals in various frequencies, and a ton of odd and wonderful chips.
Through hole parts still come in handy for occasional bread boarding, PCB repairs, and circuit hacking. This tool box has the remainder of our through hole stuff, including resistor kits, capacitors, LED displays, stepper motors, etc.
We go through a lot of prototype PCBs, and end up with lots of extras that we’ll never use. Every Sunday we give away a few PCBs from one of our past or future projects, this the free PCB Sunday drawer. If you got a free PCB it probably came from here. Our PCBs are made through Seeed Studio’s Fusion board service.
The prototype drawer is a library of every board revision Dangerous Prototypes has ever sold, as well as abandoned or unreleased prototypes. When bugs are reported, we pull out the same hardware revision as the user and start debugging.