In this section of the website, articles relating to useful tools and the techniques to make them effective are available. Happily most people can start off their hobby with the minimum of tools, a soldering Iron and a multimeter. However as time goes on the average hobiest finds a need for more an more complicated tools. Fortunately these are getting cheaper to buy, and avid Ebayers can also find second hand tools that more than meet their needs.
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| Written by Justblair |  The HP-1 Digital Designer is a device that I bought from E-bay several years ago an until recently it had not received much love from me if I am honest. If you are not sure what an HP-1 Digital designer is, and I guess there is a fair chance that you wont have encountered one, think super dooper breadboard! A breadboard, function generator, power supply, logic analyser and more built into one workstation.
Mine has clearly seen a hard life, now aged, yellowed and partly functioning. This is the first instalment in its journey back to greatness. While I doubt many of you will be refurbishing one of these, along the way we should see some of the circuits required to build your own workstation. |
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| Written by Justblair |  I recently saw a couple of articles on Hackaday regarding the modification of cheap digital callipers. It turns out that as well as being able to interface these callipers to a microcontroller such as an Arduino, there are some hidden functions that are simple to unlock. I was curious because I happen to own a very similar set of callipers already. Well I could not see a perfectly good tool go unmodified for long.
Not only that, as impressed as I was by the hacks that have been done already on digital callipers, the execution has been pretty ghetto looking. I had an idea that would produce a more stock looking finish that I think is more durable. |
| Written by Justblair |  It is with great excitement that I bring to you what is possibly the very first review of the new DSO Quad by Seeed Studio. This week I received from SeeedStudio and engineering sample of the product and I have had now a few days to play with the scope. It’s still early days for the product and SeeedStudio have a short bug list till to resolve before the product will be on general sale, but today I can give you a taster of what will I think be another exciting product for the electronics hobbyist and field engineers. So here are my impressions… |
| Written by Justblair |  For those starting out in electronics as a hobby there are some tools that are required for the job. To begin with, a soldering iron, some screw drivers, perhaps tweezers and of course a multi-meter are probably what you would consider essential.
After a while though, you are going to be looking for more. Amongst the other goodies out there to help you on your way are oscilloscopes. In the past, advice on forums has always tended more towards purchasing a second hand scope. These tend to be had for around £100 on places like E-bay and most certainly will be a few years old if available at this sort of price. Well that is changing and I was excited yesterday to get my hands on a “Scope” that may just re-write the forum advice. Meet the Nano DSO from Seed Studio… |
| Written by Justblair | 
In response to a question by Alex, I took a couple of pictures of the Kada 852 stations heating elements.
Here is the spare heating element from the hot air solder tool. You can see it is constructed from a ceramic rod, Attached is a metal matrix. You can see there is cables for the heating element attached as well as the wires for the temperature sensor. 
Within the sodering iron is a ceramic heating element. The tips are standard looking solder station tips. The tips are easy to remove and reinstall. |
| Written by Justblair |
 I recently was gifted a Kada 852D solder station. I have wanted one for a while, but these are normally expensive items. However the wonder of the far east, EBay and reliable intercontinental postage has opened up a new market for cheap, apparently high value tools that are within the price range of the hobbyist.
Do you get just what you pay for, or are these Far Eastern imports true bargains? |
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