Revision as of 20:48, 29 July 2011

For a list of items in line to be purchased by the tool committee, see Tool Purchasing.

MIT's Center For Bits and Atoms have developed a purchasing guide (and tool overview) for their (~50,000 USD) Fab Lab project that has been successfully deployed in places from inner-city Boston, to rural India, to the northern tip of Norway.

The tool list for their multi-million dollar facility is also enlightening.

Arts

Audio/Video

• High speed video camera
• PA monitors
• Audio mixer
• Lapel mic
• Boom mic
• Flat panel display

Cloth and leather

• Sewing machine
  • Janome Memory Craft 9500 sewing and programmable embroidery machine [1] $1500
  • Baby Lock Ellure Plus sewing and programmable embroidery machine [2] $1500
• Serger

Drafting

• Drafting table
• Various pencils, inks, paper
• Ruler
• T-square

Pottery and ceramics

• Pottery wheel

Necessities

• Matte cutter
• Papercutter
• Scissors
• Exacto knives
• Cutting mat
• Hot glue gun
• Hot water heater
• Helium

Electrical

Big Ticket

• PCB Mill
  • LPKF [3]
    • These are the best in the industry, feature wise -Jb 04:15, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
  • T-Tech [4]
    • Lower priced, less features. Haven't used personally -Jb 04:15, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
• BGA Rework station
• Pick & Place Machine
• Digital scope
  • Rigol DS1052E [5] 345 USD
    • These are Agilent OEM scopes, good reviews. 50 MHz model can be uphacked to 100 MHz
  • Instek GDS-1102A 100 MHz [6] 575 USD
    • Recommended by MIT Fab Lab

Electronics

Budget

• Hakko 936 soldering station [7] - $80
• Mastercraft Springed Wire Stripper [8] - $10
• [DMM]
• [Adjustable Power Supply]
• Radio Shack Vacuum Desoldering Tool [9] - $10
• [Needlenose Pliers (straight)]
• [Needlenose Pliers (90º bend)]
• [Sidecutters (flush)]
• [Tweezers]

Mid-level

• Weller WESD51 soldering station [10] - $130
• Mastercraft Wire Stripper (30-20 AWG) PN 58-4508-4 [11] - $20
• Mastercraft Wire Stripper (22-10 AWG) PN 58-4507-6 [12] - $20
• MTP 2322 Digital Multimeter [13] - $60
• Madell TPR3003-3C Triple Outputs Laboratory Power Supply [14] - $180
• Radio Shack Vacuum Desoldering Tool [15] - $10
• Mastercraft 3 Piece Plier Set [16] - $30
• [Needlenose Pliers (90º bend)] - $10
• [Tweezers] - $2

High-end

• Weller WD1000M micro rework station [17] - $500
• Paladin Tools GripP 10 Wire Stripper/Cutter (24-10 AWG) PN 1117 [18] - $20
• Paladin Tools GripP 20 Wire Stripper/Cutter (30-20 AWG) PN 1118 [19] - $20
• Fluke 87 Digital Multimeter - $250
• Agilent E3631A Triple Output Power Supply [20] - $1200
• [Vacuum Desoldering Tool]
• Wiha ESD Side Cutters Tapered Head PN 32710 [21] - $35
• Wiha ESD Flat Nose Pliers PN 32752 [22] - $35
• Wiha ESD Needle Nose Pliers Bent 90º PN 32748 [23] - $35
• Wiha ESD General Purpose Fine Points tweezers PN 44531 [24] - $20

General Purpose

• Coil winder
• Function generator
• 120V outlet tester
• 19" rack

IT

• RJ45/RJ11 crimper
• BNC crimper
• RG6 crimper
• Network cable tester

High Voltage

• Variac √ (Thanks Ron!)
• Isolation transformer
• Analog multimeter
• 100 W soldering gun
• HV cap discharger

Microelectronics

Development and Debugging

• PIC programmer
• EEPROM reader/writer
• Bus pirate
• USB packet analyzer
• OBDII reader
• Logic probe

FPGAs

• Altera Cyclone FPGA
• Xilinx FPGA

Microcontroller Development Kits

• Arduino
• AVR 9x
• OMAP
• MSP430
• Snapdragon
• i.MX
• ColdFire
• DSPic
• Cypress PSOC 5

Surface Mount

• Hot air rework station
  • Madell 850D [25]
    • A1130 & A1170 nozzles
• Reflow oven
  • Could be as simple as a used griddle with a temperature controller
• Microscope (bi or trinocular)
  • Madell SZM7045TR [26]
  • 'Chinese' OEM microscopes (< $300 USD)

Consumables

• Solder (various gauges)
• Flux
• Wirewrap wire (30 gauge)
• Wire (10 to 30 gauge, various colours)
• Solder wick
• Magnet wire (33 gauge)

Mechanical

Metalworking

Hand tools

• Hacksaw
• Tap and die set
  • With metric, try to get M3, M2.5 and M2 would be nice
  • With SAE, 6-32 and 4-40 would be great
  • Mastercraft 60 piece set, includes metric and SAE [27] - $90
  • Princess Auto 39 piece metric + 39 piece SAE [28] - $45 each
• File set
• Hand Drill

Stationary tools

• Brake/shear
• TIG welder
• Bench grinder
• Pipe bender
  • Jet 3" manual hydraulic pipe bender [29] - $500 (or $350 for the 2" model)
• Propane forge
• Air hammer
• Vertical milling machine
  • Taig CNC micro milling machines [30] - $900
  • Taig CNC mid-size milling machine [31] - $2 500
  • Jet full-size manual milling machine, 8" x 36" 1.5 HP [32] - $5 000
  • Jet full-size manual milling machine, 9" x 49" 2 HP with DRO - $12 000

Plastic and Foam

Big ticket

• Vacuum former
  • Formech Compact Mini (280mm x 230mm forming area, 130mm draw) [33] 2 600 CAD
  • Formech 686 (686mm x 660mm forming area, 400mm draw) [34] 12 000 CAD
• Vinyl cutter
  • Roland CAMM-1 Servo GX-24 [35] 2 100 USD
    • Good for cutting sinage, decorations, and flexible circuits
• Laser cutter
  • ULS [36]
    • I would consider other vendors before buying a ULS again -- many problems with SW & HW -Jb 04:15, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Epilog [37]
    • Very popular, haven't used personally -Jb 04:15, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
  • 'Chinese' Lasers
    • Lots of discussion on CNCZone forums [38]
    • Will need hacking/tweaking
    • G.Weike [39] LC6090
      • Review [40]
      • Was quoted $3700 for the 80W 36x24 -Jb 04:15, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Stationary tools

• Hot wire foam cutter
  • Build with scraps for under $5 [41]
• Acrylic bender
  • Delvie's Plastics 33" [42] 165 USD
  • FTM Free standing heater 48" [43] 262 USD
• Injection Molder
  • Benchtop molder [44] 1 600 USD
  • Morgan-Press [45] 3 200 USD used

Woodworking

Hand tools

• Belt sander
• Chisel set
• Handsaw
• Jigsaw
• Router
• Hand plane

Stationary tools

• Jointer planer
• Table saw
  • Highly recommend "format" style sliding table saw like the Hammer K3 [46] - $3000 USD

Multi-purpose

Hand tools

• Corded drill
• Cordless drill
• Circular saw

Stationary tools

• 3D Scanner
  • NextEngine 3D scanner [47] 3 000 USD
    • Recommended by MIT Fab Lab and TechShop
• Bandsaw
• CNC Router
  • ShopBot [48] PRSalpha 96" x 48" are about 22 000 USD
  • ShopBot [49] PRSstandard 96" x 48" are a little cheaper at 16 000 USD
• Drill press
  • King Industrial and Performax have reasonably affordable tools
• Lathe
• CNC Milling machine
  • Desktop-sized Roland Modela MDX-20 [50] 5 000 USD
    • Good for PCB milling too
• Water jet cutter
  • OMAX JetMachining Center 2652 [51] 124 000 USD for a used model

Software

CAD

• Altium
• Solidworks
• MastercamX
• Creo Elements (free) [52]
• Google SketchUp (free) [53]

General Stuff

• Hard drive recovery software (eg. SpinRite)
• Microsoft Action Pack (includes Windows, Visual Studio, Office, etc.)
• QNX licenses
• VMWare

Graphics

• Adobe CS Master Collection
• Moray (free wireframe modeller for POV-ray) [54]

Math

• Matlab
• Maple

Programming

• Web/source control server
• FogBugz Account

Unsorted

• Orbital death ray