Revision as of 18:34, 7 June 2012

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
  • Agilent MSOX2012A [7] 2 181 USD
    • Optional 20 MHz waveform generator available for 497 USD

Electronics

Budget

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

Mid-level

• Weller WESD51 soldering station [11] - $130
• Mastercraft Wire Stripper (30-20 AWG) PN 58-4508-4 [12] - $20
• Mastercraft Wire Stripper (22-10 AWG) PN 58-4507-6 [13] - $20
• MTP 2322 Digital Multimeter [14] - $60
• Madell TPR3003-3C Triple Outputs Laboratory Power Supply [15] - $180
• Radio Shack Vacuum Desoldering Tool [16] - $10
• Mastercraft 3 Piece Plier Set [17] - $30
• [Needlenose Pliers (90º bend)] - $10
• [Tweezers] - $2

High-end

• Weller WD1000M micro rework station [18] - $500
• Paladin Tools GripP 10 Wire Stripper/Cutter (24-10 AWG) PN 1117 [19] - $20
• Paladin Tools GripP 20 Wire Stripper/Cutter (30-20 AWG) PN 1118 [20] - $20
• Fluke 87 Digital Multimeter - $250
• Agilent E3631A Triple Output Power Supply [21] - $1200
• [Vacuum Desoldering Tool]
• Wiha ESD Side Cutters Tapered Head PN 32710 [22] - $35
• Wiha ESD Flat Nose Pliers PN 32752 [23] - $35
• Wiha ESD Needle Nose Pliers Bent 90º PN 32748 [24] - $35
• Wiha ESD General Purpose Fine Points tweezers PN 44531 [25] - $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 [26]
    • A1130 & A1170 nozzles
• Reflow oven
  • Could be as simple as a used griddle with a temperature controller
• Microscope (bi or trinocular)
  • Madell SZM7045TR [27]
  • '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 [28] - $90
  • Princess Auto 39 piece metric + 39 piece SAE [29] - $45 each
• File set
• Hand Drill

Stationary tools

• Brake/shear
• TIG welder
• Bench grinder
• Pipe bender
  • Jet 3" manual hydraulic pipe bender [30] - $500 (or $350 for the 2" model)
• Propane forge
• Air hammer
• Vertical milling machine
  • Taig CNC micro milling machines [31] - $900
  • Taig CNC mid-size milling machine [32] - $2 500
  • Jet full-size manual milling machine, 8" x 36" 1.5 HP [33] - $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) [34] 2 600 CAD
  • Formech 686 (686mm x 660mm forming area, 400mm draw) [35] 12 000 CAD
• Vinyl cutter
  • Roland CAMM-1 Servo GX-24 [36] 2 100 USD
    • Good for cutting sinage, decorations, and flexible circuits
• Laser cutter
  • ULS [37]
    • I would consider other vendors before buying a ULS again -- many problems with SW & HW -Jb 04:15, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Epilog [38]
    • Very popular, haven't used personally -Jb 04:15, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
  • 'Chinese' Lasers
    • Lots of discussion on CNCZone forums [39]
    • Will need hacking/tweaking
    • G.Weike [40] LC6090
      • Review [41]
      • 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 [42]
• Acrylic bender
  • Delvie's Plastics 33" [43] 165 USD
  • FTM Free standing heater 48" [44] 262 USD
• Injection Molder
  • Benchtop molder [45] 1 600 USD
  • Morgan-Press [46] 3 200 USD used
    • Used at TechShop

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 [47] - $3000 USD

Multi-purpose

Hand tools

• Corded drill
• Cordless drill
• Circular saw

Stationary tools

• 3D Printer
  • MakerGear M2 3D Printer [48] $1,300 USD
  • MakerBot Replicator 3D Printer [49] $1,749 USD
• 3D Scanner
  • NextEngine 3D scanner [50] $3000 USD
    • Recommended by MIT Fab Lab and TechShop
• Bandsaw
• CNC Router
  • ShopBot [51] PRSalpha 96" x 48" are about $22,000 USD
  • ShopBot [52] PRSstandard 96" x 48" are a little cheaper at $16,000 USD
  • Probotix FireBall Comet CNC Router (25” x 25” x 5” machine travel. Large enough to make guitar bodies) [53] $3299 USD
• Drill press
  • King Industrial and Performax have reasonably affordable tools
• Lathe
• CNC Milling machine
  • Desktop-sized Roland Modela MDX-20 [54] 5 000 USD
    • Good for PCB milling too
  • Taig 2027ER CNC Milling Machine (3 1/2 x 18 1/2 inch table) with ER 16 Spindle and MACH3 software [55] $2495 USD
• Water jet cutter
  • OMAX JetMachining Center 2652 [56] 124 000 USD for a used model

Software

CAD

• Altium
• Solidworks
• MastercamX
• Creo Elements (free) [57]
• Google SketchUp (free) [58]

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) [59]

Math

• Matlab
• Maple

Programming

• Web/source control server
• FogBugz Account

Unsorted

• Orbital death ray