Contents 1 Arts 1.1 Audio/Video 1.2 Cloth and leather 1.3 Drafting 1.4 Pottery and ceramics 1.5 Necessities 2 Electrical 2.1 Big Ticket 2.2 Electronics 2.3 General Purpose 2.4 IT 2.5 High Voltage 2.6 Microelectronics 2.6.1 Development and Debugging 2.6.2 FPGAs 2.6.3 Microcontroller Development Kits 2.7 Surface Mount 2.8 Consumables 3 Mechanical 3.1 Metalworking 3.1.1 Hand tools 3.1.2 Stationary tools 3.2 Plastic and Foam 3.2.1 Big ticket 3.2.2 Stationary tools 3.3 Woodworking 3.3.1 Hand tools 3.3.2 Stationary tools 3.4 Multi-purpose 3.4.1 Hand tools 3.4.2 Stationary tools 4 Software 4.1 CAD 4.2 General Stuff 4.3 Graphics 4.4 Math 4.5 Programming 5 Unsorted

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 Scanner
  • NextEngine 3D scanner [48] 3 000 USD
    • Recommended by MIT Fab Lab and TechShop
• Bandsaw
• CNC Router
  • ShopBot [49] PRSalpha 96" x 48" are about 22 000 USD
  • ShopBot [50] 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 [51] 5 000 USD
    • Good for PCB milling too
• Water jet cutter
  • OMAX JetMachining Center 2652 [52] 124 000 USD for a used model

Software

CAD

• Altium
• Solidworks
• MastercamX
• Creo Elements (free) [53]
• Google SketchUp (free) [54]

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) [55]

Math

• Matlab
• Maple

Programming

• Web/source control server
• FogBugz Account

Unsorted

• Orbital death ray