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

Arts

Audio/Video

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

Cloth and leather

• Sewing machine
• Serger

Drafting

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

Pottery and ceramics

• Pottery wheel
• Kiln

Necessities

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

Electrical

Big Ticket

• PCB Mill
  • LPKF [1]
    • These are the best in the industry, feature wise -Jb 04:15, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
  • T-Tech [2]
    • Lower priced, less features. Haven't used personally -Jb 04:15, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
• BGA Rework station
• Pick & Place Machine
• Digital scope
  • Rigol [3]
    • These are Agilent OEM scopes, good reviews
    • They are $400 each for a 50MHz dual channel model on DealExtreme.com at the moment

Electronics

• Wire strippers (10-24 AWG and 20-30 AWG)
• Soldering Station
  • Weller WES 51D ($150 USD)
  • Weller WD 1000M ($400 USD) [4]
  • Hakko 936 ($60-$80) [5]
• Side cutters
• Tweezers
• DMM
• Needlenose
• Angled needlenose
• Solder sucker
• Power Supply
  • Madell [6]

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 [7]
    • A1130 & A1170 nozzles
• Reflow oven
  • Could be as simple as a used griddle with a temperature controller
• Microscope (bi or trinocular)
  • Madell SZM7045TR [8]
  • '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
• File set
• Hand Drill

Stationary tools

• Brake/shear
• TIG welder
• Bench grinder
• Pipe bender
• Propane forge
• Air hammer

Plastic and Foam

Big ticket

• Vaccum former
• Plasma cutter
  • ULS [9]
    • I would consider other vendors before buying a ULS again -- many problems with SW & HW -Jb 04:15, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Epilog [10]
    • Very popular, haven't used personally -Jb 04:15, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
  • 'Chinese' Lasers
    • Lots of discussion on CNCZone forums [11]
    • Will need hacking/tweaking
    • G.Weike [12] LC6090
      • Review [13]
      • Was quoted $3700 for the 80W 36x24 -Jb 04:15, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Stationary tools

• Hot wire foam cutter
• Acrylic bender

Woodworking

Hand tools

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

Stationary tools

• Jointer planer
• Table saw (or contractor, or hybrid)

Multi-purpose

Hand tools

• Corded drill
• Cordless drill
• Circular saw

Stationary tools

• Bandsaw
• CNC Router
  • ShopBot [14]
• Drill press
• Lathe
• Milling machine

Software

CAD

• Altium
• Solidworks
• MastercamX

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

Math

• Matlab
• Maple

Programming

• Web/source control server
• FogBugz Account

Unsorted

• Orbital death ray