Building your own Engineer Work Bench: Must have tools for every engineer!

Whether you are a beginner or a professional engineer, it is vital to be prepared for anything during the job. In electrical engineering, there are a lot of tools to satisfy our needs. Today, we will be covering the “Must Have” tools for every electrical engineer, which includes these various tools:  

• Hand Tools
• Measuring Tools
• Oscilloscopes
• Soldering Tools
• Cable and Boards
• Power Supply Tools

Every Electrician will need basic hand tools to perform day-to-day tasks, Hand tools are of different types and can be used for any kind of work. Some tools are versatile and some of them are specifically used for a specific job, so what kind of hands tools would you need?

Wire Strippers ($4.90)

• They are used for stripping and cutting the most commonly used stranded and single wire gauges 20 to 30 AWG and 2-3 mm fiber jackets.
• Our wire strippers are able to cuts, strips, loops, bends, and gauges solid and stranded wire and strip 20-30 AWG solid/stranded wire with a spring-loaded action for self opening.

Pliers

Every electrician can’t work without a plier. But what type of pliers do you need for electrical engineering?

Ratcheting Crimper Pliers ($16.90)

• This plier is useful as it is used to conjoin two pieces of metal by deforming one or both of them in a way that causes them to hold each other which allow you to make a Grove connector or female jumper wire
• With a Ratcheting design, it can work with less effort.

Diagonal Pliers ($4.90)

• This diagonal pliers are good for almost everything. They can be used for cutting wire, headpins, eye pins, small chain, cords, beading and all your electrical repair needs.

Tweezers

Generally speaking, tweezers are designed with different lengths, thicknesses, and angles for handling parts and components which are ideal for circuit board repair/rework and microscope/microelectronics applications. So what type of tweezers do you need?

Tweezers-straight (anti magnetic) ($3.50)

• These are high quality stainless tweezers, straight head.
• Anti-magnetic and anti-static, which makes it suitable for SMD soldering job
• This anti-magnetic stainless steel tweezers offer precision tip symmetry and balance.

Straight Tweezers – ESD Safe($2.50)

• These High quality stainless steel tweezers with a fine tip straight of 135mm, they are also anti-magnetic, anti-acid steel, non-corrosive and lightweight.
• With this, they allow you to know exactly where your fingers are on the tool at all time under the microscope

USB Digital Microscope ($29.90)

• To use tweezers you will also require a electronic microscope which can be used to snap HD pictures, capture video and also measure objects.
• It can magnify objects up to 400 times their original size and uses a dynamic image sensor and eight super bright white LED lights for creating detailed images.
• This allows you to see even the smallest of details, in high resolution, directly on your computer screen while you are working on your project.

Screwdrivers

Electricians will definitely need a screwdriver to work on fasteners and applications. Here at Seeed, we offer 2 different screwdrivers:

Cordless Power Precision Screwdriver ($30.40)

• Wowstation 1FS is an innovative portable cordless electrical power screwdriver for home appliances, electronics with an elegant and modern design, simple and convenient to use.
• It has built-in 2xAAA batteries which can work 8 hours continuously with lighting.
• It features an aluminum alloy housing that is easy to grip and also forward and reverse rocker switch for easy control.
• If you want a stylish and functional screwdriver, this is for you!

Dual-Purpose Cross-Shaped Multi-Function Screwdriver ($1.00)

• This ergonomic dual-purpose screwdriver pole is made off chrome vanadium alloy steel with hardened head which makes it durable.

Measuring tools have always been an electrician must have, but do you know that there are many variations and upgraded versions of measuring devices? Here at Seeed, we offer various types of measuring devices like:

Testers

ZKETECH EBD-M05 Mini Electronic Load/NiMH Battery Capacity Tester/Power Bank Current Tester 19.5V 5A 30W ($22.90)

EBD-M05 is a Mini Electronic load, which is suitable for capacity testing, power bank testing and power testing of various types of batteries. A special software called “EB software” is used along with this device in order to precisely display the relevant test information. The software supports features such as curve drawing and much more extended functions.

This tester is designed for discharging a wide range of batteries and series-connected batteries, including NiMH, NiCd, LiPo, LiFe, and Pb. It also supports testing of the output current of DC powers, testing functions such as output capacity and overload protections. Furthermore, this tester supports output current and overload protection performance of various kinds of portable power banks.

USB Cable and Charger Tester – qualMeter Basic ($35.00)

QooPow™ qualMeter is a revolutionary, smart, and cost-efficient DIY device, which can simply help you to diagnose and get to know the quality of your USB cables and chargers in a glance without any technical background.

Multimeter

DT71 Mini Digital Tweezers – LCR/ ESR Meter, Multimeter, SMD Tester with Built-in Micro Signal Generator ($99.00)

DT71 Mini Digital Tweezers is a new concept portable LCR tester, which can automatically identify the type of electronic components and actively select the appropriate range for measure; the built-in signal generator can output a variety of required signals for electronic system debugging and maintenance.

• Smart gesture recognition with automatic identification of left/right-hand operation and adjusting the screen orientation accordingly
• 360° rotatable controller with OLED screen, with good viewing angles

• Innovative trinary structure: separated into the controller, testing arms, and tweezer tips, which are flexible to be replaced and combined.
• Several kinds of gold-plated interchangeable tweezer tips, enabling higher measurement accuracy in various usages

Blueseeed Multimeter ($39.00)

• This Multimeter is an intelligent peripheral of android phones, specially designed for engineers. They are used to read voltage levels and verify whether the circuits are “live”.
• Not only can it collect data such as voltage, current and resistance and even heartbeat etc., this multimeter can also communicate with phones via bluetooth where the data can be displayed on your phones for data-monitoring.

• It is accurate and also hardware and software open source! API is provided with detailed instructions, making this Multimeter a convenient open platform for developers to use and re-develop.
• The hardware and software combination provides you with infinite possibility.

Rulers

Good old rulers are always useful in helping us get simple measurements. However, here at Seeed, we decided to take it up a notch and added more functions to the ruler!

Seeed Studio PCB ruler X 5 ($5.00)

• This PCB ruler contains various measurements such as 1 to 1 layouts for surface mount components, wire size guage, board trace width, transistor and diode diagrams and pinouts to simplify your job.

11 in 1 Universal Steel Ruler ($2.50)

• The ruler can be a: Small Knife,Can Opener,Screwdriver7cm Ruler, Bottle Opener, Hexagon Wrench, Butterfly Wrench, Map indicator, Saw and Hang Hole.

What can an oscilloscope measure?
An oscilloscope is mainly used to measure volts, the Oscilloscope can measure a variety of other signals from:

• Current: to measure current, you can either measure the voltage drop across a shunt resistor or use a current probe.
• Sound: to measure sound, use a transducer that converts the audio signal to a voltage.
• Frequency and Period
• Frequency = Number of times per second a waveform repeats
• Period = Number of seconds each repeating waveform takes.
• Duty Cycle
• The ratio of how long a signal is positive VS negative each period.
• Rise and fall timing
• Measure the duration where signals rise to a high point and the duration where signals fall to a low point.
• How fast a circuit can respond to signals
• Voltages characteristics
• Magnitude (amplitude) of a signal (Peak-to-peak amplitude)
• Maximum and Minimum Voltages (Calculate the highest and lowest voltage of your signal)
• Mean and Average Voltages
• Resistance
• DC Voltage / AC Voltage

Here at Seeed, we offer various Oscilloscopes like:

MiniDSO DS213 Nano 4 Channel 100MSa/s ($225.00)

• This is a 5-track 4-wire universal electronic engineering task digital storage oscilloscope based on the ARM Cortex M3 core.
• With FPGA’s external ADC’s management control and data cache mode of operation, it features 4 different application partitions for loading and upgradin to 4 different application firmware.
• With a built-in 8MB USB stick, users can store wave forms and upgrade system firmware. 
• It also features a high sampling rate and also a colour display.

DSO Nano v3 ($89.00)

• This is a pocket-size compatible 32bit digital storage oscilloscope.
• Based on ARM -M3, it is also equipped with a 320×240 color display, SD card, USB port and recharging function.
• It’s compact and also simple to operate which is suitable for electric engineering.
• Some features includes an embedded 2 Mbyte storage chip, 6 triggering modes, built-in signal generator, open source, wave form storage and also lightweight and portable!

Solders are widely used in the electronics world and an engineer just cannot live without them as it helps to connect components and secure them in place. Here at Seeed, we offer individual components and also starter packs and kits with everything you need to build your own Soldering Station!

Soldering Individual Components

Mini Hot Plate Preheater – MHP30 – for preheating, desoldering PCB and components ($69.90)

MHP30 Mini Hot Plate Preheater is a compact-sized smart constant temperature hot plate (heating station). It eliminates redundancy, retains sufficient effective heating area, greatly saves energy and heating time.

• Portable and compact-sized: condenses the large desktop heating station into pocket-size (a heating area of 30mm*30mm), makes it possible for the heating station to become a portable tool

• Type-C port with PD power supply input (up to 60W)  
• Durable construction: with high-quality aluminum alloy shell and Nano-ceramic coating on brass hot plate, which is smooth, durable, and evenly heated

• Rapid heating: Takes only 150 seconds to heat from room temperature to 300°C (65W PD power supply) 
• Multiple smart modes: preset temperature, tilt heating, power wake-up, automatic sleep, firmware upgrade
• Energy-saving and environmentally friendly: eliminates redundancy, retains sufficient effective heating area, greatly saves energy and heating time

Mini Soldering Iron – US Standard (Shape-BC2) ($74.90)

• This Mini Soldering Iron, is a small, lightweight, quick heating up soldering pencil which temperature can be accurately controlled from 100 °C to 400 °C with STM32
• It features dual temperature and accelerated sensors, sleep mode and an automatic over-heating warning.
• Soldering iron tips are also replaceable with 4 different types and software can also be programmed.
• We also offer a Mini Soldering Iron – Europe Standard (Shape-BC2) here!
• Not what you are looking for? We also offer a 60W Soldering Iron -110V here.

Mini Soldering Iron Stand ($0.90)

• If you have a solder, you would also need a soldering stand!
• This stand is small and portable with a foam to help clean your soldering iron.
• This stand will be just for you if you occasionally solder and do not want to get a heavy and bulky soldering iron stand,
• We also offer an Iron stand here!

Iron Cleaner ($4.90)

• Tired of watering your solder and losing temperature when cleaning it? Well, we got the solution.
• When you are using this iron cleaner, it produces neither smokes nor toxicants. The special cleaning sponge will clean the solder effectively while maintaining its temperature. Moreover, there is soldering flux in the tinsel that helps you to clean the oxide on the solder’s surface!

Open Soldering Station PCB ($7.00)

• Hardware hacking is more fun with open source, DIY tools. That’s why we have a completely open soldering station controller motherboard!
• This soldering station is able to control several types of name-brand (and clone) soldering iron pencils due to its universal design with an analog front-end capable of reading both thermocouple and PTC temperature sensors, which are commonly used in most soldering irons.
• Tip status is monitored by a microcontroller, and accurately adjusted via PID temperature control. Temperature, configuration, and calibration settings are shown on a 2×16 character LCD, and controlled with rotary encoder knobs.
• Interested? You can read more about this hardware here!

Desoldering Wick($2.50)

• Oh no! Made a mistake while soldering? No worries, we got you covered with this Desoldering Wick for removing solder from circuit boards through the wick ability to absorb the solder.
• We also offer a Desoldering Pump ($2.90) here!

• This desoldering pump is high quality, durable and easy for you to rapidly remove solder during soldering.

Third-hand Tool With Magnifying Glass ($5.90)

• The best helper while you are soldering, the third-hand is a very useful tool when it comes to holding, soldering and magnifying.
• It comes with a sturdy stand, two clamps and a 2x optical magnifying glass. With the third-hand, you can get rid of the confusions while soldering tiny printed circuits.

Iron Heads ($3.50 to $9.59)

• We offer 7 different types of soldering heads to meet your needs like TS-D24 tip, TS-C4 tips and many more.
• Interested? Click here to see the different types of Soldering heads we offer!

Soldering Kits and Starter Packs

Soldering Starter Pack(American Standard) ($10.00)

• New to soldering? Then this kit is just for you!
• It includes a Soldering iron (American Standard plug 25W 110V), Soldering iron Stand, Straight Tweezers, Diagonal Pliers and Lead Free Solder wire.
• With this kit, you can carry out basic soldering while being convenient to store and carry around!
• We also offer a European standard kit here!

Mini Soldering Iron Deluxe Kit (Europe Standard) ($99.00)

• Not a beginner? This kit will then be a perfect fit for you. Our deluxe soldering kit is not only programmable and portable, it is also tip replaceable!
• This are some of its features!

• We also offer a Mini Soldering Iron Deluxe Kit (US Standard) ($99.00) here!

Cables and board are a must-have for an engineer’s desk! One example of their uses together is for debugging. Cables are also used to allow you to communicate to the devices. Here are some must have Cables and boards!

Cables

Jumper Cables

• Jumper cables have always been an electrician favourite due to their convenience.
• They are wires that have connector pins at both ends that allow you to connect 2 different points to each other without the use of soldering.
• They are normally used together with breadboards or prototyping tools as it is easy to change a circuit if needed, just plug it out and plug it in to another circuit!
• Here at Seeed, we offer various types of Jumper cables to suit your project needs. You can view the entire collection here!

USB Cables

• A USB port is a standard cable connection interface for personal computers and consumer electronics devices.  
• USB ports allow USB devices to be connected to each other with and transfer digital data over USB cables. They can also supply electric power across the cable to devices that need it.
• There are various USB cables (USB type A,B,C, etc) so do remember to choose one that suits your project needs!
• You can view all our USB related products here to see what you need!

Boards

Breadboard Clear – 8.2 x 5.3 cm ($5.50)

• A breadboard provides you with a platform for you to build and test electronic circuits without soldering as parts of the breadboard are wired together where electricity can flow from component to component.
• This breadboard is a half size breadboard which is good for small projects. It is also transparent so you can see what is going on!
• With a standard double-strip in the middle and two power rails on both sides, you can pull the power rails off to make the breadboard as thin as 3.5cm and stick it onto an Arduino protoshield.
• You can also cut these in half with a saw to create 2 tiny breadboards or “snap” these breadboards together either way to make longer and/or wider breadboards.
• Not what you are looking for? We have more breadboards and other related products here!

Seeeduino V4.2(ATMega328P) ($7.60)

• An Arduino is essential if you want to test or debug modules, with our Seeeduino V4.2, it can do just that.
• It is an Arduino-compatible board, which is based on ATmga328P MCU and the Arduino UNO bootloader with an ATMEGA16U2 as a UART-to-USB converter.
• You can program the board via a micro-USB cable and power the board via a DC Jack input, 7 to 15V is acceptable.
• There’s a switch to choose the system supply voltage, 3.3V or 5V, which is very useful if you want to set the system to 3.3V to save power or to prevent any damage to your circuit with a 5V signal.
• We also have many accessories to go along with the Seeeduino like the Screw Shield ($8.25) which extends it into sturdy and reliable screw terminal blocks.

Bus Pirate v3.6 Universal Serial Interface ($27.15)

• This product helps with debugging as it is a universal bus interface that communicates with embedded devices. It helps to eliminate a ton of early prototyping effort with new or unknown chips.
• Interested? You can obtain more information about the Bus Pirate here.

Now you got everything for your engineering desk but have nothing to test your experiments? Well, Seeed got the solution just for you with our:

MDP-XP Smart Digital Power Supply Kit ($199.00)

• MDP (Mini Digital Power System) is a system of programmable linear DC power supply based on a modular design, capable of connecting different modules for use as needed.
• Through 2.4G wireless connection, it achieves multichannel free combination at the power of 90W per channel.
• It is cost effective and features indicators, stability, reliability and distinct user interface comparable with professional power supplies.
• It also provides programmable output, timing output, sequential control, automatic compensation and other powerful functions to meet diversified testing needs.
• Some uses of this power supply kit are to supply purified power for high-accuracy digital-analog hybrid circuits and Hi-Fi audio devices and for property verification and fault diagnosis of devices and circuits.

Summary

That’s all folks! Those are the basic tools that will help you build your very own DIY workbench! Should you require any more tools or electronic modules for your project needs, you can check out our Bazaar page here!

We look forward and would love to see your completed workbenches so do leave comments with pictures of your workbenches down below after you’re done!

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