Electronics Team requires a leader with passion and availability of which I do not have the latter. The base requirements for a functional work area that allows me and other members to complete their project development, fault finding, assembly, inspection or debugging.
The space is missing some basic equipment, accessories and cabling needed to SAFELY connect sensitive equipment for development and testing purposes. electronics and delicate one-of-a-kind circits boards require digitially controlable power supplies that have per channel voltage and current limits that also includes configurable over current/voltage channel trip points.
The space is missing a comprehensive array of hand crimping tools that covers connectors and plugs most commonly found in electronics, computers, stuff from aliexpress and prototype boards. This should include Molex, AMP, Deautch, JST, Solar, Ampllimite manufactures and their common gauges including big and small.
See for common crimpers Common wire-to-board, wire-to-wire connectors, and crimp tools – Matt's Tech Pages we should have all these including an array of crimps with re-ordering points.
Having the correct crimper is absolutely required to maintain any resembalance of end-product quality. I have no time for wrong crimps, connectors or soldered connections. Solder has no place in cable harness.
To elevate the utility of the test and debug ares some additional higher quality items need purchasing. These tools should be at the very least RIGOL, Agilent or Keysight to ensure known user functions and reliable programming interfaces. We should have the same set of tools you would expect to see in a Universities Electronics Lab.
Every eletronics project has atleast one power supply, and sometimes multiple supplies with complex and intricate topologies. These may need injecting or load testing individually during product development or while debugging circuits to find the root cause.
This will require at least a DC Power Analyser with multiple channels in the extra low voltage range and hundreds of watts capabilit. AC Power sources go beyond the remit of the space and nessesity of hobbyist engineers…
Testing power supplies/rails requires complex load stimulation capability and output voltage sampling, not just a passive load even if variable. Loads must be dynamic and with sufficient bandwidth to find edge-cases to ensure safe and stable output voltages. This will require both a DC load tester and a calibrated 6 1/2 digital 50khz sampling DMM.
This base equipment combined with the existing scope is sufficient for me to find this space useful for most electronics projects.
More advanced instrumentation such as GHz probes, signal analysers and network analysers are likely beyond the needs of hobby electronics projects. If you need those you likely have your own lab or commercial business.
e.g. A Keysight 4ch MSOX 1GHz scope plus differential voltage and current probes are worth $25k on the second hand market alone. These Attachments are far too senstive for novice or hobbiest electronics projects.
Assembly and Inspection work areas need attention to install existing scopes, displays and the multi channel DMMs for the more eager members and complete the PCB oven for reflow and low volume PCB assembly. A SMD/BGA rework station would be useful fixing more dense assemblies.
A manual pick and place machine with paste stencil holder would also have a place for early prototyps for the most eager and enthusiastic sparks.
The space is missing a complete and accessibly tip selection including tweezer attachments for replacing SMD capactiors and resistor packages. Tweezers are very useful when debugging circuits or hacking products allowing quick removal and clean application of new parts.
The new equipment then needs fixed location and cabling to DC busses that can be plugged multiple places along the bench or chained through different test equipment and breakout the USB and serial interfaces along with connection via ethernet for remote control/sampling.
If mobile tools are required, use a multimeter from the toolchest.
All analog controlled power supplies and outdated benchtop tools must be removed and replaced with suggestions above. This is not a meusem.
Who has the passion?
Altium resource blog says pretty much the same stuff
More topics and requirements to come… There are many sub-projects in here… Get involved…