That hit home for me too. My DIY cupboard is full of quality buy-it-for-life tools and accessories that I've used only a handful of times (or sometimes not at all).

you might consider contributing to your local tool library or hackerspace

Great suggestion.

We both know that approximately 24 hours after donating something he will BADLY need it for an unexpected repair.

Then he can borrow it from the library he donated it to :)

I'm always worried that some less skilled user will have broken or not maintained it. I don't know how maker spaces get around this

Usually they have volunteers who do maintenance. At my local tool library the tools are well-used, but there's also like 10 of everything so you have lots of backup options.

most places i’ve borrowed things will seek some basic assurances that i know what i’m doing, first.

for example, when i borrowed a MIG welder, the person at the space asked me to weld some scrap metal in front of them before they let me loose with it.

This is easier than many assume: If you can find the Discord or even an e-mail for your local makerspace and send them a photo, they might urgently send someone to pick it up from you if it's useful to them.

Is a local tool library or hackerspace something common? I’ve never heard of that but that sounds cool

tool libraries exist in most cities and a lot of rural areas. many hackerspaces also function as a tool library even if they don’t use the term.

You know, for years I have been collecting power tools without having an immediate use for them - because they were for sale, or just because, you know, they're power tools. And a lot of them ended up just sitting on my workshop shelf, some of them never made it out of the box they came in.

But then we bought a new house and I started renovating it. I think I have probably used every single tool I ever bought by now, and every time I used one for the first time, I was so happy that I didn't have to go and scout for a good deal first or drive to Home Depot to buy one right now or anything like that.

So in my case, it actually paid off in the end to have PTPA (premature tool purchase addiction).

I've had this happen a couple of times now. There's definitely some jobs where I looked around and realized I'd used just about every tool I have.

I think the only disappointment at the moment is my Makita rotary drywall cutter - a reciprocating multi tool is just so much easier to control and makes nice straight cuts easily.

Still waiting for the welder to have its moment though.

A welder, huh? Hm... don't have one yet... hm...

Those rotary drywall cutters are the ticket for cutting plastic. I first used one when I was a mechanic before changing careers, and we used one for trimming tough plastics like bumper covers. Takes a bit of practice to get a nice cut, since they are super aggressive, but they make a very nice, clean cut that's far better than any other tool I've tried. I've actually never used mine on drywall, I prefer one of the oscillating tools or a jab saw, but I've used it quite a bit for automotive and electronics work. You can make a front panel for a project stupidly quick with one of those, and it turns out nicer than cutting with a dremel cutoff blade.

I counter by asking if renting them would have saved you money. It's what I do when I need tools I don't usually use

It depends on the tool. Generally, lending tools is not cheap where I live, but I once did lend a concrete sander because it was still cheaper than buying it (four digits, and likely won't ever need it again).

But what if you bought S&P instead and only liquidated when you needed power tools? Opportunity cost is real!

Disclaimer: had to expand the shed to fit all tools

For just straight up assembly of one-sided SMT boards (i.e. not reclaiming components from a donor board), a $30 plug-in electric skillet and a solder paste stencil from the PCB manufacturer (or patience and a solder paste syringe) works far better than it has any right to. https://www.instructables.com/Simple-Skillet-Surface-mount-S...

The hot air station is called a "rework station" because it's very helpful for rework, too.

Using a hot plate to reflow boards is fine if you already know everything is correct. Having a real hot air station is very important if you need to change any parts or even fix reflow problems.

I prefer a regular soldering iron for SMD. Below 0603 I tend to blow off unrelated components if I’m not very very careful!

So for me, a loupe/microscope and a fine SMD iron is the best option. I have some China-model that uses Hakko tips.

Kapton tape is your friend for hot air. It's cheap and you can get by with scissors.

Tape out anything that you're not reworking, use tweezers and push down the edges against the board to seal as best you can, and then flux it and blow.

It'll hold things in place and wick away the heat from anything you're not trying to rework. I went from a near 0% success rate to near 100% with it.

Wow, thanks for the tip! I never heard that one before.

I have a hot air station that I haven’t used much because I found it difficult to control. I will give it another try but with the Kapton!

To protect larger areas, you can use aluminium foil. It's usually best to hold the hot air pencil at a right-angle to the board; if you angle it like a soldering iron, the excess heat all goes in one direction and you're much more likely to blow off small adjacent components.

If you're blowing off stuff, your pressure setting is too high. I usually start at the lowest setting, and only go up if I need to deliver a lot of heat to an area.

Nobody believes me when I say that soldering SMD with an iron is easier than through hole. You don't have to keep flipping the board over!

To be fair, it takes a little practice IMO and until you learn how to use flux correctly etc., it can seem very unattainable to ever learn well.

I got a huge confidence boost from one of the old engineers with rubbish eyesight. Thinking “If HE can see well enough to do 0603 and smaller, then so can I!” :D

A few hours practice on scrapped electronics made a big difference for me.

You don't have to 'keep flipping the board over' when doing through hole either. Just stick all of the components in, fold over two legs on chips and passives, then solder all of them in one go.

I been using these mini pan frying skillets for years for prototype boards. <$2. An IR thermometer with a laser is handy during the process.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008863940082.html

And here is the cheap hot air rework station I use. <$15

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005989227215.html

You can even opt out of the stencil but I never do cuz it's much easier than not having it.

Haha I've got an old toaster oven, it works wonders for basic prototype assembly!

On aliexpress, search for "demolition heating" and there are really cheap ($5 or so?) heating plates that I believe are used for removing SMD LEDs.

Not sure why they'd need to remove SMD LEDs, but whatever.

They are "PTC" which means they top out at a certain temperature, usually 260 degrees.

I would recommend using an inline fuse holder for some semblance of safety though.

One of these, a lamp cord, some solder paste and a toothpick, and you can easily assemble SMD boards.

But now you have it for "next" time....

Alternative way to see it: The author had either a $50 solution, or a $50 solution that comes with a discounted hotair rework station for $150…

I learned it from Superfastmatt. He needed a piece of plastic that retails for $1500 for his van, so he said: “either I have a $1500 solution or I have a $1500 solution but I get a free fancy 3D printer in the end…” that stuck with me.

I've come full circle several times.

I have a brake bleeder, an oil change jugs with a cap on top and the side, cellphone tool kits, and more...

Sometimes it takes a while to derive the tenets of labor specialization from first principles.

How many of us can make more making nets for fishermen than making nets AND fishing yourself?

Sometimes I wonder this and then look up how much it costs to get some job done and realize I'm probably still coming out substantially ahead.

You still need to account for a fun factor. I've got a nas which cost me probably $400 in parts to save on buying a $300 solution. But it's mine, janky, fun and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I know my local library loans out tools, I wonder if I can gift my use once tools to them so someone else could borrow them instead of buying?

When doing any diy I assume I will spend more on tools the first time than I save, but the next time I have the tools and so costs are much less.

There's never a next time though because you just want to do new stuff

That happens though oftenithe tools work for the project 6 from now.

More often you use some of the tools you already have, but have to buy additional ones.

Lol, was that the thing that jutted out the drive's side and let him put the bed sideways? If so, I missed that quip, but it's great regardless!

Haha yeah, last year I replaced my wheel bearings in my van. I ended up with a frustrating ABS code (long story short: faulty magnetic encoders on both of the new bearings). I ended up spending about the same as the job would have cost at a shop, but with a slew of new tools.

I also did a USB switch project for fun, and ended up spending probably $250 for something I could have just bought for $15, but it was a great experience. (Here if anyone is interested: https://shielddigitaldesign.com/posts/2021/susb/ )

$200 is around 3-4x more than necessary for a decent hot air station these days; I had to check the date on the article as that would've been a more reasonable price 10-15 years ago.

Can you recommend a good $50 option for someone getting into the field?

You can get a $15 hot air station and it's fine for getting quite a lot done! Look for clones of the Atten 858D. And come say hi in #electronics on Libera :)

I'll look into that, thank you!

working class kid here.

I feel this too.

Card board. Recovered cables. Recovered entire circuits of formerly used boards that fit inside my palm (#jewishConstraints) #Undisclosed parts of my how~yo (how drunk are you willing to get (to train yourself) (while raising a now 23 years old .... "kid" #PGurNOTeventrying #sry4urKId that is already "there"

Chuckled at 40-something kid now, kid! Classic

I've acquired so many tools like this, and I don't think I've ever looked at them at though I regretted the purchase. Many have enabled me to fix and make stuff down the line.

This statement also hit home for me when I thought over my woodworking tools. I could buy finished timber for $300, or I could spend $500 on tools and several hours to finish $75 of rough-sawn timber myself.

We aren't doing these things to save money.

Almost never, in some cases you can but you need to be really in a nice and usually have access to the tooling for XYZ reasons. Then you would need to factor your labor cost, which is usually more than what would be billed normally in some cases...