What did you buy today? Post your latest purchase!

[bills]

I have a good soldering station just needed the hot air rework part.
Now I can solder two handed 

[canibalimao]

Edward Solderinghands 

[macboy]

It seems an excellent unit. It must be perfect for someone like me who doesn't use the soldering iron a lot, but likes to make good soldering jobs. However you should always have a spare crappy one just in case that one fails right when you need it (damn Murphy!!!)

Soldering irons are like oscilloscopes, most of us have a collection of them.

[Addicted2AnalogTek]

Tektronix 7854 service/instruction manual for 10 dollhairs.
453A service manual.
7A29 1Ghz amplifier plugin.
Buncha random hard to find components - mostly shockley and zener diodes.

[Skimask]

Asus RT-AC5300 - spider looking thing

https://www.asus.com/us/Networking/RT-AC5300/

Way too much for my network here at the house/shop/garage, except that the shop/garage are 200ft+ from the house.
Still running off a classic blue Linksys G router, using another Linksys G router (both DDWRT flashed) as an extender/repeater, and another blue Linksys B router (bone stock firmware) as a hub.
Only got 25Mx2M DSL here, but now I can put the backup server in one place rather than hauling the external drives around to all the PC's one a week.

[GreyWoolfe]

It seems an excellent unit. It must be perfect for someone like me who doesn't use the soldering iron a lot, but likes to make good soldering jobs. However you should always have a spare crappy one just in case that one fails right when you need it (damn Murphy!!!)

Soldering irons are like oscilloscopes, most of us have a collection of them.

Now that might almost be worth a thread in and of itself.

[bills]

When I get it I will start a thread, Maybe a couple of weeks I am going on a road trip next week.

[glicos]

My latest purchase:



I still owe eevblog members a "tear it apart!!"....when time permit i will soon post some reviews and teardowns about this scope...mainly used for troubleshooting work..and partially for design work..

[med6753]

Wanted a Frequency Counter but both budget and space was limited so I went with this. Had mostly positive reviews on Amazon. My initial checkout is also positive.



If anyone is interested in a teardown let me know.

[JoeN]

Wanted a Frequency Counter but both budget and space was limited so I went with this. Had mostly positive reviews on Amazon. My initial checkout is also positive.



If anyone is interested in a teardown let me know.

Supply your own external crystal?  They couldn't afford one? 

[Carl_Smith]

It's not really a purchase, since I got it for free, but today I got in the mail from Microchip the MPLAB Express Evaluation Board.   They had some deal when they launched the online MPLAB Express development system where the first X number of people would get a free board.  I hit the link and signed up and looked around a bit, but the response page I got led me to believe I was too late and wasn't getting one of the free boards.  But it showed up today.  Will have to try it out when I have time.

Last time I programmed a PIC it was, I think, a 16C54 in a ceramic package that had to be erased with a UV eeprom eraser.   

I think this one will be a bit more convenient.

[med6753]

Wanted a Frequency Counter but both budget and space was limited so I went with this. Had mostly positive reviews on Amazon. My initial checkout is also positive.


If anyone is interested in a teardown let me know.

Supply your own external crystal?  They couldn't afford one?

According to the manual that's for measuring the frequency of any crystals you have laying around.

[dexters_lab]

Rode VideoMic and a deadcat

i hope Dave and Doug approve 

[JoeN]

Supply your own external crystal?  They couldn't afford one?

According to the manual that's for measuring the frequency of any crystals you have laying around.

OK.  That makes sense!   Assuming their crystal is better than mine.  I wonder what they use for a reference in a fairly inexpensive frequency counter.

[med6753]

Supply your own external crystal?  They couldn't afford one?

According to the manual that's for measuring the frequency of any crystals you have laying around.

OK.  That makes sense!   Assuming their crystal is better than mine.  I wonder what they use for a reference in a fairly inexpensive frequency counter.

Should I tear it down and post pictures as well as the published specs? 

[julius oe.]

u know.. just stuff.
(i love having a cheap hobby)

[rrinker]

 Bunch of model train kits. Have to balance the electronic purchases.... Damn West Coast US people, set all the auctions to end past midnight Eastern time, I'm old and need to be in bed before then. So I just stuffed in my top price and hoped for the best. 3 out of 6 when I checked this morning. I guess I did OK. The ones I didn't win aren't particular rare items or anything I can't find any time. One of the winners I was very surprised at, since I checked (like always) if it's still in production and what I can get it for at my favorite shops - eBay is NOT always a bargain! Sure enough, it's available for purchase new, almost $64USD. There were no other bidders, so I got it for the opening $19.99 plus $8 shipping. A steal. And they say model railroading is an expensive hobby....

[AF6LJ]

Bunch of model train kits. Have to balance the electronic purchases.... Damn West Coast US people, set all the auctions to end past midnight Eastern time, I'm old and need to be in bed before then. So I just stuffed in my top price and hoped for the best. 3 out of 6 when I checked this morning. I guess I did OK. The ones I didn't win aren't particular rare items or anything I can't find any time. One of the winners I was very surprised at, since I checked (like always) if it's still in production and what I can get it for at my favorite shops - eBay is NOT always a bargain! Sure enough, it's available for purchase new, almost $64USD. There were no other bidders, so I got it for the opening $19.99 plus $8 shipping. A steal. And they say model railroading is an expensive hobby....

You would think that would be a bad move; setting the auction to end at say 6:00 PM PST would be wise.

[rrinker]

Bunch of model train kits. Have to balance the electronic purchases.... Damn West Coast US people, set all the auctions to end past midnight Eastern time, I'm old and need to be in bed before then. So I just stuffed in my top price and hoped for the best. 3 out of 6 when I checked this morning. I guess I did OK. The ones I didn't win aren't particular rare items or anything I can't find any time. One of the winners I was very surprised at, since I checked (like always) if it's still in production and what I can get it for at my favorite shops - eBay is NOT always a bargain! Sure enough, it's available for purchase new, almost $64USD. There were no other bidders, so I got it for the opening $19.99 plus $8 shipping. A steal. And they say model railroading is an expensive hobby....

You would think that would be a bad move; setting the auction to end at say 6:00 PM PST would be wise.

 You'd think, and that's the sort of thing I always do. And the seller is not a noob, he has over 1300 feedback.

[rdl]

Wanted a Frequency Counter but both budget and space was limited so I went with this. Had mostly positive reviews on Amazon. My initial checkout is also positive.

(image removed)

If anyone is interested in a teardown let me know.

I came close to buying one of those, several times, but the brand name put me off.  There are several other Chinese/Asian brand names nearly as bad, but that's just me I'm sure.

[alank2]

One recommendation I have to someone looking for a counter is that for a bit more you can get a SDG2042X which has a very decent counter built in.  They even added min/max/avg features to it per my request.

[alexanderbrevig]

Working as a consultant for two projects, got my first double paycheck.... INSTANT INVESTMENT TIME!

• METCAL HCT-900-21 Hot Air Station
• Long overdue fume extractor, el cheapo duratool (good vents here)
• Magnifier with LED ring light (dipoter x3)
• A few more tips for my soldering station

Lastly. I just realized with a huge  that I had bought a lot of stuff my last time around but I HAD FORGOT WIRE! So now I got myself a nice kit and a few flavors of tinned copper wire. No more raiding old stuff to get my hands on some wires :p Silly me.

[JuKu]

I'm converting an abandoned pnp machine prototype to a CNC machine. For this project, I received this week:
- A set of steel blocks, machined to 0.xx um accuracy (for calibration): http://www.aliexpress.com/item/1-100mm-Block-gauge-set-38pcs-set-1-Grade/521114897.html
- Cyclone dust collector http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Cyclone-Dust-Collector-Bagless-Never-Plug-Low-Energy-Consumption-High-Efficiency-Cyclone-Dust-Collector/32298080759.html and a barrel for it (from a local store).
- Laser RPM meter http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Freeshipping-Digital-Laser-Photo-Tachometer-Non-Contact-RPM-9852/640461991.html

Sometimes I'm amazed about the efficiency of the human race. The last item is a meter with a laser and an IC (or two, haven't looked inside): In other words, some parts are manufactured with nanometer tolerances; it is made of plastics (starting from black dirty stuff hundreds if not thousands feet below ground) and some metal (starting from the wall of a mountain). Still it got to me from China for less than 9€ and everyone involved in the process, mailman included, think the effort was worth the money!  for humans, also :-o.

[McBryce]

100 meters of coax for my satelite dish because the numb-nuts idiot that came to fix our drain pipe cut through both cables (2x 50m) while removing a section of pipe with an angle-grinder! 

McBryce.

[VK5RC]

Some Instrumentation amps INA121 and INA128