Products > Test Equipment
Useful "non-standard" test equipment
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slugrustle:
I'm curious what test equipment people find the most handy or useful that isn't "standard" test equipment.

What I mean by standard: Something that, if you wanted to buy one, you'd go to a test equipment website.  For example, oscilloscope, DMM, lab supply, signal generator, E-Load, frequency counter, spectrum analyzer, source measure unit, electrometer, thermocouple reader, current clamp, logic analyzer, etc. 

What I mean by non-standard: Anything that's useful for electronics testing that doesn't fit in the list above.  For example, maybe you find it really handy to have a certain kind of diode around or a really big heatsink / cold plate.  Maybe you're fond of using incandescent light bulbs as a load.  Stuff like this.
JohnG:
Some odds and ends I have used over the years:

RF coil tuning trend tool: a piece of small plastic tubing about 10 cm long and 3 mm diameter, with a small ferrite cylinder in one end and a small aluminum cylinder in the other. You can use it to raise or lower the inductance of small aircore inductors temporarily to see which way they should go for some quick and dirty tuning. A few pF cap mounted to the end of a stick is also useful.

Light bulb bank (5x 40W bulbs): electrically robust load with inherent power limiting.

A collection of big MOSFETs (different voltages) mounted to heat sinks, with gate and source shorted: They are like giant Zener diodes, and I use them for overvoltage protection in case some goes wrong. Test them first, but many newer MOSFETs can take a continuous avalanche if you can keep the temp under control.

A box of toothpicks and outdated business cards: great for mixing glue and adhesives.

John

nctnico:
A small box with a switch that connects to 3 banana sockets (common, normally open, normally closed). Comes in handy every now and then.
TopQuark:
My new favourite new piece of non standard equipment: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/yg520c-desktop-shielded-chamber/
Gets rid of interferences like nothing else, making sure you are only measuring the DUT and not the environment. I've tried to make my own, but this is just so much better.

Below are not exactly test equipment, but tools that lives on my bench, tools that I can't live without.

"Precision" box cutter with blade lock. Blade holder is made out of two pieces of durable coated metal, with a small tab at the back that allows you to flip down and clamp the blade solidly in place between the two piece construction. There's no wobble to the blade when it is locked. I like this way more than a xacto knife because you can just snap off the end of the scored blade for a fresh sharp edge, much faster than changing blades on a xacto knife. I use this box cutter for everything, scraping away solder mask, cutting traces in two, cutting a trace out of a copper clad, slicing copper away from copper clad. It maybe just a box cutter, but it is precise enough I can easily scrap away solder mask covering tiny vias underneath BGAs without damaging the via itself.

Swiss made mod wire stripping tweezers. Wire stripper that cleanly and effortlessly strips 30 awg mod / wire wrap wire, nothing more, nothing less. It is a very specific tool that does a very specific job, but when you need to strip tens or hundreds of mod wires, nothing beats it.
free_electron:
 a ball of plasticine. useful for tacking boards or small parts down when soldering... especially difficult parts like tqfps . tack em on the corners.
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