Dealextreme is home to a few good buys on electronics prototyping supplies.
Here are a few of my favorites.
Thrum scissors
These miniature thrum scissors are handy for opening ESD bags, trimming the ends off of SMD component reels, and cutting kapton tape, among other things. I keep several pairs at work and at home and use them all the time. They are much more precise than standard scissors and good for all sorts of light duty applications. (You can also buy these from amazon.com here: Blue Handle Stitching Yarn Thrum Scissor Tool 3 Pcs
ESD Tweezers
These Lodestar L601110 ESD tweezers are perfect for all sorts of electronics prototyping and repair work. I find them very useful for surface mount assembly and rework, but I also use them for precision gluing, discharging SMD caps, shorting traces on PCBs, and also sorts of other off-label uses. They are cheap enough that when I bend or otherwise damage one set, I’ll throw them away and buy another. If I only owned one pair of tweezers, it would be these.
Configurable Storage Boxes
These configurable storage boxes seem to be slightly lower quality than the ones offered by Adafruit but are a tad bit cheaper and a nice add-on item if you’re already placing an order at DX.
45-in-1 Multi-tip Screwdriver Set
This 45-in-1 multi bit screwdriver set is decent for the price and generally useful for disassembling a wide range of consumer electronics devices.
Update 1/2/2015:
Chris Jones (@chrisgj198) pointed out a few items I missed!
- Super cheap and surprisingly decent Kapton tape!
- Digital Precision Scale
- Mini Container Bottle
, I have set out to document tools that I find particularly interesting or useful, primarily in my work as an electronics hobbyist and professional electrical engineer. This is the first post in that series.
