What is the most useful tool you ever made?

Hi dougw, that's several good questions! You'd think the manufacturers would put some sort of transparent tape or coating over the grid to protect it from small impacts, but now you mention it I remember having had 3 or 4 element failures on different cars that could have been caused by objects on the back parcel shelf making physical contact due to potholes and level crossings. Sometimes they could be repaired using silver-bearing varnish but my experience was that such repairs didn't last long.

My next train of thought was to wonder what the resistivity of a layer of condensation is? And would it matter if a current flowed somewhere as a result? Surely it would be tiny, insignificant even. So my view is that the thickness of the condensation would be very thin, and that it would get even thinner very quickly when the demister was switched on. It also 'shrinks away' from the elements as they heat up so once everything has settled down there will be no current from element to condensation, which will disappear within a few minutes at most. So I'm a bit baffled by that one - too many unknowns, no 'standard' set-up or way of getting results that I know of, etc.

(This paragraph contains inuendo, poor attempts at humour, unlikely scenarios, and exaggeration. You have been warned!)    One thing is sure though - I won't be standing behind my car in the pouring rain with the tailgate up manipulating my probe and squeezing the water out of it while my multimeter floats off the back parcel shelf down into the rear passenger foot-well ending up in a shower of transparent plastic shards and a bent pointer while I try to scribble things down with a fountain pen on a sodden piece of paper...

I'm not saying this is the most useful - but it is handy.

I use the Keil MDK toolset for developing with ARM Cortex processors.

It uses its own format to describe the project and its different build options etc etc.

I've asked them several times to make a project cloning tool but they never did, so several years ago I wrote my own (in VB6)

You have to stick to some rules in creating the project from which you clone but it does quite well at changing all the file names, the IDE files and all the references to the file names in source files (header and code).

It saves about a day of tedious work when you clone a reasonable sized project (20 source files approx).

It's not that polished - I usually run it from the VB IDE interpreter so I can fix errors as they happen.

MK

VB6 is great for whipping together quick tools. I just made one for programming Bluetooth IDs.

Not quite the type of tool you probably thought of, but I made a PCB mill toolhead for my 3D printer, so I can quickly make adapters and other small boards, without having to wait a week for a proper PCB fab to do it.

What's the white stuff protruding near the fan?

Referring to the picture on the left, it looks to me like a slightly oversized circular filter or gasket between the miller motor and the fan above it. And now, I'm REALLY guessing - The fan forces air down through the filter and motor, and then blows it down onto the workpiece to keep the milling tool cool. The two angled tubes, obviously from a Cyberman's helmet, suck the debris-filled air upwards to prevent lung cancer caused by breathing fibre-glass and copper nano-particles. The partially-hidden device at the back that looks as if it is bolted to the wall could be a combined suction device and a fibre-glass dust collecting unit such as a polythene or nylon bag with a very fine mesh - the centre picture shows it better. The picture on the right shows a perfect result, so well done anniel747! I'd be interested to read what you tell us!

In the days when I was building equipment with myriads of BNC connectors it was a 'pain' to get all the 'pins' perfectly lined up and looking professional.
So I whipped up this tool from some scrap brass rod that secured the BNC from rotating whilst tightening the nut using a terminal screwdriver as a 'tommy bar'.
Simple but very effective.
Dave

Impressive..

davebullockmbe   I have something like that for turning the valves on my sump pump plumbing.  I will have to copy your tool. 

I also like your mouse jiggler that you made, Doug.

I’ve probably made some hacky little tools over the years but can’t remember most of them.

Recently I made a tester for boat trailer wiring, that blinks the lights, and has a few switches to control which ones to blink, because the salt water keeps corroding various parts of it (the trailer wires, plugs, and lights) over time. It plugs into either a powerbox or lithium type jumpstarter pack.

say hello to Mr. Blinky!