element14 Community
element14 Community
    Register Log In
  • Site
  • Search
  • Log In Register
  • Community Hub
    Community Hub
    • What's New on element14
    • Feedback and Support
    • Benefits of Membership
    • Personal Blogs
    • Members Area
    • Achievement Levels
  • Learn
    Learn
    • Ask an Expert
    • eBooks
    • element14 presents
    • Learning Center
    • Tech Spotlight
    • STEM Academy
    • Webinars, Training and Events
    • Learning Groups
  • Technologies
    Technologies
    • 3D Printing
    • FPGA
    • Industrial Automation
    • Internet of Things
    • Power & Energy
    • Sensors
    • Technology Groups
  • Challenges & Projects
    Challenges & Projects
    • Design Challenges
    • element14 presents Projects
    • Project14
    • Arduino Projects
    • Raspberry Pi Projects
    • Project Groups
  • Products
    Products
    • Arduino
    • Avnet & Tria Boards Community
    • Dev Tools
    • Manufacturers
    • Multicomp Pro
    • Product Groups
    • Raspberry Pi
    • RoadTests & Reviews
  • About Us
    About the element14 Community
  • Store
    Store
    • Visit Your Store
    • Choose another store...
      • Europe
      •  Austria (German)
      •  Belgium (Dutch, French)
      •  Bulgaria (Bulgarian)
      •  Czech Republic (Czech)
      •  Denmark (Danish)
      •  Estonia (Estonian)
      •  Finland (Finnish)
      •  France (French)
      •  Germany (German)
      •  Hungary (Hungarian)
      •  Ireland
      •  Israel
      •  Italy (Italian)
      •  Latvia (Latvian)
      •  
      •  Lithuania (Lithuanian)
      •  Netherlands (Dutch)
      •  Norway (Norwegian)
      •  Poland (Polish)
      •  Portugal (Portuguese)
      •  Romania (Romanian)
      •  Russia (Russian)
      •  Slovakia (Slovak)
      •  Slovenia (Slovenian)
      •  Spain (Spanish)
      •  Sweden (Swedish)
      •  Switzerland(German, French)
      •  Turkey (Turkish)
      •  United Kingdom
      • Asia Pacific
      •  Australia
      •  China
      •  Hong Kong
      •  India
      •  Japan
      •  Korea (Korean)
      •  Malaysia
      •  New Zealand
      •  Philippines
      •  Singapore
      •  Taiwan
      •  Thailand (Thai)
      •  Vietnam
      • Americas
      •  Brazil (Portuguese)
      •  Canada
      •  Mexico (Spanish)
      •  United States
      Can't find the country/region you're looking for? Visit our export site or find a local distributor.
  • Translate
  • Profile
  • Settings
Community Hub
Community Hub
Member's Forum What’s one tool you own but never use? We are asking e14 in our Join, Share & Win Competition
  • Blog
  • Forum
  • Documents
  • Quiz
  • Events
  • Leaderboard
  • Polls
  • Files
  • Members
  • Mentions
  • Sub-Groups
  • Tags
  • More
  • Cancel
  • New
Join Community Hub to participate - click to join for free!
Actions
  • Share
  • More
  • Cancel
Forum Thread Details
  • Locked Locked
  • Replies 105 replies
  • Subscribers 593 subscribers
  • Views 17958 views
  • Users 0 members are here
  • element14members
  • funny
  • community
  • element14
  • uno r4
  • prize
  • element14 community
  • win
  • arduino uno R4
  • community_member
  • tools
  • electronics
  • arduino
  • element14 members
  • aske14
Related
This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

What’s one tool you own but never use? We are asking e14 in our Join, Share & Win Competition

E14Alice
E14Alice 2 months ago

Hello Everyone! 

Firstly, I would love to wish you all a Happy New Year! 

We’re back with another AskE14 question, and this one’s all about your tool stash! We all have that one tool tucked away in a drawer, gathering dust because we never seem to use it, or maybe you bought it for a project that never happened, or it just wasn’t as useful as you thought.

Here's the question: 

What’s one tool you own but never use, and why?

Is it something you regret buying? Something that looked cooler than it turned out to be? Or maybe something you think you should use more often, but never do?

imageimage

Competition Details

You'll have to be a member of the element14 Community to join in and take part in this “Join, Share & Win” challenge. It's simple, all you have to do is:


1. You need to make sure you are  Register  or Login
2. Then answer the following question by adding a reply or commenting!

    What’s one tool you own but never use, and why?

The Community team will then select the best 4 answers to win the UNO R4 Arduino! 

Entries close 1st February, so don't wait! 

This month, we are giving away:

image

UNO R4 Minima

Terms and conditions 

imagePDF

The Winners

 beacon_dave 

 Fred27 

 gordonmx 

 JWx 

 E14Alice will be reaching out to you soon to confirm contact details

  • Cancel

Top Replies

  • JWx
    JWx 2 months ago +8
    fire extinguisher?
  • gordonmx
    gordonmx 2 months ago +5
    I don't know if this counts, but I purchased a small ultrasonic cleaner thinking I would use it to clean up some really ugly parts. I kept putting off using it for a couple of years. When I finally found…
  • genebren
    genebren 2 months ago +5
    I am a compulsive tool buyer. It must run in the family, as my grandfather had more than a hundred screwdrivers in his toolbox when he passed away (I have several of those in my collection now). For me…
  • dang74
    dang74 2 months ago in reply to dougw

    I think the one on the right is for pulling PLCC devices out of sockets.

    • Cancel
    • Vote Up 0 Vote Down
    • Cancel
  • balajivan1995
    balajivan1995 2 months ago in reply to dang74

    I obviously did not apply as I didn't want a third kit that I won't be able to use.

    • Cancel
    • Vote Up +2 Vote Down
    • Cancel
  • dougw
    dougw 2 months ago in reply to dang74

    I assume it is indeed a chip-puller for extracting ICs with pins from sockets. Fancy chip-pullers were a big thing back before SMT and when it seemed  most chips were installed in sockets. I think you are right this one is primarily for square chips - grabbing them across diagonal corners.

    • Cancel
    • Vote Up +1 Vote Down
    • Cancel
  • balajivan1995
    balajivan1995 2 months ago in reply to dougw

    First one is LAN crimping tool and I'm not familiar with the second one. It looks like a fancy divider.

    • Cancel
    • Vote Up 0 Vote Down
    • Cancel
  • dang74
    dang74 2 months ago in reply to dougw

    In the mid 90s we were using ALTERA CPLDs in 44 pin PLCC packages.  We were constantly removing them from sockets on our bread boards so that they could  be used in the programmer at the front of the class.  The extractors looked a lot like the one in your picture.  I seem to remember our devices and sockets getting damaged in the corners over time.

    • Cancel
    • Vote Up 0 Vote Down
    • Cancel
  • embeddedguy
    embeddedguy 2 months ago in reply to dang74

    Where is the link?

    • Cancel
    • Vote Up 0 Vote Down
    • Cancel
  • Aniket_kumar_raj
    Aniket_kumar_raj 2 months ago

    I bought it for the day I’d become a ‘serious engineer.’
    That day never came.
    but the tool did.

    It exists to remind me that buying tools feels like progress.image

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         ~ANONYMOUS 

                                                                                                                                                                                                             - me 6 years after buying a multimeter

    being serious then multimeter lies at second place ,first place was taken when I recently upgraded my lab to start working with the new Arduino Uno Q. Since it's a high-performance hybrid board with a Qualcomm processor, I was genuinely paranoid about static electricity frying the chips. I went out and bought a professional-grade ESD (Anti-Static) Wrist Strap with the 10mm stud and a high-visibility coiled cord.

    On the day the board arrived, I was so excited to wire up my new touchscreen and dive into the Linux side of the Uno Q that I completely forgot the strap existed. I spent six hours debugging I2C signals while wearing a fleece jacket and sitting on a carpeted chair. It wasn't until I was cleaning up my workbench at 2 AM that I found the strap, still neatly coiled in its plastic bag, sitting right under my multimeter.

    Now, it has a permanent home hanging on the corner of my monitor—it serves more as a 'lucky charm' than a safety tool. I touch the metal casing of my oscilloscope to ground myself and look at the strap with a mix of guilt and irony every time I power up a new project!

    • Cancel
    • Vote Up +3 Vote Down
    • Cancel
  • dang74
    dang74 2 months ago in reply to embeddedguy

    Wow... I don't see it anymore.  I think when I first clicked the first link from balajivan1995 the option to apply for the freebie was there... and now it's not.

    • Cancel
    • Vote Up 0 Vote Down
    • Cancel
  • beacon_dave
    beacon_dave 2 months ago in reply to rsc

    A TIG welder is still on my wish list but it would need to be a small precision one to get used.

    • Cancel
    • Vote Up 0 Vote Down
    • Cancel
  • embeddedguy
    embeddedguy 2 months ago

    Nice Question at first. And happy new year from my side.

    Technically speaking as a maker, developer or engineer, we have many tools and some are never or rarely opened.

    There are many tools like that for me. But for me what is the most in this category are some of the SBC that I have. The reason they are not much used or opened is that it requires a lot of time to develop something that is of use and at the same time we learn from it.

    So for me there are some tools that I have used but not that much. There are mainly Single Board Computers.  The reason is sometimes it gets difficult to solve package dependency and configuration related issues on these development boards. It's kind of same like Python packages. We need specific version of specific package to build specific package and so on so forth. Hence, these dev boards are still not so much used in my lab. 

    1> Seeed studios ReComputer 1010

    2> Beaglebone Black

    3> Arty Z7 board from Digilent.

    Another question which tool that I wish I would have one? For me I wanted to get some VNAs for tuning my antennas. This is must for RF circuits and I am missing it.

    • Cancel
    • Vote Up +3 Vote Down
    • Cancel
<>
element14 Community

element14 is the first online community specifically for engineers. Connect with your peers and get expert answers to your questions.

  • Members
  • Learn
  • Technologies
  • Challenges & Projects
  • Products
  • Store
  • About Us
  • Feedback & Support
  • FAQs
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Legal and Copyright Notices
  • Sitemap
  • Cookies

An Avnet Company © 2026 Premier Farnell Limited. All Rights Reserved.

Premier Farnell Ltd, registered in England and Wales (no 00876412), registered office: Farnell House, Forge Lane, Leeds LS12 2NE.

ICP 备案号 10220084.

Follow element14

  • X
  • Facebook
  • linkedin
  • YouTube