In Honor of element14's 10th Birthday: What is Your Favorite RoadTest Bundle?

Since I've been retired for a while and lost access to the lab equipment where I used to work, I'd really like to roadtest and thereby acquire some high performance test and measurement equipment.  The Catch-22, of course, is that to test high performance equipment against their specs usually requires using other high performance equipment.  Since this is a "dream" bundle it would be nice to test a high performance oscilloscope, spectrum analyzer, and arbitrary waveform generator.  Maybe limit the frequency to 2GHz to keep the costs reasonable.  The other bundle that I'd like to see would be a fabrication bundle - a laser cutter, NC mill, and large format 3D printer.

Development boards and software are great, but it's nice to roadtest stuff that will get a lot of reuse to justify the time and effort invested.  The downside of doing high cost roadtests, of course, is that it would limit the number of units available so there is less opportunity to participate.

Just some thoughts....

Ralph

I would happily review a Maker's bundle including any of the following in any pair, trio, etc. combination:

• Laser engraver (laser cutter)
• 3D printer
• CNC ready Mill
• CNC ready Lathe
• Stepper kit with Trinamic stepper drivers
• Servo kit (motor + drivers)

Projects that can come out of such list are infinite and are not limited to enhancing the devices or the list, some of them have not been Road Tested yet and I'm pretty sure -as I have seen in some projects- many members are adopting such technologies to enrich their creations.

Luis

Dream roadtest....hmmm

I would have to say a maker bundle would be awesome.

mini cnc mill  (can use it to make custom boards and still be able to add a laser on it)

raspberry pi  with touch screen (could run software with touch screen to control the cnc and act as a file sever)

pitop to be able to design and code

3d printer to be able to print parts

soldering iron kit to be able to solder custom boards.

multimeter and or scope

arduino for fun

small screwdriver multi bit kit

I think this would be the ultimate bundle and have seen those in roadtests in the past if I recall correctly would be maker madness everything anyone would need to get started

because really all that you could make a bigger cnc or laser engraver or whatever

Stepper motors are always good fun tho too.

It's more or less a repeat of past projects but I'd be interested in a kit of the newer I2C or Modbus sensors, along with a Raspberry Pi.  It's always interesting to interface them (thru the RPi) to MQTT or similar protocols.  Of course, most of my "stuff" at the house is managed/reports via MQTT.

For a change, I would love to test a SMD soldering bundle including:

• iron/hot-air rework station
• microscope (mid-specs)
• reflow oven (mid specs)
• SMD tools and soldering practice kits
• fume extractor

Fabio

Test equipment is very nice to have to track down issues or measure performance, but I am far more interested in inventing, designing, creating and building than test and measurement.

My goal is to design things that work just as planned as soon as they are assembled, so that testing is not as important as designing.

It is not a good day when I have to fire up all the test gear to sort out a problem with a new design.

My dream road test would be a Voltera V-One PCB printer. This is the missing link in being able to build a complete project in-house with rapid turn time.

The world has switched to mostly SMT electronics, but these really require a PCB.

Custom PCB fab houses can be used, but if you want to be able to build a complete system in-house with modern components, you need to fabricate a PCB in-house.

It also saves on delivery time, which is important in projects with deadlines, and external delivery time is also inversely proportional to cost.

Currently, the best practical solution for printing PCBs in-house is to use a Voltera V-One.

Printing PCBs of course requires an application. My current favourite platforms to use are PSoC4 and Arduino MKRs. They are simple enough to include in a road test and powerful enough to handle interesting applications.

Other ideas:

• A 3D scanner and 3D printer combo would be an awesome road test as well, but is not as directly aligned with electronics.
• The computer and software are an important, often overlooked tool in electronics design. A nice Intel NUC with CAD software would be a great road test.
• The blogging side of electronics is also undervalued. A nice camera, decent microphone, studio lights, video editing software would also make a great road test.

Hi Randall,

Firstly, I really love the diversity of products offered through your roadtest scheme, there is always something there to stretch the learning or build on personal electronics capability. From your identified categories I prefer a mix of:

• Single Board Computers & Development Boards (Wireless, IoT, Sensing, Analog, etc.).....something new and cool to learn.

• Test Equipment & Soldering and Product Equipment (remember the Fume Extractor) & Hand Tools...always nice to increase my capability to make/explore electronics further

Your Molex antenna roadtest was particularly interesting as, like most other roadtesters, I lacked the tools-of-the-trade and had to find others ways of testing.

A roadtest bundle can be as simple as providing a few additional parts, cables, adpaters to allow a novice to explore that device. Therefore future roadtests I would like to see are:

• Spectrum Analyser - something that could measure up to 3GHz, bundled with a few SMA-RP, SMA, N, BNC adapters and cables
• Software Defined Radio - bundled with a few wideband antennas
• Any new dev boards - perhaps bundle with expansion boards like Grove or PMod and a PSU if necessary
• Any new concepts/items - like FPGA boards, SDR again, Artificial Intelligence
• PCB prototyping - a UV 'etching' eg XY plotter, UV light box, engraver mill or etch tank ?
• Mechanical engineering - a mill bundled with a few bits, a cordless drill (would need a real project like builder to test it out properly)
• A micro-lathe for metalworking - bundled with cutters
• Oscilloscopes are always a great roadtest to see/apply for - the lower priced ones being interesting for many hobbyists and the roadtest reports on the expensive ones are great when looking for a new scope at work. Bundling with scope probes or a function generator? This is the first thing that can accelerate any electronics engineer's progress. Most other things we can make.
• I agree with gecoz about SMT: any of the bundles he suggests would be popular...bundled with fine SMT tweezers

What is great about the Element 14 roadtests is that I actually believe the comments are impartial as we cab read the other comments and activity of that poster. When I read reviews on other online sites I'm skeptical if they are written by actual purchasers.

I always enjoy having a look to see what is being offered for testing vs. my planned timescales in the next 2-3 months....lots of great items on there at the moment as well

Rod

Good points Ralph,

There is a a very-well priced Spectrum Analyser on Farnell https://uk.farnell.com/gw-instek/gsp-730/analyzer-spectrum-150khz-to-3ghz/dp/2460236  which goes out to 3GHz....would be nice to check out designs in the ZigBee bands as well.

Rod

This would be so cool (and popular), especially the microscope. I like SMT as there is less drilling required of the PCB during manufacture and it is more of a challenge.

ps: Actually just roadtesting a decent head magnifier would give some useful advice for us to help make a purchase - bundled with some tricky 0402 components and thin gauge solder.

Rod

Some form of educational bundle e.g. the physical equipment along with an associated tutorial lab manual/workbook/on-line course to give you a wide overview of what the equipment can do and help build foundations/understanding prior to unleashing it with your creativity.

Sometimes it can be good just to try something new, working your way through a tutorial guide taking notes along the way, prior to coming up with a more specific project to reinforce what you have just discovered.