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Cool Tools Kit Awards 2020

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Hello Community, and happy March to all of you!

 

Some of you might be thinking to yourselves - what is Cool Tools? Isn't that a bit familiar? And indeed it is. We ran a fun campaign nearly two years ago to talk about awesome tools as a sneaky way to get you all to show us your work benches (check out the original post here: Cool Tools Bench Awards 2018.) We originally thought about doing this annually, but last year we got caught up in an endless winter here in the Chicago offices that left us wanting anything but to think about the cold. However, now that we have experienced our first actual spring day, we have de-thawed, and we're excited to bring you the Cool Tools Kit Awards 2020!

 

What is the Kit Awards?

 

Previously, we asked the Community to share their work benches but now we're curious - if you could only have one kit for the rest of your life - let's call it your desert island kit - what would be in it? Is there a particular tool that has outlasted all others? Is there some indispensable piece of equipment that, if you were to lose it, would be cause for tearing out your hair (as if sorrow would be made less by baldness?)

 

In the comments below, we want you to tell us about your desert island kit - show us in pictures or video, go into as much detail as you want to tell us what would be in it and why. If you don't want to talk about an entire kit, pick out one of your Cool Tools and describe it under categories such as:

 

  • Oldest Friend (tool that you've had the longest)
  • The Most Reliable (the tool you use most often)
  • Weapons Rack (the tool that you'd proudly put on display if you had to)
  • Dream Tool (a tool that either you don't believe exists, or for whatever reason you've never purchased)
  • Or, make up your own category to talk about a tool that you think everyone should have in their kit!

 

What's in it for me?

 

We're giving everyone on the Community through the end of March to leave comments on this post for a chance to win some great tools from our revamped Multicomp Pro line (like the ones below) as well as from others by some of our great partners like Flir, Fluke, Knipex, Klein and others.

 

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Buy Now

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Buy Now

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Buy Now

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Buy Now

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Buy Now

 

 

Then, every Friday in April we'll be picking some winners from the comments below to win prizes. All you need to do is tell us about your desert island kit or one of your favorite tools. To make it even more fun, our Multicomp Pro team has agreed to put together a great prize pack to whoever comes up with what they think is the coolest of the Cool Tools Desert Island Kits! So have some fun with this and leave your comments below. You have all of March to get in your comments, so no need to beware the Ides.

 

We're so excited to see what you all come up with!

 

Want another way to get your hands on some of these Cool Tools? Check out out the RoadTests & Reviews space where will be launching RoadTests for some of these items. Apply for the first one here: Cool Tools 2020: USB Soldering Iron

Attachments:
imageCool Tools Kit Awards 2020.pdf
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  • in reply to ankur608

    Ok, guilty of one but learn my lesson before it took my life! Some genius wired 240/30 on a 110/20 outlet. The home owner tells me “I plug in my vacuum and nothing happened” fortunately I plugged my meter into to it before just taking it apart. How it didn’t blow the vacuum apart is beyond me. We had Fluke 188A and that simple tool saved my life more times than I care to count.

     

    I was was sent to the Ogden Theater in Denver due to multiple tickets coming in. When I arrived an I&R tech comes up to me and asked what was going on. I told him I was out here on a group failure. He tells me me he had two from the Ogden and when he attached his meter to the panel it started smoking! I grabbed my 188A and went to the panel. From 3 feet away it started going off that high voltage was present. Come to find out high voltage electric was sitting on our telecom cable. Turning a 200 pair cable into a solid copper rod for two blocks and blowing the protectors on every home and destroying the panel in the Ogden. I told that tech he is one of the luckiest people I have ever met!

  • in reply to ankur608

    I read this article from Fluke a while back and dismissed #10.  Remember that this advice is coming from the company that needs to sell you a new meter.  I love my old Fluke and it is far more dependable than the Fluke 289's I've purchased more recently.  I also have my old Micronta analog multimeter from Radio Shack.because sometimes the needle action tells you more of what's going on than the digital display.

  • in reply to ankur608

      wrote:

     

    Checkout the number:10

     

    https://www.fluke.com/en-in/learn/blog/safety/10-dumb-things-smart-people-do

    I feel no shame for keeping on using something that still works perfectly  image

  • in reply to Jan Cumps

    There's other things wrong with that blog, including the name, calling people dumb : )

    Actually what would be really useful would be a series of blogs on how to work with home electrical/electronic equipment with a low-cost multimeter and how to troubleshoot and repair common things.. because it will be hard in the next year or two for people to just keep buying new appliances - but they may buy or use an existing multimeter and some tools to fix things themselves.

    Case in point, a friend is struggling to fix his NAS, he thought it was a power supply issue but didn't know how to test it with his multimeter, others may not know that things like fans are also likely to fail after many years.

    (Interestingly in his case futher diagnosis has revealed something different - it's likely that he has hit the Intel chip bug issue that occurred a few years ago - it was like a ticking time-bomb, guaranteed to fail, just the exact time was not known.. Fortunately I believe he can get his money back, since he's still in the 6-year window for 'inherent faults' under UK consumer products law).

  • in reply to shabaz

    The Intel issue where one half of a clock's output driver pair fails?

  • in reply to Jan Cumps

    Yes, that's the one! It was likely an electromigration issue inside that particular chip.. there are some 'aftermarket' fixes using a resistor (i.e. to replace the failed transistor!) but the clock output becomes more ugly, maybe good enough if there's no other option, but in this case I hope he replaces it, because it was a fairly expensive 5-bay unit.

  • in reply to shabaz

    Well it's Day1 and luckily it's a Fool's Dayimage hence sticking to the themeimage

  • in reply to shabaz

    Honestly after reading the article I believe he was calling out professionals that have been trained in the right and wrong ways of doing it safely. Even retired professionals know better especially when it come to safety. High voltage electric is nothing to mess with and not using proper safety equipment is stupid. It can cost you way more than ANYONE can afford.