April 1996
... continued from page 12
Sand paper. I find 400 grit wet or
dry paper has many uses, gener-
ally smoothing metal.
Scotch Brite. This is the green plas-
tic fibrous pad intended for
scrubbing pots and pans. It is
very good for cleaning edge con-
nectors and other areas of PC
boards. NEVER use steel wool
on a PC board. That's NEVER!
Tiny little metal bits under an IC
chip to cause an impossible to
find intermittent problem. Also
good for getting the grunge off
the rollers in dollar bill changers.
Insulated probe. Fancy name for a
stick. Intermittent connections on
a monitor chassis or elsewhere
are found by pushing on the com-
ponents one at a time. We need
something non-conductive to do
this.
Note: Don't use a pencil (graph-
ite in the "lead" conducts) or a
pen (many have metal ink tubes).
I have a plastic rod and a piece
of hardwood dowel.
SPECIAL
CID
Contact and blade tools - blade
benders, point files, burnishing
tools.
Clip leads - for troubleshooting
and temporary connections.
PC board mount release tool - tube
you push over the standoff, easier
than pliers
Journal
Anti-static bag - for transporting
Lighter- for shrinking shrink tube,
logic boards safely
unless you carry a heat gun.
Alignment tool set - several sizes of
plastic twiddlers for adjusting os-
cillator coils on monitors or in-
accessible trim pots.
Bulb extractor- A nifty rubber item
that goes where fingers won't.
Cup stone - A cup-shaped grind-
ing wheel I can chuck into my
drill that makes it easy to dress
up the end of solenoid plungers
that are banged out of shape.
Fiber brush eraser - That's fiber
GLASS brush, so don't brush off
your work with your fingers, it'll
get into your skin. This tool is just
great for removing the con for-
mal coating from traces on a PC
board so you can solder. Excel-
lent for cleaning any contact sur-
face.
Extractor tools- for extracting con-
tact pins from connectors. Mostly
I use the Molex variety. There are
two sizes of these, for .06" and
for .09" pins as used in the rect-
angular white nylon cable con-
nectors.
To01.s
(SPECIFIC TO OUR WORK)
STAR*TEcH
AMP is the other big brand of
rectangular connectors. They
also make extractors, and, sur-
prise, the two brands are slightly
different sizes.
Molex is the type used on
Deltronics ticket dispensers for
example. The AMP type are the
ones with the two squeeze-in re-
lease tabs on either side.
p ARTS AND SUPPLIES
I carry a pretty substantial parts
supply out in my car, but for con-
venience, I keep some things in
the tool box because I use them
a lot. Saves me a trip out to the
parking lot. You should carry
what makes sense for you. These
should meet basic needs for
most:
Fuses- We buy fuses in bulk, then
refill the little boxes of five. Then
those go into a little kit.
Cable ties - millions of uses in ad-
dition to keeping your wiring
harnesses neat. For a few cents
extra, why not make your con-
versions look professional? Re-
place the ties you remove during
service.
Heat shrink tubing- use this instead
of electrical tape to protect splices
and other connections.
Piano wire- from the hobby store.
Make your own coin trip wires
and score wires on the spot. Why
replace the whole switch when
the trip wire is all that is broken?
Try it on Skeeball score cups, Air
Hockey goals, etc.
Crimp connectors - Why heat up
the iron every time? Do what the
manufacturer does, terminate
your wires with crimped-on con-
nectors. Push-ons for joystick and
control microswitches, Molex KK
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