EMS Labs has a nice little rundown of five tools you might not know about, but that can come in very handy in your day-to-day electronics work. A fellow DC Dorkbot-er, David Rickert, who’s currently building his own analog synth, hipped me to the Lead Forming Tool (top) at the latest Dorkbot DC BEAM Building Workshop, and it’s definitely going in the shopping cart of my next online electronics order. I’m not good at judging the bends in the leads in my resistors, and there’s nothing more unsightly than kinky components. One of the other items in the piece is an IC Lead Straightener, something that anyone who’s ever tried to put, say a 20-pin chip, into a PCB or a DIP socket can duly appreciate.

And adding the convenience of these tools is not expensive. The Lead Forming Tool is a mere $2.80 at Jameco, an IC Straightener is $7.70, also at Jameco. The Vacuum Suction Pen (seen above) goes for $6 at Stan Rubinstein.

Five Electronics Tools You Might Not Know About – Link