Eight Things I Wish I’d Known Sooner

2025-02-11 | By Zach Hipps

Test Equipment Logic Probe / Analyzer Third Hand / Vises Microcontrollers Solder / Desoldering Irons / Stations

I've been making engineering videos for over eight years, and I've been an engineer for even longer than that. In fact, I've been making things my entire life. As a kid, I used my dad's welder to build a giant trebuchet to launch watermelons across my backyard. You know, regular kid stuff. It amazes me that even today, as I build projects, I still learn new and better ways to do things. Every time this happens, I think to myself, I wish I'd known this sooner. Here are eight things I wish I had known sooner, including a tip about calipers that you might not know.

As I started compiling this list, it got longer and longer, and many of the things ended up being like pieces of wisdom, things that you have to experience. For example, you have to fail quickly when you're building something. Don't spend a bunch of time only to figure out it doesn't work. For this list, I wanted to keep it very practical.

Logic Analyzer

The first thing I wish I had known sooner was to buy and use a logic analyzer. A logic analyzer is a device that you connect to your computer, and it can help you visualize when two things are communicating. For example, I have an Arduino Nano board and a temperature thermocouple board. It's the same thermocouple I used in the solder reflow oven I built a few years ago. The Arduino board sends information to the thermocouple board, and the thermocouple responds. It uses the SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface) protocol, so data flows in both directions. When I was getting started, the SPI protocol was a bit of a mystery to me, and it was a little bit hard to understand. Eventually, I bought a logic analyzer, and I could then visualize the signals flipping from 1 to 0. It made so much more sense. It saved me a lot of time when troubleshooting several projects because I could visualize the timing of things and ensure everything was working as it was supposed to.

Eight Things I Wish I’d Known Sooner

LABEL EVERYTHING

Seriously, label everything! If you want to stay organized and know where your stuff is, everything must have a home and a label.

Eight Things I Wish I’d Known Sooner

Deburring Tool

The next item is a tool, and it's over here at my 3D printer. When I print with brims, sometimes it's challenging to get them to come off cleanly. Then, I learned about using a deburring tool. This is typically used in a machine shop to deburr metal and aluminum to remove sharp edges. It also works well for 3D prints. I can scrape the deburring tool along the edge, and it cleans up 3D prints nicely. This saves me a lot of time and frustration and makes my prints look much better. Sometimes, I just use it to clean or soften the edges of things. Oh, and there's one more thing that I want to point out while I'm here at the 3D printer, and that's using these countersink deburring tools. Anytime I design a part that has a hole or a cylindrical face in it, I will use the countersink deburring tool and run that in there, and it puts a perfect chamfer around it. This is handy if I'm trying to slide this piece onto a metal rod or something similar. Or, if you tap the hole with threads, having that chamfer makes it so much easier to start the tap.

Eight Things I Wish I’d Known Sooner

Calipers

Next up, we've got calipers. I use them all the time when 3D modeling. Most of us know how to make basic measurements with calipers. There are actually four ways to use calipers to measure things. The calipers have a fixed jaw and a sliding jaw, and you can use them to measure the outside diameter of something. You can also use the other side of the fixed jaw and sliding jaw to measure an inside diameter. Of course, you've also got the depth gauge. That's the skinny piece that slides out the bottom. It’s handy if you've got a small hole to measure. The depth gauge is great for measuring very narrow dimensions. However, I wish somebody had told me about this fourth way, and that's using the back of the caliper head. If you look at the back of your calipers, your fixed jaw, and your sliding jaw, make a bit of a step. That's really what you should use to measure a step or a shoulder on a part

Let me show you here on this stepper motor. If I use the depth gauge to measure the depth of the shaft, the small face gives me too much wobble and, therefore, is inaccurate. If I use the back of the caliper head and press that up against the stepper motor shaft, it's more stable and more accurate. Before I learned this tip, I would use the depth gauge to make this kind of measurement, and it seemed like all of my measurements were always off by a little bit. Now that I've switched to this, my 3D models are much more accurate, and all the parts I make are way more precise.

Eight Things I Wish I’d Known Sooner

Isopropyl Alcohol

For the next thing, I'm over at my workbench, where I do a lot of gluing. I learned at one point that isopropyl alcohol will remove hot glue. Hot glue is an underrated adhesive because most people think of it as a chintzy craft item, but I always use it for a temporary adhesive that I know I can remove. I've got two pieces of 3D printed material that I hot glued together, and they're pretty rigid, but I can remove that hot glue by simply getting some isopropyl alcohol and soaking that glue joint. The goal is to get the alcohol to seep between the surface joint and the glue. Once it does that, that hot glue will just break right off. There's no evidence that I had hot glue on these items.

Here on my workbench, I've got several puddles of hot glue. When you plug in a hot glue gun, it drools everywhere. It's inevitable. I can use isopropyl alcohol to soak those glue spots and try to get underneath them. Once you get it started underneath and it seeps in there, you can get it to pull off. If you have some glue that's extra stubborn, I recommend using a plastic razor blade to get it started. You may have tried to pick and pull at hot glue, but sometimes it's a disaster, breaking apart into a million little pieces, and you can never get all of it. This prevents all of that frustration and just comes off in one piece. I will typically buy 90% isopropyl alcohol, and instead of keeping it in its original container, I'll put it in these little squeeze bottles with Luer Lock tips on them that make it so much easier to get it in tight spaces.

Eight Things I Wish I’d Known Sooner

Acetone

The other thing I like to keep close at hand in a little squeeze bottle is acetone. Acetone is used in nail polish remover. Acetone is a great solvent for removing adhesives. If you put a sticker on something and want to peel it off and it leaves residue, acetone will remove it. The other thing I use it for is removing permanent marker. If I take a Sharpie and draw right here on my workbench, I can remove that using acetone. The acetone just eats it away, and then I'll take a wipe and scrub it the rest of the way off. I learned this tip when I worked at the machine shop. We would use contact cement frequently, and acetone would take that right off. Now, I keep it close at hand, and if I have something I need to clean up, acetone is ready to do the job. These are two inexpensive and super-effective solutions I keep around on my workbench, and I wish I had known about them from the beginning.

Corrugated Tube

This next item makes the list because it's underrated. I call it corrugated tube, but you can also call it convoluted tube, wire loom, or protective hose. No matter what you call this material, its job is to keep your wires protected and tidy. I've got some wires that I want to put into a project. So, I'm going to cut off a length of the corrugated tube. For short runs, I will just stuff the wire through, but if you had a long run, if you look closely at the tube, it's got a slit down the length so you can shove wire in with your fingers. This protective hose is often used in the engine compartment of vehicles because it's heat resistant and can withstand rugged environments. Now that I have the wires inside, I want to ensure these wires don't slip around. I will use cable ties to secure them in place, and then I have this cool ratchet gun that tightens and cuts cable ties. It's so satisfying. I love using this thing.

I used this material a lot in my life-size Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots. I connected them to an air compressor, and they have all sorts of electronics inside. Also, the eyes have bar LEDs that keep track of the score, so there are a ton of wires running from each of these robots down to the central microcontroller, and having the corrugated tube tidied everything up. It prevented snags and made it easier to keep track of which wires needed to go where. This is a material that, if I had known about sooner, I would have been using a lot more.

Eight Things I Wish I’d Known Sooner

Baking Soda

This next one is a quick one, but it's something that I use all the time when making repairs. We all use glue like super glue (CA). When repairing objects, we want to make a quick and permanent bond. We use the glue, but you might not know that you can add baking soda to CA glue as a hardener. I've got a part that I 3D printed for a spool holder. It broke in half when I took it off the print bed, so I had to glue it back together using CA glue. I am not confident that this joint will be as strong as I need. So, I will use baking soda to add strength to this joint. It's almost like I'm making a fillet on that edge. I like to use thin CA glue so that it seeps in. Once it cures, it gets extremely hard. You can even sand it and paint it, and that's something that I didn't learn until much later on. It would have been helpful had I known about it sooner. Use baking soda if you are in the same situation and want to strengthen a CA joint.

Eight Things I Wish I’d Known Sooner

Soldering

And finally, here's the last thing I wish I had known sooner. There are several things, and they all have to do with soldering. I could make an entire video about soldering tips. Here are a few of my favorites. The first thing is the surface I use when using a hot air gun. I went to the hardware store and picked up a ceramic tile for a couple of dollars. This does an excellent job of protecting my work surface from burn marks. Before I had this, I was always worried about adding too much heat and making burn marks on my workbench. The ceramic tile does a great job absorbing and dissipating the heat. What's even better are the silicone mats I got recently. What I like about the soldering mats is that they do the same thing. They protect my workbench and give me a safe surface to work on.

Eight Things I Wish I’d Known Sooner

Next up is flux. When I got started, I only knew about flux pens. I don't know if it was user error, but I always had difficulty getting these to work properly until I discovered that flux comes in different types. I got this flux gel with a Luer Lock syringe, which lets me get into tight spaces, and I had way more success switching to this type. It's something that I wish I had known sooner: that flux comes in different types. If you're struggling with using flux pens, do some research and find a different kind that might work better for you.

Eight Things I Wish I’d Known Sooner

Next up, we've got third hands. I always joke that engineers should have evolved to have three arms because every time I work on a project, I always need another hand. That's why they make these tools called a third hand or a helping hand. Also available is a Panavise Junior. There are different styles and more options than these, but these are the ones I have on hand. The idea is that they help you hold things in place. I like using the helping hands when I'm using wire or different parts that I need to solder to, and I use the Panavise when I'm working with a circuit board or some sort of breakout board because it has slots that hold a circuit board and that makes it much easier to work on them.

Eight Things I Wish I’d Known Sooner

The next thing I want to talk about is solder sponges. When I first started, I used the wet sponge type. Anytime I needed to clean the tip of my soldering iron, I would wipe it on the damp sponge. But this is bad because water is not good for the tip of your soldering iron. It can cause corrosion and thermal shock by quickly going from hot to cold. A better alternative is using brass sponges. They are dry since there's no water involved and, therefore, no thermal shock. This is a much better way to keep your soldering iron tips clean.

There you have it. Eight things that I wish I had known sooner. Plus, even a few bonus ones!