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1. Embed this notice
   aki-nyan (lethalbit@chaos.social)'s status on Tuesday, 20-May-2025 18:38:58 JST aki-nyan

   Oh, EE friends, anyone have a good recommendation for grabbies?

   Ideally decent quality, and small enough for some finer pitched TQFP not just SOICs, but also that don't break the bank.

   I need like, a billion of them, I always lose them.

   • Embed this notice
     ✧✦Catherine✦✧ (whitequark@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 20-May-2025 18:38:57 JST ✧✦Catherine✦✧

     in reply to

     @lethalbit i've been using two products:

     1. this thing: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005767088642.html. is it good? no, not really. but i've never found _actually_ good hooks, and these are both cheap and small enough physically that you stand any chance at all of probing e.g. 4 adjacent pins

     2. Pomona 5790. it's 10 times as expensive, more robust (the first model should be realistically considered semi-disposable), but not that much better

     both of them are infinitely better than the grabber in your photo

   • Embed this notice
     ✧✦Catherine✦✧ (whitequark@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 20-May-2025 18:42:56 JST ✧✦Catherine✦✧

     in reply to

     @lethalbit if you find cheap-ish grabbers that don't make you want to quit being an EE within ten minutes of trying to probe something, I would be very interested in which model it is, haha

   • Embed this notice
     ✧✦Catherine✦✧ (whitequark@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 20-May-2025 19:14:40 JST ✧✦Catherine✦✧

     in reply to

     • Kilroy_Was_Here

     @kilroy_was_here @lethalbit they're definitely quite robust and well-built; to clarify, my problem with model 5790 is that it's very difficult to get several of them to reliably hook to adjacent pins. JTAG has four, and it would often take me over 15 minutes to get them to stay (and they'd unclip randomly from just sitting on my desk somewhere in the next hour)

   • Embed this notice
     Kilroy_Was_Here (kilroy_was_here@dobbs.town)'s status on Tuesday, 20-May-2025 19:14:42 JST Kilroy_Was_Here

     in reply to

     • ✧✦Catherine✦✧

     @whitequark @lethalbit

     I used all kind of Pomona leads when I worked in electronic quality control. They will last if you take care of them.

   • Embed this notice
     ✧✦Catherine✦✧ (whitequark@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 21-May-2025 01:30:22 JST ✧✦Catherine✦✧

     in reply to

     • Dusk

     @dusk @lethalbit yep, I've found them about equally frustrating to use in practice

   • Embed this notice
     Dusk (dusk@furry.engineer)'s status on Wednesday, 21-May-2025 01:30:23 JST Dusk

     in reply to

     • ✧✦Catherine✦✧

     @whitequark @lethalbit Tried "SDK08" test hooks? First ones I've found that were actually practical for probing multiple small pins, and cheap too