These Tweezers are pretty cool tools for anyone doing SMD components. We tried them out and found them very pleasant well made. They are able to identify components and take readings easily with one hand. One thing they are missing, however, is the ability to measure voltage. The people over at Openschemes decided to see if there was a way around that. As it turns out, the chip used in the unit already has the capability to measure voltage. They take us through the process of modding the unit to be able to take advantage of this un utilized feature. From the outside, the only difference is a new switch to set the mode to voltage. Great job guys.
[via Hacked Gadgets]
I was looking on Ebay for similar tweezers.
The expensive ones go for ~120, with a precision within 1-2%.
The cheap $40 ones have a precision within 5-10%.
For $5, you can buy tweezer probes which connect to your DMM. A $40 DMM can have precision of within 1-2%, so this may be a cheaper and better option. Plus a bigger display, more features…
Decide accordingly.
huh, i wonder why the company didn’t incorporate the voltage meter originally. the hack seems cheap enough that it would be easy to add into production without raising costs very much (and the extra bullet point for their features list would be a helpful selling point).
GeekL, you nailed it. And when they do make those easy production changes they add that bullet point to a whole new model number instead, and up the price ten or twenty bucks.
mine measures voltages up to 8v O.o
The pair I reviewed at HaD also measured voltage up to 8volts.
Where can we find the MS8910? As I don’t see them on ebay.
MS8910 is actually cheap knockoff of the original Smart Tweezers. The original device is a Canadian design and is a true wide-range LCR meter. MS8910 is based on a multimeter chip. We have several pairs of the original units and MS8910 is clearly no match for them.
The Openschemes website is farked, but I found a cached copy of the page on The Google. Their hack is for the MS8910 BTW, not the original Smart Tweezers (see sendel’s comment above).