Do you purchase a larger quantity of cheap tools or a smaller quantity of high-quality tools for your team? I know some people are scared to get their students good tools at the risk of them breaking them. I also feel that high-quality tools are much less likely to have issues/breaks. Does getting the students more expensive tools teach them to treat them right? Do the more expensive tools end up lasting long enough to defend the extra price? What are your thoughts?
Definitely not a one size fits all situation.
Need a lot of a tool? (e.g. tape measures? go cheap)
Need something that can’t fail? Nicer stuff.
Where that line is depends a lot on the type of bots you are building and the team budget.
The (Adam Savage?) Advice of “buy the cheap tool first, and if you use it enough it breaks or doesn’t do the job, spring for the more expensive one” is a good starting point.
However, a lot of the most useful tools are not necessary the nicest or most expensive. They just do their job well and don’t get in the way. E.g. decent quality drill bits save a lot of frustration and you don’t wreck them as fast. (Assuming the tools are not being horribly misused, which is another conversation)
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If your students are misusing tools to the extent that they are breaking them, that likely means they are prone to break themselves. I know it’s the boring answer but proper training (while it won’t remove all breakages) it’s probably the best answer.
We have been running Milwaukee tools for years, and they work beautifully. I highly recommend purchasing a few high quality drills instead of 12.
Obviously the question gets more complex as you start looking at diversifying beyond a single type of tool, or when you start having a large team that needs 12 drills.
It’s a choice for everyone. But make sure you have solid core tools. The last thing you want to worry about in the pit when you’re fixing things are poor tools.
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My team mostly has pretty nice tools. They were purchased when we had more money and are still going strong. However, as Skyehawk said it is a horses for course situation and sometimes cheap is the right option so you can spend the money on something else. In engineering there is nothing wrong with a quick, cheap solution if that is what the specification calls for.
What you really need are specific examples, so here are a couple. Hopefully, others more knowledgeable than me can add more.
- Shifting spanners - Get the good ones (eg. Bahco) they are so much better. I never knew this before doing FRC and I have a bunch at home now and they are awesome.
- Drills - Get expensive one for heavy work, but you can get cheap light weight drills now than really are good value. 10 years ago all cheap cordless tools had terrible batteries, but these days they are OK for light work.
- Screwdrivers - I’ve never really had a problem with cheap ones, except some cheap small (jewers) screwdrivers are rubbish.
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I can’t see getting, like, Snap-On-level quality for anything; there’s always a chance it gets lost, which doesn’t take into account how nice it is. That said, if the tools are breaking frequently, you need to take a closer look and figure out whether it’s them or their usage.
In general, I prefer to err on the side of “it’s okay that you broke it; it wasn’t that expensive.” This was a big deal a decade ago when the only worthwhile carbide O-flute endmills we could get were 6-12x as expensive. Students crash tools a lot when learning, and usually feel bad enough about it without discovering they broke $200 in tools as well.
I noticed a trend while thinking about tools that I like. It’s generally that I prefer different grades of thing for different parts of the tool; it’s usually okay to relax one of the parts to cheap-grade.
- Drill bits: Harbor Freight cobalt index for the shop, plus high-quality HSS for the common sizes (tap and clearance for 10-32, 1/4-20, 8-32, among others); cheap brad-point set for plywood and polycarb
- Taps: nice, spiral-point (and spiral-flute if you do blind holes)
- Tap wrenches: cheap
- Transfer punches: cheap
- Automatic center punches: nice
- Sockets: cheap
- Socket wrenches: nice-ish (high tooth count ratchet, at least)
- Wrenches: nice for the common sizes; cheap for the rest so you have them
- Allen keys: a mix of inexpensive looped-style T-handles and nice Wiha, as well as a smattering of L-shaped in long and short and ball-end
- Pliers: some cheap slip-joint; some full-on Knipex (e.g., pliers-wrench)
- Endmills: cheap ones are nicer now
- Digital multimeters: FIRST Choice Fluke; nice and “cheap”
- Files: nice
- Deburring tool handles: cheap
- Deburring tool blades: nice
- Countersinks: nice
- Cordless drills: nicer-end-of-cheap (Ryobi’s chucks make me so sad after a year or two; have been happier with DeWalt)
- Pneumatic riveters: nice (used production-grade, if possible)
- Crimpers: midgrade or better, especially for larger wire
- Screwdrivers: if/when you get cheap ones, make sure to cull them when they wear out; there is no shame in tossing dead Phillips drivers in the trash; hardened bit sets are useful for many things, though
- Wire strippers: nice Jokari or Knipex automatic
- Diagonal cutters: midgrade at minimum (the jaws need to line up; sheet-metal bad)
- Parts organizers/tackleboxes: cheap
- Bandsaw: the least expensive horizontal or portable bandsaw
- Blades for saws: nice, bimetal
- Strip sanders: cheap
- Sanding belts: nice (if you don’t like raised seams)
- Buffer/deburrer: cheap
- Deburring wheels: nice, 3M
- Bench and drill press vises: cheap, but consider replacing the spiky jaws with aluminum or brass soft jaws
- Workbenches: cheap, but consider replacing the casters with nice ones
etc…
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Personally, I like to have 1 set of nice tools that are kept put up, or separate, and a few cheaper ones that are used often. I use the cheap tools first. If they’re not doing the job I need them to do, I’ll break into the more expensive ones.
With the expensive ones, I usually want a mentor monitoring the student using them. Just to ensure they are using them correctly and are not going to lose them or break them.
It kind of also depends on if it’s FTC or FRC. The FTC can easily get away with some cheaper tools like drills. Honestly the nicer ones are kind of too powerful for things like tightening bolts, but super cheap ones will allow for speed while reducing the danger of over tightening, but still have enough power to drill most holes you may need.
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Almost ever time I buy a new tool I start out with Harbor Freight, as their ICON line is pretty decent and affordable. Buy cheap to begin with, if the tool breaks from use then you know it gets used a lot. Only at that point would I splurge for a more expensive quality tool. You’d be surprised how many tools people have that rarely get used or aren’t really “needed”.
I will say though, it is absolutely worth getting a quality set of T-Handles / Allen keys, drill bits, and wrenches.
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This is a big factor in the quantity question. The more there are of something the more likely it can be misplaced or not taken care of properly because they know there’s always more of them.
I don’t think students are purposely destructive or sending our equipment to another realm, if they are they shouldn’t be part of the program or using the equipment. But they do treat the big expensive “we only have one of these” type tools with a reverence I don’t see with calipers or multimeters and things we have handfuls of. They can always find the one special broach tool, but they always misplace rulers and drill bits.
Maybe keep a stock somewhere they don’t know about and they will think everything is always in low supply and treat it all better. I’m not saying we do this… I’m not not saying we do it either. My students might see this so good luck
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No, having good enforced systems of how to store your teams tools matter a lot more then if it’s a $20 brushed drill or if it’s a $250 brushless one.
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I collect things… and enjoy working with nice tools even if they are overkill and will last.
Outside of robotics (and in robotics I guess) there can be frustrating/intense/annoying/exhausting situations where the wrong tool (not necessarily the cheap tool) can make the job annoying.
From my farming background… if it’s harvest and I have 60 grease points to top off over harvest you bet I want the electric grease gun - even if it isn’t really needed because I am just putting a single pump into each grease zerk. Save the energy for fighting problems, not the tools (on the flip side if I forget the battery for the electric gun then I have a problem and wasted even more time, always tradeoffs)
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It honestly really depends on the tool. I will say the one tool you should not skimp on is Allen wrenches (hex keys) if you primarily use 10-32 socket head cap screws. And buy the individual tools and make sure they are easy to distinguish from other sizes so students don’t need to spend a ton of time looking for the right size. We personally like the Wera L keys with the colored yellow sleeve for the 5/32 size, and we also have some Klein P handle wrenches that have a long shaft for hard to reach screws (we only have 5/32 in these, but if we had other sizes we would mark them with yellow paint or tape.
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It all depends on the situation at hand. For some things, you don’t need expensive tools to get it done, such as screwing in bolts or measuring dimensions. For others things, there are certainly methods that can be safer and more efficient while also being a little more pricey. It all hinges on what you need to get done and how safely you need to do it, when you boil it down to its core.
depends. not a black or white situation. For cheap stuff (sometimes calipers) we tend to drift toward larger quantities of cheap ones, but for like more expensive stuff and drills, high quality.
We are lucky enough to have most of our non consumable tools either donated or we use the wood shop tool’s(we work out of the wood shop much to the wood shop’s teachers dislike). I would highly recommend reaching out to parents to see if any of them work are companies that have tools. One of our students parent works at Hilti which make extremely durable hand tools for contractors and we got some beat up hand me down tools that are still way nicer that Milwaukee or any other consumer hand tools.
Me using a hand drill while building FLL tables:
Mostly, budget wins and we need to get cheap tools to get enough tools.
Sure we may loose a few more drills or etc to wear and tear but having enough for the team to work without waiting for a tools has been more useful.
The main exception to this is tools like wire crimpers, the speed and quality from name brand is worth the price when we can. A lot of these tools are also used less often and can thus be more closely monitored to keep them in good condition as well.