Setup
From a fresh machine to the first reading in about ten minutes.
1. Install the bench app
Create a free account, then download the installer for Windows or macOS from your account. Both builds are signed; macOS builds are notarised. The app checks for updates itself.
2. Sign in and activate the bench
Sign in with your email, Google or Apple. The app activates this machine as a bench: one active session per seat at a time, a check-in every seven days and a 14-day grace period if the bench goes offline. No dongle.
3. Pick the board
Type the board number printed on the board (such as 820-02016) or the model number on the case (such as A2337), or walk brand, line and year. The profile shows the revisions, rails, key ICs and the known faults ranked by how often they were the fix.
4. Open your own files
Open your boardview and schematic from your own disk. The app matches them to the board by the number or the file’s content hash, remembers where they live, and never uploads them. Formats: BRD, BRD2, BDV, BVR, GenCAD, ASC and CAD boardviews, and PDF schematics. FZ files need the key you were given with them.
5. Connect a meter, or do not
Plug a supported meter in over USB and choose it in the app; it streams live and, on an OWON XDM, sets its own mode and range. Any other meter works in manual mode: the app names the mode, you set the dial and type the reading. See Meters.
6. Run the first session
Answer up to three symptom questions, then follow the steps. Each one says the power state, the mode, where the black lead goes, where the red lead goes and why, with the expected range. A steady reading saves itself and the next step loads 2 seconds later; Back, Repeat and Skip are always there.
Voltage steps stay blocked until you confirm the power state on the card. That is on purpose: the app never takes a live reading until you have said the board is in the state the step needs.
7. Close the job
When the tree names a part, record the fix and the readings after it. The session becomes a customer report with the readings, photos and the fix, and an anonymised fix record that teaches the next session on that board.