Manual

Getting Started

The sidebar

• Dashboard: active projects, low-stock parts and recent captures at a glance.
• Library: every screenshot you've captured from a connected scope.
• Inventory: your component stock, with locations, datasheets and low-stock alerts.
• Sync Locations: drives and folders that hold captures, imported straight into your Library.
• Devices: connect and update instruments Benchwave talks to directly, like the FNIRSI LCR-P1.
• Projects: bundle captures, parts and notes for each thing you're building.

First steps

• Add a Sync Location to import captures, or jump straight into Inventory to start cataloguing parts.
• Use Import in Inventory to bring in an existing parts list (JSON or CSV).

Sync Locations & Devices

Benchwave splits your bench hardware into two sections: Sync Locations for any drive or folder that holds captures, and Devices for instruments Benchwave talks to directly.

Sync Locations

Add any drive or folder that collects capture images, a scope's USB share, an SD card, a camera, or just a folder you drop screenshots into, and Benchwave imports them into your Library.

• In Sync Locations, click + to open the setup sheet.
• Give it a name and icon, then Choose Drive or Folder… and pick the location. macOS grants access once; after that it's silent under the sandbox.
• Choose whether to scan the whole drive/folder or just a subfolder. All image types are imported.
• Removable drives are detected automatically on plug-in; auto-sync on connect is opt-in per location.

Sync captures

• Use Sync New to import fresh images, or Full Resync to re-import everything (handy if a local file went missing).
• Captures are matched by content, so re-syncing never makes duplicates.
• Eject before unplugging, so it's safe to disconnect.

Manage locations

Use Manage to hide locations you don't use, or Edit / Remove one from its page. Removing forgets the drive; captures already in your Library stay.

Devices

Devices is for instruments Benchwave connects to directly over a protocol, today, the FNIRSI LCR-P1 component tester.

LCR-P1 firmware

The LCR-P1 can flash new firmware straight over USB, the first updater for this device outside Windows. Put it into update mode by hand first (power off, hold Zener + Test), then pick its serial port. This is an advanced feature, follow the on-screen steps carefully.

Read the on-screen instructions carefully before flashing firmware, and use the manufacturer's own tools instead if you're not confident. See Firmware updates on the download page.

Live instruments

Streaming live measurements and waveforms from SCPI instruments is coming soon.

Captures & Library

The <strong>Library</strong> is the gallery of every screenshot you've synced.

Inspect & compare

• Select a capture to open the inspector. Select two or more to compare them side by side.
• Open any capture in a full, resizable viewer window.

Analyse

On supported macOS versions, Benchwave can read the on-screen measurements from a capture and summarise what you're looking at. See AI Features.

Delete

Deleting a capture removes both the record and its image file. A Full Resync from the Sync Location brings it back if it's still there.

Inventory

Inventory tracks your components: quantity, unit, location, datasheets and more.

Add & edit

• + adds a new component; select any row to edit it in the inspector.
• Reorder at (min qty) sets the low-stock threshold. Status is derived automatically: In stock, Low, Out, or Ordered (toggle On order yourself).

Import & export

• Import reads a workshop JSON export or a CSV (forgiving column names). Re-importing is safe, items are matched by name and part number and updated in place.
• Export saves all components to a JSON file you can back up or move between Macs.

Find things

Use the search field and the Category / Maker / Location / Tag filters. Press Clear to reset filters, it only changes what's shown, never your data.

Attachments

Each component can hold a photo, datasheet and manual (saved as local files, so links can't rot), plus one shopping link for re-buying the part.

Pricing

Give a part a purchase price (what it cost you) and a resell price (what you charge on a quote). Both are optional and private, resell is the only figure a customer ever sees, and only on a project Quote (see Branded Exports & Quotes).

Organizing Inventory

Benchwave keeps curated lists for the five ways you classify parts: categories, subcategories, manufacturers, locations, and bins / drawers. These persist on their own, so a location doesn't vanish just because you moved everything out of it.

Suggestions while typing

In a component's Category / Subcategory / Manufacturer / Location / Bin fields, start typing and a dropdown of matching entries opens automatically. Pick one, or type something new, new values are added to the lists when you save. The chevron browses the full list.

Manage the lists

Click Manage in the Inventory header to open the manager: pick a list on the left, then add, rename or delete entries on the right.

• Rename updates every part that used the old value, nothing to redo by hand.
• Delete clears that field on any part that referenced it (the part stays; the value is simply emptied). Each entry shows how many parts use it before you delete.
• Subcategories can roll up to a category, and bins to a location.

Projects

A Project gathers everything for one thing you're building, or repairing for a customer. Create one from the Dashboard or the sidebar's +, then work across its facets: Overview, Captures, Parts, Files, and Notes.

Overview

Name, description and notes, plus the project's labour rate and whether its quote is itemised or combined.

Parts (bill of materials)

Build the BOM from your Inventory, parts aren't copied; each line points at the shared component and carries a per-project quantity.

• Drag an inventory row's grip onto the project in the sidebar (a quantity sheet appears on drop), or use Add from Inventory.
• Import a BOM CSV exported from KiCad, Fritzing, Eagle or a spreadsheet: rows match inventory by part number then name, and anything new is created for you.
• Adding a part allocates stock: your inventory count drops, and parts you're short on go Out so they stand out. Export a Shopping List CSV of exactly what's left to buy.

Captures, Files & Notes

• Captures: scope screenshots filed to this project.
• Files: datasheets, PDFs and images attached to the build, with markup (see Files & Markup).
• Notes: your running log.

Export

From the project's Export menu, produce a branded Project Sheet or a customer Quote PDF. See Branded Exports & Quotes.

Files & Markup

Attach reference documents, datasheets, PDFs and images, to any project from its Files facet, and mark them up without ever altering the original.

The markup viewer

Open a document in a full viewer and annotate it:

• Arrows with filled heads, text notes, freehand lines, and an eraser.
• Mark up images too; annotations are saved to a separate, editable sidecar, so the original photo is never touched.
• OCR reads text off the page, so you can lift values straight out of a datasheet.
• Reset all clears your markup; closing with unsaved changes asks first.

Shared files, separate markup

The same document can live in your Library and be used by several projects at once. Each project keeps its own markup overlay on that shared file, so notes for one build never bleed into another. Detaching or deleting a file that's still in use warns you first.

Branded Exports & Quotes

Turn a project into a polished PDF, for your own records, a client, or a repair customer.

Your branding

In Settings → Business, set your name, logo, contact details, currency and VAT rate. Benchwave puts them on every export; choose the square or wide logo for the header.

Project Sheet

A multi-page A4 sheet with your branding, the project overview, the full bill of materials, and its captures, a clean summary of the whole build.

Customer Quote

Price a job and hand the customer a professional quote. It shows resell prices only, plus labour and optional VAT, never your cost or margin (you still see those in the app). Quote lines can be itemised or rolled into a single combined figure.

AI Features

On macOS 26 or later with Apple Silicon and Apple Intelligence enabled, Benchwave can use Apple's on-device models, everything runs locally and privately on your Mac.

Today

• Analyse captures: read on-screen measurements and summarise a scope screenshot.
• Parts assistance: help classify and identify components, suggesting values that match your existing inventory lists.

Coming with macOS 27

Apple's next intelligence release is far more capable. A major AI update for Benchwave is planned to land alongside it: richer capture analysis, smarter parts identification, and natural-language inventory search. Supporting Benchwave helps make that happen.

If your Mac doesn't meet the requirements, these features are simply hidden. Everything else works exactly the same.

Backup & Restore

Your data lives only on your Mac, so backups are worth taking.

• Benchwave automatically snapshots its database on every launch (keeping the most recent few).
• Use Backup to export a full .zip (database, captures and component files). Drop it in iCloud Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive for off-machine safety.
• Restore swaps a backup back in and relaunches the app.
• Inventory also has its own JSON Export / Import for moving just the parts list.

A backup is your real protection, keep a recent one somewhere off this Mac.

Can't find what you're looking for? Get in touch →