Electronics Lab Equipment

[Dylan Ioannou-Booth]

Hello,

My friend has recently been nice enough to me to buy me a mix of electronics equipment, LEDs, breadboard, capacitors, jumpers, wires, resistors of many kinds. And this Wednesday I am going to buy a Workbench.

http://www.ikea.com/au/en/catalog/products/10180048/

I was wondering if I would need anything else, I do not know much about electronics at the current stage but I own a lot of reading material. So anything that I would need for a beginner.

[MikeK]

Soldering iron and a calendar of half-naked women.

[olsenn]

This is sort of a silly question. What equipment you will need depends greatly on what type of work you'll be doing. In general, if you're just trying to stock up a lab with the most basic components that you will most definately need at some point in time, make sure you have ALL of the following:

Resistors (LOTS of them)
Capacitors (ceramic, electrolytic, and film)
Megnetic wire (for building inductors)
Diodes (1N4148, 1N400x, zeners, schottky's)
LED's
Transistors (2N3904/2N3906, 2N2222, TIP31/32...)
Voltage Regulators (3.3V, 5V, 12V, and in different packages for different power ratings)
Hook-up Wire (don't forget it)
Breadboards / Protoboards
Microcontrollers (PIC or Atmel)
Any tools you might need (soldering iron, oscilloscope, multimeter...)
Calendar of half naked women (absolutely neccessary)

$500 can get you a whole lot stuff at futurlec.com. If this sounds like too much for you, I'd suggest figuring out what you want to design and what it will require before placing an order

[LEECH666]

Dave has a video on what a equipment you'll need to by to set up a basic but decent lab. It's more focused on tools than parts tho.

Florian

[slateraptor]

Judging by the comparative size of the laptop shown in the link you posted, I think you'll find a desk of that size to be really cramped really fast. If you're not too attached to that particular desk or pressed for space, I'd recommend finding something a bit deeper; you might try browsing the classifieds in your local area to find a good deal.

And don't forget...

Soldering iron and a calendar of half-naked women.

If you have a lady friend, an identical calendar with cute, fuzzy animals should be conveniently placed behind said half-naked women in quick-flip mode for when she visits.

[robrenz]

Dave has a video on what a equipment you'll need to by to set up a basic but decent lab. It's more focused on tools than parts tho.

Florian

[olsenn]

If you have a lady friend, an identical calendar with cute, fuzzy animals should be conveniently placed behind said half-naked women in quick-flip mode for when she visits.

Very good advice; especially when those half naked women are actually whole naked women, and the calendar is actually the November issue of Juggs! Being an engineer is all about finding solutions to problems; we can't always solve the problem, but we can use our reputation to convince the world that their is no problem, make them feel stupid if they disagree with you, and profit off their ignorance when they do agree with you.

[jgbena]

I would whole heartedly agree with watching Daves video as mentioned above.  As to the Ikea thing.. looks a bit small, and SHELVES... man you gotta have SHELVES... for the price I saw on your posting.. for a few dollars more you could get something like this:

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=electronics+workbench&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=9ol&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=imvnsfd&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&biw=1920&bih=996&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=18017270957283252218&sa=X&ei=ByqYT9ypMuaa0QGj66TGBg&ved=0CIMBEPMCMAE

you will want to put things like oscilloscopes, and larger test equipment up there on the shelf and keep your workspace open on the actual bench.

And in line with what else has been said here in this thread... what sort of equipment you gather, depends greatly on what sort of electronics you wish to dabble in.  For instance, someone interested in digital logic might want to have a function generator, oscilloscope, logic probe, and things along those lines...  While a guy who is in to radio or RF electronics might want a signal generator, signal tracer, oscilloscope, resistor substitution box, decade capacitor, frequency counter, deviation meter, spectrum analyzer, etc...

if you are just starting, start with the basics as dave shows in the video so I wont get in to listing all that.

Congrats on wanting to get started!  and remember... dont turn it on.. TAKE IT APART!!!

[M. András]

if you have tools, and skill for it, build a workbench for yourself, i made a nice desk for myself 2mx1m surface area from chipboard 2 standard 18mm panels stacked on eachother with wood legs at the corners and some side panels too keep the things from falling or rolling off the table
edit: or parcticle board i dont know whats the english name of the wood product which are used to make todays furnitures

[Spawn]

If you are creative enough you can do a lot.
I used a old closet, front door as bench (2m x 1m) and the side panels are the shelf’s (2m x 0.5m) and the back plate of the closet is used as plate on the wall above the bench for screwing things easier on it.