Looking for suggestings for interesting beginner's electronics kits

[Lomax]

My 20 year old son has decided to take a course in industrial electronics, and I'd like to encourage him to learn a bit about circuit design and construction (he has zero experience). With his birthday coming up soon, and at his expressed request, I have gotten him a really nice soldering station (he already has a decent multimeter), and thinking about it I'd like to also give him some simple project kits - so that he has something to practice soldering on, and perhaps pick up a few of the basic principles like transistor switches, voltage dividers, timers, filters etc, perhaps even some digital control stuff. But it's many decades since I built anything from a kit (it used to be Welleman who ruled that market), and I'm a little lost! I'm sure there must be lots of cool stuff out there and would appreciate any suggestions - what do you think would be a fun and inspiring kit to get started with?

Edit: He is pretty technically minded, and has some experience in computer programming, so really basic things like 555 blinkers is unlikely to impress...

[madires]

A Transistor Tester kit Look for "transistor tester AY-AT" or "transistor tester DIY" on aliexpress, ebay or whatever you prefer. Choose one with a rotary encoder. And as bonus an ISP programmer for ATmega MCUs.

[sokoloff]

I'd get him some "useless" SMD practice test board kits (search Aliexpress for "smd practice" and pick a few boards for practice). A few of them are straight, repetitive practice; others are blinkly/chasing LEDs.

Get him some paste flux.

Then, for an actual project, I'd consider something that will result in a durable piece of equipment for his/your "lab". An Anatek ESR meter kit or a power supply kit might fit the bill. If that's outside the budget, a mini audio amplifier or AM receiver might be interesting as well.

Edit: or if he's into microcontrollers (or you'd like to guide him in that direction), pick up some Arduino nanos (where he needs to solder on the headers, etc), an FTDI, and if you've never played with them before an Uno or an Uno clone. (The Uno works right out of the box, so it's nice to get down the computer side on the easy Uno so you're not totally lost trying to get the Nano connected and the LED blinking.)

[Avacee]

Look at a DSO138 oscilloscope for £7 on eBay or other kits from JYETech.
Soldering practice and a disposable £7 oscilloscope that's pretty garbage but will let him learn the basics before blowing up an expensive scope and if he does blow it up - so what? :p
There are also function gen kits, frequency counter kits, power supply kits and various others.

For a serious power supply kit have a look at this project:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/diy-programmable-dual-channel-bench-psu-0-50v3a/

[tooki]

There are some nice clock kits on eBay/aliexpress/banggood that are fun to assemble. (Look for ones with Ds3231 clock chips, they're accurate, unlike the DS1302/1307 ones that can be accurate or can be uselessly inaccurate).

I recently did one of these (mix of through-hole and SMD) :
http://www.ebay.com/itm/172206021927

And one of these (about 120 SMD components, so not necessarily the one to begin with!!!) :
https://www.banggood.com/DIY-DS3231-Touch-Key-Control-Brightness-Adjustable-Big-Size-Dot-Matrix-Alarm-Clock-Kit-p-1120986.html

That last one really does produce a lovely product. Now if only they'd include the source code so you could customize it...

I also did a DSO138 recently. Fun to assemble, not terribly useful. JYETech has a newer scope kit with a rotary encoder that looks nicer.

[Lomax]

Thanks guys, lots of great tips! The clock suggestion led(!) me in this direction: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/401240406014 Plenty of (easy) soldering to do there, with rewardingly impressive result. What do you reckon? Anyone know of a better "LED cube" kit?

[tooki]

Thanks guys, lots of great tips! The clock suggestion led(!) me in this direction: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/401240406014 Plenty of (easy) soldering to do there, with rewardingly impressive result. What do you reckon? Anyone know of a better "LED cube" kit?

You can get them a tiny bit cheaper on eBay.com.

That said, while things like that are fun to build, I'm loathe to buy them for the simple reason that they're not useful once completed. I prefer to build things I'll actually use.

[Lomax]

That said, while things like that are fun to build, I'm loathe to buy them for the simple reason that they're not useful once completed. I prefer to build things I'll actually use.

Agreed, and I think a power supply with current limit, and volt/ampere meters, would be quite useful for him, but seeing as he's never (to my knowledge) assembled a PCB before, I think it's a little early for such an advanced build - one which also involves 240V... And I do think he would like something like a clock or an LED cube, something attractive which he can say he "built" himself. Still, I'm not sure how much you'd learn from assembling such a kit - shame it doesn't involve programming a micro, but at least he'll get plenty of practice with the new soldering station putting those 512 LEDs together

[tooki]

Eh, beginners in the 1950s routinely assembled live-chassis radio, TV, and TME kits from HeathKit without dying left and right! I'm sure with your guidance on the critical bits he'd be fine! (That said, what lab PSU kit with mains voltage would you be looking at? The one mentioned above uses off--the-shelf SMPSs, so there's very little "mainsy" work in that kit.)

I do agree, a CC lab PSU is critical. I wonder how many breadboarded circuits I would have blown up in the past few years if I hadn't had a CC supply? 

As for learning: that is the HUGE downside of modern kits. None of them, whether it's a cheapie from China or an overpriced Velleman, include theory of operations. You're lucky if you get a schematic. So they're great for soldering practice and learning troubleshooting blind, but that's about it.

The only exception I know of at the moment is ELV. Their kits have serious documentation. (But no source code for MCUs!!! Grrrrr) They've got some nice lab PSU kits. But I don't think they have documentation in English!!!!