Recommended Beginner Lab Equipment

[asg32000]

I have already searched and found multiple threads (not to mention EEVblog #168) covering the question: "What equipment should I buy for my beginner electronics lab?".  These are all good and useful for a general overview, however, I couldn't find one that is up-to-date that I am confident in leaning on.  Here is my request: can we get an "official" (or semi-official) EEVblog-recommended list of beginner equipment that is stickied in the "Beginners" section?  It would be awesome to have this be a curated list that would be updated every few months or so.  Of course, people can suggest equipment in the thread itself, but ideally the first post would be continually updated by the admin.

It would be neat if there were three tiers for each piece of equipment: bare-minimum, intermediate, and advanced.  It would be useful to have recommendations for each of these tiers so I can judge where I should spend a bit more, and what I should go with if I decide to spend more.

I think a list like this (that is kept up-to-date) could help a lot of beginners like myself.

I know I'm asking for a lot, but you nerds probably love this stuff    Thanks!

[Syntax_Error]

I like what you're getting at, but as I'm sure you read in the other similar threads, a lot of recommendations depend on two critical pieces of knowledge: budget, and applications, meaning how you are going to use the equipment. The huge variation in these parameters from person to person causes large variation in recommendations for most areas. This limits any comprehensiveness that can be achieved without stating some pretty important assumptions which won't apply to everybody.

I totally understand if you are thinking, "It's not that hard. Just tell me what is good value and what to stay away from." I feel the same way as I build my own lab. All I can say is that there are gems of this type of information in Dave's video reviews and in those threads you already viewed. You know your budget and application better than anyone else, so you can prioritize your equipment needs, set specification requirements for resolution, accuracy, and precision, etc. that pertain to your situation.

I started with a multimeter (cheap Mastech one) that measured temp and capacitance, a powered breadboard (which I would not recommend) and an Analog Discovery. Later added a Rigol DS1054Z oscilloscope, which has been nice, but I should have put it a little further down the list of needs.

I honestly think Dave's How to Set up an Electronics Lab really says it all (at least 90%). In it, he gives brands, models, and tells when those things aren't important. I've watched that video at least 15 times over the years. I'd love for him to do another take on the subject, more of a volume 2 than a 2nd edition, though. Only discuss changes from the first one, then add more new recommendations in different areas.

One way I think about equipment is to think of projects I want to do, and think of my equipment and measurement and power needs for those projects. You can do this for a couple different projects, especially if they are unrelated, and see the commonality between them. Get that common gear first.

[tggzzz]

When I was an impecunious student, I built my first computer from scratch using TTL, a 6800, switches and LEDs. The only test equipment I had was a multimeter - so I thought carefully and found ways of using only that equipment.

I'm not suggesting you have to do the same, but getting into the mentality of thinking "this is what I need to know", plus "this is what's available", plus "how can I use what's available to solve my problem" has stood me in very good stead throughout my career.

The more complex exquipment you have, the longer you will have to spend (unproductively) learning how to use it, and the more chances there are that it will trick you.

Now, consider you work for a leading-edge test equipment manufacturer. How would you design and test, say, a 7 digit voltmeter if only 6 digit voltmeters exist? That's a fun intellectual exercise.

So: what's your budget, and - most importantly - what do you want to achieve with the equipment. The answers for a radio ham are going to be very different to those for a software engineer!

[fivefish]

I think Analog Discovery2 fits well into this application as a 1st equipment.

When you need a more capable test equipment for the project you're working on, you'll know.

[zapta]

One way I think about equipment is to think of projects I want to do, and think of my equipment and measurement and power needs for those projects. You can do this for a couple different projects, especially if they are unrelated, and see the commonality between them. Get that common gear first.

+1.

Start building projects and see what tools you need. Don't fall into the trap of focusing too much on the tools you collect and too little on what you actually build with them.

[SenSeS]

When I was a total noob to electronics, I bought pretty much everything he recommended cause I had no clue how else to make the choice. I was using a cheapy iron (not station) and probably like 1mm solder before I saw his videos. I must say, I've been very happy with just copy-catting. I was completely amazed at how easy everything was, I had a few components with no leads that I did with the hot air, and 0603 components with a 1.8mm chisel tip. A few items I didn't get though, like a microscope, solder gun, ESD mat etc, these were too expensive for me. Other than that, I would say copy him!

[lem_ix]

Some solid telephone wire, cutting pliers and a dmm, nothing fancy, a uni-t will do just don't "measure mains current" . When starting out you'll probably just copy stuff from tutorials on a protoboard. When you decide to try soldering get an iron, then after a while you'll figure out you could go with some tweezers .... etc etc etc

Power your project with a battery and a linear regulator.
If you want to play around with microcontrollers get an arduino for a couple of $ from china, can be programmed with the arduino ide which i have mixed feelings about, or even better program it from atmel studio and learn C properly. It can even be used as a cheap o-scope for beginners so highly recommended.

[Z80]

One way I think about equipment is to think of projects I want to do, and think of my equipment and measurement and power needs for those projects. You can do this for a couple different projects, especially if they are unrelated, and see the commonality between them. Get that common gear first.

+1.

Start building projects and see what tools you need. Don't fall into the trap of focusing too much on the tools you collect and too little on what you actually build with them.

Absolutely this  .

Other than basic hand tools, a multimeter, a PSU and to some extent a scope, most gear tends to serve a specific purpose so any recommendations will really depend on what you want to do.  Test equpment tends to change quite frequently these days so buying for the sake of it may mean missing out on the next big wizz bang deal later.  Building your own simple gear can be a great set of starter projects.

[Brumby]

just don't "measure mains current" .

Don't laugh.  I had a guy buy a $$$ Fluke and do just that - in exactly the wrong sense implied.

[tooki]

I tried to measure current that way once (a battery, but with similar end result). But I was 7 years old and it was some cheapie analog VOM, and I had no training whatsoever. 

[DimitriP]

I think a list like this (that is kept up-to-date) could help a lot of beginners like myself.

WOW! 

[MarkDennehy]

How would you design and test, say, a 7 digit voltmeter if only 6 digit voltmeters exist? That's a fun intellectual exercise.

Pffft. Take a six digit voltmeter, stick on a seventh digit in the LSD position, feed it from a random number generator, hire a marketing department that makes more money than the engineering department and sell it on aliexpress

The answers for a radio ham are going to be very different to those for a software engineer!

Yeah, I'm both, so not necessarily

What would be really, really, really useful and not necessarily user-specific would be a list of brand names to avoid and ones that are trustworthy. Yeah, we all know fluke make good multimeters, but I'd never heard of Hameg before starting to search ebay for old analog scopes, and I could say the same about Rigol (it's been a while since I did hardware and I'm only starting back in now).

Having a list that ran like:
Hameg: made decent scopes in the 90s. Good models include the 406,...
Rigol: make reasonable low-end DSOs. Good models include the 1052 but it's getting on a bit, the 1054z which sees Australians lose their freaking minds at their price/performance point , and....
Hakko: damn good soldering stations. Don't buy their FX-888 online, they're all fakes.

...and so on.

In other words, not what I should get, but where I should go if I wanted to get item X.

[rdl]

I agree with the idea that you buy as you go and as you need. Don't start off with some idea that you need to "set up a lab" all at once. There are a few things needed just to get started, but not a lot, and you don't have to spend a ton of money. It's probably better to be somewhat frugal at first to save money for good stuff later on.  I started with stuff from Radio Shack back in the 80s, a $20 breadboard, a decent analog multimeter, a cheap soldering iron, and a homemade LM317 based power supply (made with parts from Radio Shack of course) and that was all I really used for many years.

[Pack34]

I would suggest starting with a simple USB measurement device (like the Analog Discovery2) and a cheap multimeter. Then start working on some projects and buy additional tools and development boards as you need it.

[tooki]

I agree with the advice of not buying everything up-front. You know when you need something because you're working and realize you can't do it.

I have built up a minimal lab over the course of the last year, revisiting the electronics hobby I'd embraced as a kid and neglected in my teens and 20s. After the DMM and soldering station, I just acquired as I ran into a concrete need. This is what I ended up with, in approximate order of acquisition:

1. Fluke 87-V handheld DMM
2. Ersa i-Con Nano soldering station (includes 1.6mm chisel tip, i added 2.4mm and 3.2mm chisels and a 2.3mm drag soldering tip)
3. No-name lab PSU (appears to be a Mastech HY3005D)
4. Rigol DS1054Z scope
5. 858D+ hot air rework station (WAY more useful than I expected, well worth the $50)
6. Keithley 197 bench DMM
7. Korad KA3005P lab PSU
8. $20 eBay LCR/component tester
9. cheapie VC830L compact handheld DMM for shits and giggles

Additionally, I purchased various hand tools and supplies as needed, such as (in no particular order)
- good diagonal cutters (the fine kind for clipping PCB component leads, with the little gripper that keeps them from flying across the room)
- various types of wire strippers
- various crimp tools
- component lead former
- top quality solder and flux (I use 0.8mm Kester 63/37 with type 44 rosin flux as my everyday solder, and I have a few others from MG Chemicals, and MG 63/37 solder paste)
- solder reel holders
- solder sucker
- desoldering wick (MG Chemicals, best I've used)
- hobby creek helping hands tool
- trays to hold projects
- Proxxon rotary tool (like Dremel, but far better quality)
- breadboards and leads (commercial jumper leads, and some custom ones like banana-to-header, both male and female, for power, and 3.5mm audio plugs and jacks to male header)
- test leads of all sorts (Fluke TL175 probes, banana-to-minigrabber, BNC-to-minigrabber, banana leads, minigrabber-to-minigrabber)
- antistatic mat and wristband
- power strip with individual switched outlets, for extra safety when working on mains-powered devices

Also, because Switzerland doesn't have any distributors with free shipping, I stocked up on basic components, like resistors, caps, LEDs, pots, and protoboard. I also stocked up significantly on connectors, like headers, matching "dupont" crimp connectors and housings, spade connectors, etc. because the savings on connectors is just massive compared to buying at the local shop. Ordered from China, it's just amazingly cheap, and good enough for beginner tinkering. Then when I'm ready to build the final circuit, I buy good parts from the local distributor.

If I had to prioritize, I'd say the essentials are a good DMM or two, an oscilloscope (SO MUCH you learn with it!), breadboards, and a good quality soldering station (it's a revelation compared to using a bad station or a simple "fire stick"). For many circuits, you can actually get away without a lab PSU, just run off batteries. I also might add the hot air station to the essentials: aside from being great for heat-shrink tubing, it suddenly makes SMD approachable, and it turns out to be handy for other things too, such as desoldering multi-leaded through-hole components.

[VEGETA]

Also, because Switzerland doesn't have any distributors with free shipping, I stocked up on basic components, like resistors, caps, LEDs, pots, and protoboard. I also stocked up significantly on connectors, like headers, matching "dupont" crimp connectors and housings, spade connectors, etc. because the savings on connectors is just massive compared to buying at the local shop. Ordered from China, it's just amazingly cheap, and good enough for beginner tinkering. Then when I'm ready to build the final circuit, I buy good parts from the local distributor.

This is what I suffer from too here in Jordan. All these parts are so expensive! I bought some from China, but they are not enough! there will be a time where you need a MOSFET or a certain shotky diode or something... this is a problem. Do you know someone or some place that offer loads of these components together? not buying resistors alone and caps alone.

[karoru]

It would be neat if there were three tiers for each piece of equipment: bare-minimum, intermediate, and advanced.  It would be useful to have recommendations for each of these tiers so I can judge where I should spend a bit more, and what I should go with if I decide to spend more.

There's no such thing as "bare-minimum". There's only tier that is worth noting when starting  - "don't buy it, and if friend offers it to you for free, then reconsider the friendship". List of equipment to NOT buy is much more valuable:) If you start with a crappy protoboard and 5$ meter after a few days (if not hours) of frustration and failing you will be able to answer your question yourself - what do I need from a meter? Why is that breadboard crap? Don't focus on a gear, your lab will grow naturally when you need it and you'll make rational choice given your needs and budget. The best advice you can get is: 1) what not to buy (eg. these 100$ Ebay chinese usb scopes) 2) what mechanical tools/cables to get (these are cheap and give instant gratification in your workflow from the very beginning).

[tooki]

... there will be a time where you need a MOSFET or a certain shotky diode or something... this is a problem. Do you know someone or some place that offer loads of these components together? not buying resistors alone and caps alone.

Tayda Electronics (they're on eBay but also have their own website) is in Thailand and carries a pretty decent selection, and they ship really fast. Not as cheap as the cheapest Chinese vendors, but still very cheap compared to local.

[lem_ix]

just don't "measure mains current" .

Don't laugh.  I had a guy buy a $$$ Fluke and do just that - in exactly the wrong sense implied.

Had a guy do it with a Mastech, contrary to popular belief his arms are still attached, meter went mach10. Maybe they do meet their cat rating 

Back to the original topic, as some people mentioned basic components are a good investment.

[MrSlack]

Purchase #1: safety glasses to go with your cheap meters

I'd buy:

- TWO cheap Uni-T meters. Better have two shit ones than a single nice Fluke 87V. I've got 4 meters and I need another one.
- a breadboard
- pack of assorted resistors
- pack of assorted electrolytic capacitors
- pack of assorted polybox caps
- assorted NPN and PNP gen purpose transistors
- some solid hook up wire
- some LEDs
- 2 each 6v and 12v AA battery boxes and a crate of AA batteries (cheap dual rail supplies!)
- battery clips
- assorted trimmers
- cheap Chinese banana plug to hook leads.
- some ICs: 555, 741s (start with simple op amps)
- LDR, thermistor.
- side cutters
- pliers
- cheap Casio calculator
- mechanical pencil
- notebook, squared.
- red bull

I you're inclined, buy an arduino and some sensors but I'd nail some analogue first.

I wouldn't buy anything fancy like a scope too quickly. Soldering iron and some proto boards probably next.

Don't splurge on equipping yourself with everything you might need.

Edit: the only things you mustn't cheap out on are the side cutters and the breadboard.

[PA4TIM]

Buy when you need it. It is useless to buy things you do not know yet how to use and maybe you will never use them.

You can build instruments your self, very educational. When I started, I made a simple RF generator, totally crap but it did what I needed. But if you are not into radio you will not need one.

I started with a Fluke77-III DMM, soldering iron and an old analog  scope.  These things can multiply as fast as rabbits, now you wonder what to buy, in a few years you wonder what to toss out because you need room for that calibrator that you must have because you then can calibrate that 10 digit multimeter as soon as it is invented, you can not be prepared enough ;-) A bit over the top ? Not really, it is the same problem you have now, wanting to buy thing you maybe can use somewhere in the future.

Buy books and learn from them. Knowledge is still the most usefull tool.

A list in categories is a great idea but not realistic.
Take for instance beginner/ medium advanced: A HAM will use totally different tools as someone who plays with an arduino or wants to build audio things.

Or the good/nogood brand lists. This will not work in a 1000 years. This will ends in endless discussions between the fanboy tribes.
I really hated my former Rigol scope while probably >50% of the users here are Rigol fanboys. I know people who are very happy with there 10 dollar soldering station, I have a few very good soldering stations with a lot of power (Weller, Metcal, Pace) and sometimes even that is not enough. If you solder things on veroboard or single sided pcb's most irons will do, but if you want to solder caps in/out multilayer boards with a lot of ground only a few of the better station will do the job (without damage)

[OilsFan]

OP seems to be implying that Dave's how to set up a lab video is out of date. I don't think it is at all. I had all the hand tools and a few Extech DMM's from my job. I took Dave's advice and bought a CRO off ebay for $50. I had to do some minor repair to it but it works well enough. I then got a function gen for $40 on ebay and finally I got a decent bench multi meter for $100 there too. Took me about 6 months. I just kept waiting till I found a good deal. I should mention that I can afford really nice tools if I wanted. I just haven't bought any nice ones because I wasn't sure how deep into this I wanted to go. Dave practically sold me on that Rhode & Schwartz HMO scope though.   

[tooki]

OP seems to be implying that Dave's how to set up a lab video is out of date. I don't think it is at all.

That's a very good point I didn't pick up on when I read the OP. Indeed, the only item in that video that's outdated is the oscilloscope recommendation, with the DS1054Z clearly being superior to the DS1052E recommended in the video.

[tooki]

I'd buy:
- TWO cheap Uni-T meters. Better have two shit ones than a single nice Fluke 87V. I've got 4 meters and I need another one.
- a breadboard
- pack of assorted resistors
- pack of assorted electrolytic capacitors
- pack of assorted polybox caps
- assorted NPN and PNP gen purpose transistors
- some solid hook up wire
- some LEDs
- 2 each 6v and 12v AA battery boxes and a crate of AA batteries (cheap dual rail supplies!)
- battery clips
- assorted trimmers
- cheap Chinese banana plug to hook leads.
- some ICs: 555, 741s (start with simple op amps)
- LDR, thermistor.
- side cutters
- pliers
- cheap Casio calculator
- mechanical pencil
- notebook, squared.
- red bull

I you're inclined, buy an arduino and some sensors but I'd nail some analogue first.

I wouldn't buy anything fancy like a scope too quickly. Soldering iron and some proto boards probably next.

Don't splurge on equipping yourself with everything you might need.

Edit: the only things you mustn't cheap out on are the side cutters and the breadboard.

Honestly, I think that's terrible advice.

You absolutely want to have one high-quality DMM whose readings you have absolute confidence in. The last thing you want is to be chasing down a problem when in fact it was just meter failure. There's absolutely nothing wrong with having extra cheap DMMs, but you want to periodically check them against your reference meter. (My Fluke 87 and Keithley 197 serve this purpose for me.) Similarly, I wouldn't recommend buying cheap Chinese cables, they break easily and are just plain annoying. By shopping around, you can get good quality leads for not that much more.

I wouldn't recommend buying LDRs or thermistors unless you have a specific project lined up for them.

I also highly recommend buying an Arduino. They're really good at letting you get quick results, which is rather gratifying and keeps you interested as you get deeper into the subject. I also find it strange that you would recommend becoming proficient with analog first, yet advise against buying an oscilloscope early. I think it's precisely for the analog side of things that an oscilloscope affords incredible insight. You learn so much by being able to see the signals that you're creating.

[Cliff Matthews]

Side cutters don't need to be expensive, just proven to last, like these: http://www.amazon.com/Xcelite-170M-General-Shearcutter-Diagonal/dp/B0002BBZIS
An EEV thread on tools: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/quality-tools-for-diy-electronics/