Electronics > Beginners

Need Advice Please. Lab Setup

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Simon_RL:
Hi All,
Thanks all for the great advice. I now know what I need and don't need for now and also been given a clear direction for my learning. I very much appreciation the help and advice, starting out in electronics is quite daunting and knowing where to start is quite difficult, especially we T&M kit.

Berni:
Hantek AWG Function generator? Hell no :scared:

I think i had bought a Hantek HDG2032B because the specs seamed really nice for the low price. The thing looks decently well made and everything. But oh god the software on that thing. It was dead on arrival as it would boot and everything but not give any signal. Talked to the seller who couldn't figure it out, eventually got in contact with someone at Hantek that determined after a bit of troubleshooting that its dead and needs to be sent back for service until i eventually convinced him to give me new firmware files and flashing all of those fixed it and got it working. Was pretty happy with it, but then i found some combinations of settings that cause it to crash and reboot, if you selected to save settings it will restore them and crash again getting stuck in an infinite reboot look until you reset it to the recovery firmware. Then later on i found some setting combinations actually give the wrong output. like asking for 1Khz and getting 387Hz. New firmwares came out that fixed one thing but broke another etc.. Eventually i had enough and sold it to a unsuspecting coworker and went and bought a old Tektronix AWG function gen and never looked back.

Expensive multi meters don't help that much. But having a good ~100USD handheld multimeter is nice (The EEVblog brand multimeters Dave is selling are pretty nice too). An extra multimeter never hurts

But you usually want to buy things that you don't yet have. Like perhaps a decent USB logic analyzer if you do a lot of MCU development, maybe a nice bench PSU, Electronic load.

Its also not always the big equipment that has value. Things like good probes, cables, crocodile clips, grabbers, soldering aids etc can help a lot too.

beanflying:
The thing you haven't mentioned is Power Supplies or lack of? A couple of channels of Linear 0-15 or better 0-30V and a few Amps would be well worth it now and into the future. Secondhand ones do come up occasionally in Oz secondhand for a decent price but they are rare at really good prices or silvia was a contributing member here and I have brought a couple of things from him https://www.ebay.com.au/usr/silvia99gt Either that or take a bit more of a punt and import your own. This is one thing not to cheap out on or go Switch Mode if possible.

Also a decent soldering iron if you are wanting to play with SMD bits.

And finally now you have one semi decent Meter you need to buy a second one too  ;D

Simon_RL:

--- Quote from: beanflying on January 15, 2020, 07:19:12 am ---The thing you haven't mentioned is Power Supplies or lack of? A couple of channels of Linear 0-15 or better 0-30V and a few Amps would be well worth it now and into the future. Secondhand ones do come up occasionally in Oz secondhand for a decent price but they are rare at really good prices or silvia was a contributing member here and I have brought a couple of things from him https://www.ebay.com.au/usr/silvia99gt Either that or take a bit more of a punt and import your own. This is one thing not to cheap out on or go Switch Mode if possible.

Also a decent soldering iron if you are wanting to play with SMD bits.

And finally now you have one semi decent Meter you need to buy a second one too  ;D

--- End quote ---

Thanks Beanfling, I have an RD6006 which is great for powering Arduino board and really basic stuff, but with all I am learning I have realised a good clean DC power source is very important. I have been eyeing off the Rigol DP832, I have watch Dave's videos and about it and I am pretty much sold. I will have some more money from the sale of my mono astronomy camera plus related gear soon (if anyone is into Astrophotography they will know how time consuming Mono is, so I have switched to OSC), so that will easily fund the DP832.

rhb:

--- Quote from: Simon_RL on January 15, 2020, 03:17:27 am ---Hi All,
Thanks all for the great advice. I now know what I need and don't need for now and also been given a clear direction for my learning. I very much appreciation the help and advice, starting out in electronics is quite daunting and knowing where to start is quite difficult, especially we T&M kit.

--- End quote ---

One closing comment:

Have Fun!

Reg

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