EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
General => General Technical Chat => Topic started by: Joshua on October 22, 2011, 02:52:38 am
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Hey Everybody!
My birthday is this week and my parents usually spend around 100$ USD, and want to know what I want. I know it's last minute, but it hasn't been at the top of my mind. ::)
Anyway I have multimeters, a rigol scoope, and a hakko soldering iron. Those are the main pieces of 'kit' I have.
Does anyone have any suggestions in this price range (can be more or less) of something that is very useful in a lab. I really want something I can use alot, not some specialty piece of equipment that gets used 2 times a year.
I've been bouncing around the thought of a Atten 858D+ and a panavise work holder.
So any suggestions?
Joshua
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Power supply
Selection of good quality tools
LCR
Lots of storage boxes to finally sort all your junk (if you have lots)
Siggen
Dremel
Glue gun
New workdesk/shelving
Antistatic mats
Toolbox
Also a nice movable magnifying desk lamp is really handy if you don't have one. Not just for magnifying stuff, its really useful to have a movable light source above your work area.
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Thanks Psi for the reply...
Power supply Currently Building one, but have one to use temporarily
Selection of good quality tools What tools do you use the most? I have screwdrivers, cutters, tweezers, etc...
LCR I guess I don't really have a need for this yet (I am, by the standards that be, still a intermediate beginner) Where do you use this?
Lots of storage boxes to finally sort all your junk (if you have lots)Plenty of these...I like things organized :o
Siggen What is the application of these? I don't really understand where to use one. Links?
Dremel Check
Glue gun Couldn't live without it
New work desk/shelving Not possible considering i'm on a computer desk in my small bedroom...
Antistatic mats Check, so as to not destroy the nice desk while soldering and such
Toolbox Check
Also a nice movable magnifying desk lamp is really handy if you don't have one. Yes, that sounds like something useful. I am always having to use a flashlight and a little magnifier. Any suggestions?
Thanks again! Keep the suggestions coming!
Joshua
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MCM electronics has a surprisingly good capacitance meter for $34. They aren't glamorous or exciting, but the things I use more than anything else in the lab are BNC cables, adapters and clip leads. One can never have too many cables and adapters, hopefully good ones from Pomona.
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MCM electronics has a surprisingly good capacitance meter for $34. They aren't glamorous or exciting, but the things I use more than anything else in the lab are BNC cables, adapters and clip leads. One can never have too many cables and adapters, hopefully good ones from Pomona.
How often do you use a capacitance meter? Is it mainly just for testing caps you suspect to be bad?
Hmmm very true. I am always wishing I had a certain cable. Added to the list.
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Selection of good quality tools What tools do you use the most? I have screwdrivers, cutters, tweezers, etc...
Tools i use the most are probably
- screwdrivers, cutters, SMT tweezers, solder sucker, pliers, antistatic pcb cleaning brush, jewelers screwdrivers.
Tools that i don't use very often but that are really useful and make things easier
- dot punch, step drills, nibbler
LCR I guess I don't really have a need for this yet (I am, by the standards that be, still a intermediate beginner) Where do you use this?
I bought my peak LCR because i had a box of inductors and i had no idea what value they were. I like building switchmode supplies and i would always have to buy an inductor to get the right value. With the LCR i can find and reuse old inductors.
I actually got my peak LCR in a kit with the peak component tester at the same time (DCA55).
I must say i use the component tester far more often than the LCR.
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Do you have any particular interests?
Just for example, for $100, instead of spending it on equipment, you could get an Arduino Uno board, several shields, 10 spare processor chips, 10 Freeduino boards for embedding into things you make, a $3 Nokia CA042 USB cable so you can make a USB programming cable for the freeduino boards, the Maker's Notebook (ISBN 978-0-596-51941-4 - it is not a bad way to record the work you are doing), and perhaps book or two on Arduino programming.
If this kind of thing interests you, then it is not just that you can learn to make impressive things very quickly. If you think about it, the Arduino has several channels of 10 bit A/D converters and lots of digital inputs, timers, PWM outputs. You can program it to measure something that most people cannot do without some very expensive instrument. In this thread https://www.eevblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=5259.15 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=5259.15), Neutron7 wants to capture certain type of waveform, and found his Rigol scope didn't really do a good job. So he is now programming a micro to capture the data instead. That is the kind of thing that is possible.
Richard
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Going from a Radio Shack "holding hands" to a Panavise was like night and day. I'm not sure you need to get it now, when you are first starting out, but it is definitely something to get sometime. I use both the PCB holder and the extra-wide holder; never tried the standard vise head.
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Some of the digital stuff that Dangerous Prototypes makes might be useful (though I don't own any of it personally). They have a JTAG adaptor (Bus Blaster), logic analyser (Open Logic Sniffer), and a PC interface (Bus Pirate) for testing SPI/I2C/etc. buses from a PC, at $30/$50/$35 respectively. The JTAG interface might be useful if you want to get into ARM or FPGAs.
Alternatively, what about books? The ARRL handbook is fairly cheap and is rather interesting if you're into RF.
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A copy of The Art of Electronics!
Dave.
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A Terasic DE-Nano (http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&No=593), and a second hand copy of Digital Systems (Tocci/Widmer/Moss)! Get ahead of the game and start learning VHDL! Fun and useful down the track!
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+1 for a hot air tool. The soldering iron that comes with the 898D is pretty decent and handy for those times when you need a second iron.
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A copy of The Art of Electronics!
Dave.
I'll second that. But you can only get the softcover copy of "The Bible" for $100 and out of experience a 1kg (2lb) softcover book don't last long.
At my previous employer (a large company by South African standards) they were "spring cleaning" and while I was scavenging the heap over lunchtime (it covered about three parking spaces in the basement). I discovered the "treasure" under a pile of 1990's component catalogs, a 2nd edition hardcover Art of Electronics with only the cover slightly torn.
Chuffed with my find at my desk the afternoon, the CTO came up to me noticed the book. Opened the cover looked at the first page ..... The horror, his name and the date was written in there. It was his textbook from uni "and had a lot of sentimental value". >:(
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A copy of The Art of Electronics!
Dave.
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A nice set of adaptors (of almost any kind), connectors, banana-alligator clips cables, a high quality coax cable with BNC connectors, 50 Ohm BNC terminator etc. etc. You can never have enough of this stuff and some of those things are suprisingly hard to get when you really need some particular piece.
That reminded me I was going to buy a crimping tool and some good cable and connectors by the way. I bought a function generator like two months ago and it's just sitting on the desk because I keep forgetting about this.
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+1 for Art of Electronics. It will last you forever and be more useful that almost any other $100 bit of kit. There are also other excellent books if you have more specialized interests.