(Part 2) Top products from r/electronics

That's a tough one to answer really, but here are a few thoughts on the subject.

If you are looking for the really basic stuff, as in you still need to learn ohms law and how to read a circuit diagram you can start out with the absolute basics;

• 200 in one kit: I started out with this one in 1984 and it's still around. You can also do a search for "electronic bricks", "snap circuits" or some such. It's considered more of a toy than anything else, but it will quickly get you up to speed at least.
  
  
• There is a 2 part lab made to go with a book by Forrest Mims at Radio Shack... Can't find it online, but it's a pretty good kit that goes with a good reference. It's one of the few things Radio Shack offers at a sort of reasonable price.
  
  
• Check out any number of sites for "Basic Electronics Kit". A lot of kit places will separate their kids by skill level. This won't give you an in depth understanding of all things electronic, but it will give you the "learn by doing" experience. You'll build things like larson scanners, and refrigerator alarms, pretty useless, but they are cheap at least.
  
  
• I'm going to add 'any arduino kit' to the list. You won't get ohms law or reading circuit diagrams as part of the lesson plan, but most of these kits will have lessons on how not to fry your arduino and you can pick up the basics by induction
  
  Now, if you already have the circuit reading and ohms law down and you just want to know where to go from there, you've got a lot more choices.
  
  
• Assemble your own kit: Once a person finishes with the above suggestions, they realize that it all would have been cheaper had they just done this at the beginning... Unfortunately, before you go through the basics you probably have no idea what to get for your self assembled kit. Electronix Express has two parts kits and a tool kit. I wouldn't call them the best, but they do have a wide selection of parts at a decent price.
  
  
• Arduino kit. Yes, I mentioned this already, but it's also a good step when "moving up" and learning microcontroller basics. There are better microcontroller boards out there, but arduino is like Ubuntu Linux; lots of community support.
  
  
• Advanced kits. Yes, I skipped intermediate kits. You can still look at those, but really, the difference between basic, intermediate, and advanced kits to me seems to have more to do with confidence than anything else. More parts, more complex diagrams and instructions. These kits will take you longer, but they are no more difficult than any other. One thing they sometimes offer is customizability which offers a great learning experience. I DO suggest that you find a kit that has some kind of support; a forum on the sellers website, or even user made videos on youtube. The instructions you get may not mention things like using blue-tac to hold buttons in place or have other helpful hints that a community may have for you.
  
  Well, lot to think about there. Good luck, and don't forget /r/AskElectronics for help.

I'm nowhere near pro, but I do have a couple of electronics tools I absolutely love. A large benchtop multimeter is nice, but it is sometimes very useful to have a pocket unit you can carry around in a shirt pocket. I love my AMprobe PM51A. For $30, you get a lot of functionality. As jotux said, a Panavise is very nice to have. I have a Panavise Jr that has been very useful. One thing I don't have that I have been eyeing to a while is a pocket sized Digital Storage Oscilloscope. Worth checking out.

It depends what you are working on, but if you are working on through-hole and SMT in the under $40 price range I'd go with a Weller WLC100. It was my first iron and I used it for a long time before I finally upgraded (I still use it sometimes).

The stock tip was a little big for my taste so I bought a replacement (ST7) tip. The ST7 is a smaller conical tip. You can also find these on Amazon, but pay attention to the shipping if you order it off Amazon Marketplace, some 3rd party tool vendors will gouge you!

For the Fume extraction you should buy a fume extractor... heh. Pretty simple. I built my first fume extractor from an old PC power supply, an old exhaust fan, an articulating lamp base, some activated charcoal pads, and a length of dryer hose.

You can certainly go that route and build your own. It's nice if you already have the parts on hand, but eventually it became too unwieldy so I bought a Weller Fume Extractor. You can buy something similar for about half the price on Marlin P. Jones, but I was never able to catch them in stock.

Either way, look around, have fun, and good luck!

It's easier than ever to get into electronics these days. Make Magazine (actually, O'Reilly) publishes a wide variety of books, including starter books on electronics and simple computer circuits.
http://oreilly.com/

Also, Amazon sells some kits for folks who want to get their feet wet (tho wet feet aren't a very safe way to work in this field). This one is meant for teenagers who are probably younger than you are, but it will take you to the right part of Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Vintage-Sports-Cards-MX-906-Electronic/dp/B00005K2SY/ref=sr_1_43?ie=UTF8&qid=1380830249&sr=8-43&keywords=electronics+kit

If you're working from a book rather than a kit, you can order parts, even in ones, from suppliers like Digikey.com For orders under $25, they charge an extra $5. Even so, they're much cheaper than Radio Shack. Also, look up Sparkfun Electronics and their collection of books, kits, and free online projects.

At the minimum, you'll need a multimeter (volts, amps, ohms). Check ebay for these. A soldering iron is a useful tool, but a cheap one can be more trouble than it's worth. Better to use a solderless prototyping board (see Amazon or Digikey) at first.

I highly recommend the Hakko 936 soldering iron Hakko 888 soldering iron, which is still actually available. It's hard to fathom how a $100 soldering iron could be that much better than a $20 one, but once you start doing anything more serious than just sticking some wires together, it's worth it.

As for other tools,

• Standard needle nose, dikes, and pliers set
  
• Tweezers - Additionally plastic ones if you're going to do PCB etching.
  
• Dental Picks - for positioning surface mount parts and pushing wires into molten solder.
  
• Wire strippers - You'll often see people using the combo wire stripper / crimpers. They're not as nice as a real pair of strippers.
  
• +/-12V power supply for basic analog electronics, 5V for digital work
  
• Breadboard
  
• Solder sucker - Copper braid is useful for the same thing, but given the choice of the two, I prefer the sucker to undo soldered joints.
  
• 30x Jewelers Loupe - Mostly useful for surface mount work, but pretty much all soldering is easier when you're able to look at it.
  
  As for components, I've been buying them piece-meal for years, so other's will probably be able to yield you a better recommendation for kits than anything I can find just from a quick search. I do mostly digital work, so as far as passives, my main stock is:
  
  
• 0.1uF and 100uF capacitors, 25V
  
• 100, 330, 1k, 4.7k, 10k, 100k, 1M resistors
  
  If I need any other resistor for a specific project, I'll tend to just buy an extra 10 and keep them in labeled coin envelopes.
  
  Random other pieces:
  
  
• Precut Breadboard jumper wires
  
• 7805 - 1A 5V linear regulators
  
• 1N4007 diodes
  
• 1N4148 small signal diodes
  
• 3V linear regulators if you do low power work (MSP430, etc)
  
• An Arduino - If not for real projects, I use this a lot to hack together crude digital signal generators to test other chips.
  
• LEDs - I found a good deal on bright red ones, but any will do
  
• push buttons, power switches, DIP switches (4 in a tiny package that fits in breadboards)
  
• Copper clad perf board - To make through-hole projects permanent. Be careful because this also comes without the copper pads, which is just more of a pain in the ass to use.
  
• Copper Solder braid
  
  Edit: Fixed the soldering iron model.
  
  Disclaimer: I'm using my Amazon Associate links for all of these, which always feel a little amoral and a conflict of interest, but really, if my apartment were to go up in flames and I could afford it, I'd buy every link on this list right now. Does anyone have strong opinions one way or the other on using them?

I saw a review a while ago where they said the accuracy was reasonable for home use but the author would be leery using at 120v or above.

Good auto-rangers are so cheap these days, it's hard to justify even spending $5 on something like this. Look at this one for $22: https://www.amazon.com/Extech-MN35-Digital-Mini-MultiMeter/dp/B0012VWR20 You can get pretty nice ones in the $50 range.

Funny that everyone is admonishing your misfortune without answering your question.

I have one of these little amprobe guys:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B001L4E9Z6

The size is great, I keep it in my laptop bag. Have used to to rewire 220 mains, work on 12v cars, and 3v3 circuits.

The size and portability make this the most used multimeter I've ever owned. It's great, the coin cell lasts a long time, and it's not given me different readings than any other meter within a couple of %.

Because it's always with me in my laptop bag, there have been a few occasions where I've been able to bust it out to save a day here and there.

A combination of this and this.

I love the Stanley boxes, because if you've got multiple you can mix the trays around in addition to being able to take them out to keep it organized on the table top. The smallest removable boxes in those fit resistors with the reel tape on them still, so I consider them perfect size. The container store ones are just deep enough to fit a concrete power resistor. You could also mount a ton of them on the wall if you've got the room or a bigger workspace.

I built something similar a few years back. I just wanted inexpensive blinking lights to skater around. You probably can't do much better than a 555 timer. A quick search will turn up hundreds of schematics (try terms like this )

One of the best resources would be Forrest Mims. If you "look inside" and go to "first pages" you will see pretty much exactly what you need. And if you decide to dig deeper into electronics you couldn't start much better than Mims. Seriously, the whole book is a gold mine.

Finally, you may want to look at making a custom PCB. I can't find the files anymore, but you can squeeze 6 copies of the complete circuit on a one 2" x 4" board fairly easily. I'll see if I can't find my layout. Sourcing PCBs is really easy these days. I've used these guys before. They were ok but a little pricey but I was only prototyping so it wasn't a big deal.

EDIT: Seconding what jptdrake wrote. Also, if you goal is a few pounds per box, ditch the PCB. Get some perf board and a soldering iron.

If youre thinking of buying that, dont waste your money, its a POS. I would recommend this station, good quality brand, relatively cheap and has some heat settings, doesnt give temperature, but its better than no control at all. Also the tips are pretty easily found.

Not quite what you asked for, but I recently switched from those sets of drawers to these carrying cases with removable bins:

http://www.amazon.ca/Stanley-014725R-Professional-Organizer-Yellow/dp/B00005QWYF/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417559051&sr=8-1&keywords=stanley+organizer

I also modeled up some replacement bins of non-standard sizes, if you have access to a 3D printer:

https://github.com/BenBergman/stanley_bin

One great thing about these bins is that a standard size breadboard is exactly the same size as four of the smallest bins, so it is really easy to keep all the parts I need for a project together in one place.

Practical Electronics For Inventors shows you the basics of DC and AC analysis, how all the passive components work, how all the basic active components work (including BJTs, JFETs, and MOSFETs), and provides a TON of easy-to-build, practical projects.
I got this book when I took Circuits I, and because I read ahead in this book (which I found easy to understand even without any Circuits experience), I was one of three people in my Circuits I class (out of 40) to get an A. I still use this book today.

All About Circuits is very similar to the theory section of this book, but I do recommend this book since there are WAY more pictures, figures, and diagrams to help you along.

I recommend checking out Circuit Specialists. I have their model 2901 station and it works very well--I have compared it to the venerable (and $80) Weller WES51, and prefer the 2901--it heats faster than the Weller and has cheaper replacement tips.

You don't need a facemask to solder, but you should do so in a ventilated area. If you don't have a ventilated area, I strongly recommend a solder fume extractor. If you use leaded solder, lead is definitely a concern, but even if you use lead-free / RoHS compliant solder, the fumes are not healthy. If you absolutely can't afford a fume extractor (or don't want to figure out how to make your own out of a PC fan and a sheet of activated carbon), use lead-free solder and work near a window.

Learn from as many different sources as you can find. I recommend Forrest Mims's books (one) , (two) , (three)

Beware that most SPICE simulators focus on very simple 2-terminal and 3-terminal electronic devices: resistors, capacitors, inductors, transistors. But in today's modern world, we design electronics using VLSI integrated circuits, and these are seldom available as SPICE models.

So you will be able to SPICE simulate transistor circuits like the winkie-blinkie thing you built years ago. You'll be able to SPICE simulate opamp circuits, and 555 timer circuits. But not much more, because you won't have the requisite simulation models. Eventually you'll have to build real circuits in the real world and test them out in reality.

If you're an experienced software engineer then you can handle the calculus-I level math needed to understand "real electrical engineering" as practiced by non-hobbyists. After you get somewhat up to speed designing and simulating and building circuits that work (say, in 9 or 12 months), you can start to read college EE textbooks and begin to understand what SPICE ".AC analysis" actually is & why it's useful. You'll learn what SPICE ".FOURIER" is good for, and what it isn't. And so forth.

I haven't been at this for very long, but so far, I've had great experiences with the Aoyue 937+ Digital Soldering Station and the Mastech Auto-ranging digital multimeter. Both are way under $100 ($54 and $30 respectively, at the time of writing this). The soldering station heats up very quickly and the multimeter has been accurate so far. It has plenty of functions, too.

Precision. $30 meters tend to not have it.

I paid ~$400 for a 6.5 digit meter recently, and it's been worth every penny. Not everyone needs that precision, though, and that's fine. :)

Anyways, if you want a meter in that price range, at least get one with standard detachable probes. That's generally a sign of higher quality. This Extech meter is an excellent choice, for instance.

Can't use free eagle (too big) for this, but kicad or probably other things would work. With a few good books you can lay out a big board without advanced tools, although it can take longer. With cheap/free tools you'll usually have to use some finicky or kludgy methods to do really complex routing (blind/buried vias, free vias, heat transfer, trace length), but that usually isn't too big a deal. Here's a timelapse of a guy using Altium to route a high speed, large (a bit smaller than op's) data board for a high speed camera. The description has rough steps with timestamps- 38 hours total to lay out.

I'm hesitant to go against the grain on this one but I've had good luck with this. They also make an analog version.

All these comments are great, but the absolute beginning is here!

Next read the book suggested by ryzic. If you have the money, id buy the companion kits that Make sells for the book.

After reading those two books and doing all the projects, look into some "project kits." Check out sparkfun, The Evil Genius series of books, or my favorite the Nuts and Volts store.

After three or four "project kits" just find schematics and figure out how to buy all the parts yourself. Really the world is your oyester and with enough struggling you can build anything. Some ideas that always get people excited: a Tesla coil, cell phone jammers, tasers, ultrasonic range finders, a robotic arm, mechanized nerf gun, anything you think is cool and can find a schematic for.

From there you a going to find yourself really interested in microcontrollers. And well.. Thats a different comment lol!

The Engineer PA-09 is one of the best "small pin" crimping tools for hobbyists. They aren't dirt cheap, but they are worth $40-$50 price, which is cheap compared to official tools from connector manufacturers. I own a PA-09 and highly recommend it. If you never crimp the smallest pins, then a PA-20 or PA-21 might be better for you.

-----

Info about each crimp tool:

• http://www.engineer.jp/en/products/pa09e.html (PA-09 and PA-20)
  
  
• http://www.engineer.jp/en/products/pa21e.html (PA-21)
  
  -----
  
  Tables for "die size" to use for each connector family of each brand JST, Molex, AMP, JAE, HRS:
  
  
• http://www.engineer.jp/en/products/pa09_20applicatn_chart.html
  
  
• http://www.engineer.jp/en/products/pa21applicatn_chart.html
  
  -----
  
  Amazon:
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Engineer-PA-09-Micro-Connector-Crimpers/dp/B002AVVO7K
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Engineer-PA-20-Universal-Terminal-Crimping/dp/B002AVVO7U
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Engineer-PA-21-Universal-Crimping-Pliers/dp/B002L6HJ8W
  
  -----
  

This is what we have around the house/lab. It works well, and offers variable heat control, which is handy. It comes with tips that are pre-tinned, which makes it much easier to keep them tinned.

I'm sure you've thought of it, but just in case, make sure your solder is lead-free. Also, the lower temp stuff works better for PCB work. If you do get the Weller iron I linked to, 50% heat should be more than enough for PCBs.

If your budget allows for it, this is what I have:
http://www.amazon.com/Weller-WESD51-Digital-Soldering-Station/dp/B000ARU9PO

I haven't done professional hardware development in 20 years, but back then this station was everywhere. With this one, you cannot go wrong.

Today there might be cheaper solutions that are usable. If you go through the episodes in this video blog http://www.eevblog.com/episodes/ you'll find many reviews of soldering stations and somewhere even recommendations for good starting tools.

I found the book "Practical Electronics for Inventors" to be very helpful explaining things when I was getting started. It starts from results and metaphors and then introduces theory. Sort of the opposite of a lot of textbooks that are theory oriented and light on practical uses and metaphorical explanations of components.

With that book and some Arduinos I have gone on to fame (well my mom thinks I am famous) and fortune (I am a hundred-aire!) selling electronics I design and program.

You probably need to be more specific... like what you plan to accomplish (robotics, microcontrollers, amatuer radio).

For electronic theory I recommend: There are no electrons: Electronics for earthlings

Oh dear god, please buy one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/Elenco-Piece-Pre-formed-Jumper-wire/dp/B0002H7AIG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345765743&sr=8-1&keywords=jumper+wire+set

http://www.amazon.com/Breadboard-jumper-wire-70pcs-pack/dp/B0040DEI9M/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1345765764&sr=8-2&keywords=jumper+wire+set

You are going to injure yourself cutting and stripping wire for your project.

Get something like this to learn the basics:
http://www.amazon.com/Vintage-Sports-Cards-MX-906-Electronic/dp/B00005K2SY/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1313696934&sr=1-1

The various parts in there will be useful when you start breadboarding stuff.

and this to learn soldering:
http://www.amazon.com/Elenco-Practical-Soldering-Project-Kit/dp/B0002LUAL6/ref=sr_1_4?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1313696934&sr=1-4

You might have a local hackspace where people would be willing to help you out if you are having trouble with the soldering.

http://www.amazon.com/home-improvement/dp/B000ARU9PO

I have two, both work great.

Try Practical Electronics for Inventors. I know it sounds cheesy, but it's very task oriented. It doesn't exactly deal with projects, more the pieces you need to know to accomplish your own project.

I'm enjoying this one

Get a nice panavise: http://www.amazon.com/PanaVise-350-Multi-Purpose-Work-Center/dp/B00011QA0M/ref=tag_dpp_lp_edpp_ttl_ex

Engineer PA make some nice crimp tools that are much better than pliers, if not as good as the real thing. Here is an example, note they come in different sizes, but they tell you what crimps they work with: https://www.amazon.com/Engineer-PA-09-Micro-Connector-Crimpers/dp/B002AVVO7K/

Not the exact same brand, but some of these classic kits from the 80s are still available new in box. You can find, e.g., the elenco 130 in one and 200 in one kits on Amazon for very reasonable prices.

I have this one and it's served me well for the last few years. There's also an analog version. The digital ones only read in Celsius, if that bothers you. They definitely aren't as nice as a Hakko or a Weller, but it has never let me down.

As far as the fumes go, it isn't the lead that's the problem, it's the flux inside the solder. Lead doesn't vaporize until ~1700C, which your iron is never going to reach. I mention this so you know that lead free solder doesn't solve the problem.

You should either solder in a well ventilated area, or use a fume extractor. Commercial fume extractors are expensive, and you can make your own with fan and a carbon filter (you can get them for normal air filters and cut to size).

You could make one. Cut your coaxial and twist the "sheath/braided" cable and then wrap it around the outside (threaded piece) then tape over it with electrical and then stick the middle pin into the middle. You could also do something like this http://www.amazon.com/Coaxial-Female-Right-Angle-Adapter/dp/B000AS9G9I

http://www.amazon.com/Coaxial-Female-Right-Angle-Adapter/dp/B000AS9G9I

Not low profile enough.

Oh, and although these don't just cover filters you may also want Communications Circuits: Analysis and Design (Clarke Hess) and Phaselock Techniques (Gardner).

20W x 3 hours = 60Wh
So you need a 12v battery rated at 5Ah I guess....
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000BPCUXO/ref=redir_mdp_mobile

PanaVise 350 Multi-Purpose Work Center

its a bit of overkill for what he's using it for, but its more general purpose than the circuit board attachment

http://www.amazon.com/Communication-Circuits-Analysis-Kenneth-Clarke/dp/0894648632/ref=cm_rdp_product

What about the follow up book?

All of those in series would give you 12 volts, but assuming 1800 milliamp-hours (mAh) it would only power the lights for 1.2 continuous hours.

I found this quote "AA alkaline cells have their capacity rated at only 25mA and an end voltage of only 0.8V per cell. At 500mA their capacity is half.
At 0.5A and 1A their voltage quickly drops like a rock."
From this forum: http://www.electro-tech-online.com/general-electronics-chat/100526-aa-battery-max-current-draw.html

So you may have voltage problems with 1.5 amps flowing through those AA's.

Check out something like BigSlowTarget suggests, for example: http://www.amazon.com/Rechargeable-Sealed-Lead-Acid-Battery/dp/B000BPCUXO

If you look at the description, it says it's only "3.5 x 2.8 x 4.1 inches ; 3.9 pounds", which is comparable to a block of AA's. The SLA batteries should be rechargeable too, but you'd need to buy a charger for them.

I got this book too, I use mimms for physics concepts and this book for application. I've learned a lot so far!
I'm in med school and I really needed a hobby that I could do for 5-10 minutes and get back to studying. Working with my breadboard is perfect for that, I get to use my critical thinking skills and take a break from pure memorization.

Edit: wrong link