(Part 3) 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.

Dave from EEVblog recommends building power supplies. They're pretty simple, and it doesn't hurt to have a bunch of them. You can find kits, which will teach you how to solder parts onto a PCB, but it's not too hard to design a supply around an LM317 regulator, the data sheet will have the circuit you need right on it. This will also be a good chance to learn the non-electronics skills you'll need; instead of buying a plastic box, make one out of plywood and paint it up.

Once you have a power supply or three, start playing around with simple analog circuits. You should have a breadboard and jumper wires and at least one good multimeter, though the aforementioned EEVblog recommends two, and not cheaping out on them. He did a $50 multimeter shootout , if you don't want to watch an hourlong video this was the winner, but it's worth watching to see why it won. Anyhow, you can find kits and project ideas online, get some random parts and start playing around until you have a good feel for old school analog circuits. Try to make up your own project and build it, even if it's completely useless.

At some point, preferably after you have a good grasp of analog circuits, you're going to have to move up to digital. Arduinos are a good start, they're popular enough that you can't look at a single page of Instructables without tripping over an Arduino project. You're going to have to learn some programming to make it go, but there's a million tutorials online. To make the pinball machine go, you're going to have to learn how to use the Arduino (or something like it) to control analog components, probably while giving them their own external power source. You'll also need to know how to drive a display for the scoreboard, and of course you'll have to program the logic for keeping track of the number of balls left, current score, and what inputs translate to what increase in score. The programming alone is a big undertaking, so if you go forward on this, be prepared to spend years on it.

A good project to do would also be to make a MAME cabinet. It's much simpler on the electronics side, you either hack the buttons and joysticks into a USB keyboard controller, or buy one of these which does the same thing, and then use an old PC and monitor. The hard part is building an arcade cabinet, which is still a lot simpler than building a pinball table. You'd be looking at a couple hundred dollars in parts, but that's not too bad compared to what you want to end up doing.

• I can't recommend a better book than this one.
  
• Get this resistor kit. Seriously, I bought one of these a year ago and I've never once had to buy more resistors.
  
• You're going to need a capacitor set like this one.
  
• You're also going to need a breadboard.
  
• Make a trip to Maplin and get an assortment pack of LEDs and a few switches. Trust me, this will make your life a tons easier when it comes to making proof of concept or test circuits. And they make circuitry more interactive and fun!
  
• Lastly, get a cheap multimeter. You can get one at Maplin or somewhere similar for like <15 pounds.
  
  Sorry about the links, I'm in the US so the prices will be in USD but that shouldn't be a problem. I really hope you find this hobby as intriguing as I do, I started a year ago making little flashlights and what-not and now I'm making motion detectors and all kinds of cool gadgets. If you'd like some guidance or help, don't think twice about PMing me! Best of luck.
  

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'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.

The neopixel products are pretty good and Adafruit have a lot of content to get you up and running. However if you're a little more circuit savvy you can save money and get these strips instead.

Since you are trying to do 'lightning' flashes you won't benefit from using the addressable led strips (the neopixels). The one I posted is a longer strip that is either all on or all off. The whole strip does take a lot of current though, so whatever you are using for a portable power supply will have to be pretty beefy. I've used them a lot so feel free to ask me any questions.

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.

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.

Copy/paste of a comment I made previously:

For the majority of my components I use 3 ring binders filled with baseball card holders. I took some pictures.

Imgur Album

It works great for small things for which I have multiple different values, like resistors and capacitors.

Here's are the actual bits I used if you want to duplicate:

• Binders
  
• Baseball card holders
  
• Divider tabs
  
  

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.

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!

I went with plastic sheets for trading card games to organize and store my resistors. It works pretty well and is extremely space-saving, and if you secure it with a card board binder and tight elastic bands, I'd say it would also endure some upside-down maneuvers, although I still wouldn't recommend tossing it around.

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.

I'm enjoying this one

Using 74AC14 to create a LED lamp that is PWM dimable.

Using three of those you can create a RGB lamp or control a lighting strip such as the one below.

http://www.amazon.com/Ledwholesalers-Changing-LED-Strip-Controller/dp/B0040FJ27S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341724508&sr=8-1&keywords=RGB+LED+strip

You could use an up-transformer like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Goldsource-STU-1000-Voltage-Transformer-Converter/dp/B003OPFJD6

Make sure it has enough wattage.

Edit: But yeah, different mains frequencys can be a concern with motors. There are frequency converters, but they are not cheap.

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

That will definitely work, alternatively you can purchase one of these to run 110 volt appliances on 240V writing: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B003OPFJD6/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1454252432&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=240v+step+up+transformer&dpPl=1&dpID=51wwDqVAJBL&ref=plSrch

So it just depends on what's cheaper for you.

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.

Understood. I've ordered the Arduino starter kit! and will probably get both a Spark and a micropy.

Amazon: http://amzn.com/B003P2UOCO

Also: http://amzn.com/B006WYUQ9I

http://amzn.com/B00BT5F0I2

http://www.reallyusefulproducts.co.uk/usa/

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

For small to fairly small stuff I use a standing tackle box. I don't have a solution for larger things besides keeping the boxes they came in, which works fine for storage but not for organization.

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?

Maybe start with an arduino kit http://www.amazon.com/Arduino-Starter-Official-170-page-Projects/dp/B009UKZV0A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452262861&sr=8-1&keywords=arduino+beginner

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

I believe the entire thing would be the same color as the rest. I'm using this http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ASHQQKI/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Could you explain parallel strips?

Non-mobile: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FB56SAU/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/179-3844062-9825103

^That's ^why ^I'm ^here, ^I ^don't ^judge ^you. ^PM ^/u/xl0 ^if ^I'm ^causing ^any ^trouble. ^WUT?

GX16-2
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00FB56SAU/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/179-3844062-9825103

Are these Supernight or similar RGB LED strips (non-addressable)? I've seen that a bunch of times; some in the middle will be a slightly different color, nothing shorted or broken.

If that's the type of strip you have, the strip is in segments of 3 LEDs each. You should be able to cut out that part (down the middle of the copper pads) and splice together the two pieces on either side with a little soldering.

Otherwise, you can replace it cheaply with those Supernight ones I linked, unless you have some setup where it echoes the colors on the TV or does addressable patterns.

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