I used be an ameteur electronics enthusiast. When I was young, I used to assemble trivial circuits (dancing lights etc.): I could go to an electronics shop. They used to sell hobby kits for simple, accessible, devices. The kit had circuit layout, component list, labels, what goes where and all. I then assembled them per the layout ("this leg of the transistor goes to the left leg of the capacitor"). It worked - I used to be quite pleased with myself, and used to show that off to other people. No mentors; no one to consult on my doubts. I was "self-made".
But the thing is that I never had a clear idea of how it worked; or, if some parts were broken, how to identify what was broken (other than, of course, sniffing for burned smell or charred look on the PCB). That condition is what I now realize as being unable to reason about the circuit at hand. As in, how would I arrive at that circuit by myself - being able to point at components and say, "this guy does this, and the other guy does this, and voila, we've dancing light".
I can name individual components and stuff, and can wave my hands and say what it does individually. The fact that I can't compose a circuit from scratch still gets me. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how one can build an intuitive understanding and a mental model?
EDIT: it just occurred to me "dancing lights" are called Astable Multivibrator! We were taught this at school, after I built them. Oh, I still can remember how smug I felt!
I have (had? getting better!) this same issue, and it really killed excitement of electronics for me for a long time.
I asked @theacodes on here this same question, on a post they'd written that like.. actually got into "ok, I'm putting this capacitor here, because it's gonna do <x> for me, another way I could do the same thing is..", and their reply is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33484848
I do think there'd be a lot of value in blog or youtube series of experienced circuit designers showing how they approach things, why and how they pick components etc, it's a great way to learn. The blog post that HN thread is about is really good as an example.
I've had several people recommend "The Art of Electronics" as a reference for circuits building as well, but haven't read it yet
The Art of Electronics is useful as a reference, certainly.
Using it to learn circuit design (just at the schematic level, still) would take serious effort (hundreds of hours) and would be far more effective if done with a skilled instructor.
There used to be simpler, smaller books that showed a simplified design process for circuit building blocks.
Rod Elliott's website, sound-au.com, has an extensive section on "theory" at the hobbyist level[1]. If you use it, please donate to help Rod keep the site up.
The Art of Electronics is a wonderful book and you can certainly learn from it. I don't think it's useful as a reference, but it is a little opaque to someone new.
But, now there is https://learningtheartofelectronics.com/ Learning the Art of Electronics, which is a practical course with labs to complete, etc. It is very, very good. I am using subsets of it (with scaffolding/additional practice) to teach smart middle schoolers to design transistor circuits implementing amplifiers, oscillators, and logic gates.
> I've had several people recommend "The Art of Electronics" as a reference for circuits building as well, but haven't read it yet
It's an excellent book and highly regarded for a reason. I have a pro-tip about it, though... don't feel as if you need the most recent edition. The older ones are still great and relevant, and buying it used will save you a few bucks.
You can get there without a diploma and a degree using time, books (or youtube) and a modest quantity of tools (the setup in TFA would be overkill for establishing a basic knowledge about electronics).
The thing about a diploma or a degree course, is that you get GUIDED knowledge. A good institution will teach you the math and physics background first, and then proceed from basic circuit analysis to advanced circuit design in logical steps.
All while separating analogue electronics, digital electronics, RF, and signal processing as appropriate.
Self-taught people are almost always too eager to get their hands on a soldering iron, and end up with a jumble of information, instead of intuitive understanding.
> Self-taught people are almost always too eager to get their hands on a soldering iron, and end up with a jumble of information, instead or intuitive understanding.
But if those self-taught people spend enough time, that jumble of information becomes deep empirical knowledge. At the end of the day, developing an understanding of electronics just comes down to how much time you are willing to invest in studying datasheets, working out schematics, fabricating circuits and keenly observing. Understanding the math and physics is deeply valuable and a great gift, but empirical knowledge is just as valuable- if not more. After all, Faraday (and all the others who did the work that eventually led to our mathematical and physical understanding of elecric circuits) did not need theory to do his experiments.
As someone who never finished my EE but can basically look at anything electronic and diagnose the issue. I suggest you first learn circuit analysis and how to read schematics because they will be your best friend and give biggest advantage.
I've found "Big Clive" to be very informative. Lots of small devices torn down and reverse engineered, complete with a circuit diagram and a fairly in depth explanation of what is going on and what any given part is doing. Helps to have some basic circuits knowledge, but otherwise very good.
EEVBlog is great, but... anybody just discovering the channel should be aware, Dave puts out content that fits into a number of different categories: educational, entertainment, edutainment, test equipment reviews / teardowns, mailbag, repairs, debunking, meta commentary about Youtube, career stuff, and "other". And purely educational stuff isn't a huge part of what he puts out these days. That said, he has put out some really good stuff, especially back when he was doing "Fundamentals Friday" as a routine thing. Just don't expect a steady stream of purely educational, "electronics fundamentals" stuff.
> And purely educational stuff isn't a huge part of what he puts out these days
That's my reading, too. He isn't quite the 3b1b of electronics. But that's not a statement of the quality of the content; just that he caters to a different audience, perhaps.
Highly relieved to see this as I've just bought a copy of the art of electronics (2nd edition, 3rd is too expensive for me) and plan to build some things at the university lab this summer
I think there's an in-between that's missing here. Folks who design electronic circuits don't typically compose a circuit directly from the properties of the parts. Instead, there are a lot of slightly higher level design elements, kind of like algorithms in programming, that you combine to make something work. Examples are the many basic op amp circuits, lower level circuits such as transistor gain stages, and so forth. Studying enough of those circuits, you begin to recognize them in schematics, and this gives you a clue as to what the design is doing. I'm not sure that there's a good way around spending a lot of time memorizing those patterns.
There are also simplified operational models of some components such as transistors and op amps.
Assembling kits is a valuable first step, in that it gets your hands working. Being a bit more confident about your construction practices helps when you later try to make your own stuff, because you don't have to wonder if something like a solder joint is working. The more you can trust that your build is modeled by your schematic, the better a chance of locating the place where it isn't. That's your failure point.
I was a physics major in college, but a year of electronics was part of our curriculum. It was taught from The Art of Electronics, first edition. We were also required to buy the National Semiconductor Linear Applications Handbook, and a book on a mainstream IC logic family, which was TTL at the time. That stuff is all available online. I was fascinated with this stuff, so I read the applications handbook from cover to cover. IC application notes are still a good thing to study.
You can take another route. There's gobs of stuff you can do with a microcontroller board and pre-made peripherals such as sensors and actuators. It won't turn you into an analog jock, but it's a legitimate design method and might suit your fancy.
It's a bit like scripting in python vs C on limiting hardware. Even some people with fresh EE degree struggle with this. Modern design often heavily focuses on simulation and reusing the company's IP blocks. Companies try to push for this approach despite the inefficiencies exactly because they can then hire those fresh "unripe" engineers. Old-school engineers almost always come up with better ad-hoc circuit designs trough.
If you live near a university, you can probably sit in on lectures (analog-design, analog circuits, microelectronics). There are also many videos on YouTube. (If you're not really interested in repairs, skip those as that is slightly different skillset.) One really good channel is Sam Ben Yaakov's https://www.youtube.com/@sambenyaakov
Developing a mental model of circuits also takes practice. The practice can mean simulation or playing with an oscilloscope and components on a breadboard but you need the feedback loop: designing/tweaking the circuit, checking if the behavior matches your expectation, finding what you missed if there's something wrong. Start with simple circuits and gradually work your way up to more complex ones.
You're on a good track, didn't come to mind but prof. Razavi's lectures are great!
As the other person mentioned, you can do a lot in simulation. KiCad now has a builtin ngspice support (trough it's still a bit rough.) On windows, ltspice is another quite popular free option.
The way to overcome that is to start off with broken gear and to repair it. You'll be forced bit by bit to understand how the circuits work. It helps if there is a schematic and if there isn't then you'll have to trace the circuit yourself which will help even more in building up a mental model. Of course this all presumes that there is a circuit worth examining to begin with, more often than not these days you'd be looking at a bunch of custom made chips and a few external components too large to fit into the chip which itself contains a microprocessor and a bunch of software to do the heavy lifting.
But pick up an 80's tape recorder or amplifier that's busted and you're going to have fun learning. Start on the simplest stuff you can find and work your way up from there.
This bench really looks focused on hobby prototyping, nicely done with that in mind, and with the proper assortment of components in multiples so you can go from idea to funtional circuit directly without encountering the show-stoppers (or delayers) that can be so common otherwise.
A repair bench can be made to avoid a somewhat different set of show-stoppers, there will not only be a number of different things more useful at your fingertips, but a deep store of off-bench material and tools still accessible allowing much more powerful operation. Also taking up much more auxiliary space than any one optimized bench.
Either way you never avoid all the unforseen show-stoppers, so you need a clear location to shelve & preserve an incomplete prototype or repair/restoration project, for instance while waiting for parts, in order to fully clear the bench for other work which can then be quickly accomplished from start-to-finish.
And then there's the "production" bench for hobbyists where prototyping and repair is not so much of a consideration.
Like you said, you first have to learn to reason about a circuit. You'll need some broadly applicable skills that give you insight, not more connect-the-dots recipes or brute-force math. There are many insightful graphical techniques that enthusiasts can use with at most basic arithmetic and special graph paper.
Probably the best skill investment you can make is learning to sketch on impedance paper. It will demystify passive networks, and it's a gateway to so many other techniques like Bode plots. Eventually you won't even need the special paper most of the time. I recommend getting one printed and laminated to use with a dry-erase marker.
It's best to learn the analysis along with how to simulate it and take the measurement. The discrepancies will reveal problems with the circuit, measurement errors, and limitations of the models. Your sketches will show how it works, you'll visually see what needs to be done even before you know how to do it, and you can play with design ideas right on the sketch.
There are of course many other techniques for different situations. If you use discrete transistors, maybe learn to sketch a load line and check if a resistor is bad using a multimeter. If you do radio, learn to do impedance matching with a Smith chart.
I hear a lot of negative things about using “plumbing” metaphors for teaching electronics, but it has always worked for me. I have an intuitive understanding of what each part does through physical analogy with water pressure, and can design fairly complex analog circuits that work based on it. For example, I see a capacitor as a stretchy membrane… it can’t pass electricity/water, but can stretch to absorb energy and release it later. It can conduct pressure waves by oscillating (ac).
To be fair, I have a physics and engineering background and do really understand how these components actually work, and where this metaphor breaks down, but I still find this mental model is what I use to intuitively design circuits that work.
Great Scott has a fantastic channel and does a lot to explain the theory in a practical way. Check out his electronics basics videos first if you need a refresher but he does a lot of designs from scratch that are very insightful.
For digital electronics I recommend Ben eater’s series and kits. Basically starts with an assumption that you understand very basic direct current (as in you know that current flows from a voltage source to ground), and takes you all the way through building a vary basic computer.
I would also recommend building your own project, and having it made at one of the Chinese fab houses. Even something as simple as replicating an Arduino will teach you A LOT.
I productized an arduino prototype by self teaching, and it’s all really not that hard once you get a grasp of the basics.
Have you seen Spintronics? I'm an EE by training (not professionally) and I've found it super useful to have a fresh mental model for circuits. Not perfect probably, but interesting.
I’ve built two RE 303s and 1 Dinsync Gilbert and not really have a clue how they worked. It’s just been paint by numbers. Hoping to actually understand what’s going on in the next few months.
This guy Moritz Klein has a YouTube channel explaining the wizardry behind analog synths:
I’ve watched the VCO one and it helped in my understanding but I still need to breadboard it to fully grasp it.
He has a collaboration with Erica synths that not only results in a cool euro rack synth but also provides a explanatory manual. This coupled with the YouTube videos I think will help in my understanding of circuitry.
I think you just have to start: have an idea for something slightly different than any of your kits do, assemble it on a breadboard, go through the pain of troubleshooting it (and maybe working-around issues you can't quite solve directly). After that, blog posts and youtube videos about other people's little projects will be of more value, you'll be able to really think about the circuit they designed in a different way, it'll have some concrete ideas in your brain to make connections to.
(This is how I think about software too fwiw. Start trying to write something on your own, then study the technical detail after, the technical detail will have something to relate to instead of just floating abstractly away. Then try to apply it yourself again, you'll probably be excited to use it at that point.)
>> if some parts were broken, how to identify what was broken (other than, of course, sniffing for burned smell or charred look on the PCB)
To be fair, that’s probably the correct first step in most cases. You might move on to tracing powers and grounds in the search for basic catastrophic faults, you might wipe IPA over the board and look for the bit that evaporates first (or if you’re fancy then an IR camera looking for suspect hot spots sinking excess current), but the first step on an unknown failure is probably always going to be a look and a sniff.
There are lots of free circuit simulators right now that you can use on PC or mobile devices as native app or in the web browser. Some even have animations of voltage and current movement.
In addition to Eevblog and other great resources mentioned, the two things that helped me most with that are the Phil’s Lab YouTube channel and Arlektra educational kit:
As a hobbyist, the transformation for me came when I started using (and then purchased) an oscilloscope. My dad always made me think they were not helpful to hobbyists but nothing about electronics made sense until I could see the electricity.
I have learned electronics and now can design gps trackers and other equipments by myself after these:
- eevblog (youtube), particularly the “fundamental fridays” episodes
- Andreas Spiess (youtube)
- different topics looked up mentioned on these
I mean, it seems to me that to “build an intuitive understanding” you need to use calculus or at least algebra, so you can model the circuit components mathematically in the time domain and the frequency domain.
As someone who did the math after gaining an intuitive understanding of circuits, I still tend to design circuits by intuition first and do the math after.
Imagine something like: "This needs to be biased a little bit more positive, here we use a precision diode, that needs a little bit of negative feedback, ..."
Math is important, but much more important (IMO) is a systemic understanding of how parts of the ciecuit influence each other and where they are (or should be) decoupled more or less.
I've spent some 40 years learning electronics. Started with the hydraulic analogy, but didn't really have any deep understanding. In college they made us do a physics lab with an ocope and RC circuits, and I was miserably. Who cares if you can use discrete components to make a curve when you have a 486?
Years later I landed on a team of makers and started to work on ambitious projects- various high power LEDs, motion control systems, etc. This is where my gap in knowledge- especially wrt high power electronics, diodes, and any chip-based component- became a real problem. So I built ambitious stuff and when it didn't work, or was flaky, I'd show it to somebody who knew electronics deeply and they'd explain whatever the next thing on my list to learn was- pull-up resistors, constant current supplies, MOSFETs to control high power devices, connecting up an SPI bus between a microcontroller and sensor, schmitt triggers, bias, etc.
I got really good at making small repros of larger projects, handing them to somebody, having them solve the basic problem, then taking the learnign from the repo and putting it into the real project.
Eventually, after doing that a lot I was able to to read Art of Electronics and got a lot more out of it. most recently I was building a custom circuit to drive a vacuum tube and had some problems, and somebody mentioned Spice. So i got LTSpice and put my circuit in, and learned just enough to have it spit out what I was seeing in real-life on my oscope. OH MY GOD, it was a revelation. The simulation produced exactly what I saw and I quickly debugged the problems. This has always been true- if I have a simulation, I can learn to intuit how things work faster than if I have to assemble them manually.
My mental model now is all about modularity- building the individual bits of a larger circuit, debugging those, then integrating them together. There are so many details in analog that you have to be aware of; if you're missing a pull-up resistor or a schmitt trigger or have too much EMI, you might get it to work 30% of the time or have to do bounce elimination in software.
Another thing to be aware of is in the past 20-30 years, a lot of discrete components gained alternatives that were chip-based and move a lot of the smarts into the chip. Sure, you can build an H-bridge from components to make a bidirectional motor driver. But that motor driver from Pololu has decades of intelligence about driving motors- and reverse polarity protection (I plug things in backwards all the time) and self-limiting (if you push too much power, it shuts down, instead of frying). I've had problems with components that could have been solved by an EE.
I don't know if I could actually design any non-trivial circuit, but then, what exactly do you need to design today? Most of the work is in identifying what your problem is, then finding the existing solutions.
Thanks, I've been doubting whether to buy a oscilloscope or not for about two years and your comment pushed me over the edge. I just ordered a Siglent SDS1104X-E. I have the same lack of intuition for electronics and I hope seeing the behavior will help me build a better mental model.
It goes into detail about how the ground lead on the probes is ground and the fact that you have to pay attention to where you are connecting them otherwise you can create a short circuit. Note that all the probe grounds are connected together, so connecting two ground leads to two different circuit nodes effectively shorts those two nodes together.
This is just a fantastic page, why aren't more on the internet like this, with specific parts lists and sources? Very similar to the stations we had when I was doing computer repair a decade ago (no, I will not fix your computer.™) and out of everything on there, be sure to get a good ESD mat, or else you'll never stop chasing random glitches.
I just want to add that the best way to get over starting friction is to have everything ready to go like this. IMHO it's much easier to take care of the low-hanging fruit of arranging and cleaning, than it is to have to do that and THEN work. I struggle with organization though, so I treat that as an active exercise and devote 15 minutes at a time to the chore, rewarding myself with a cup of coffee or whatever afterwards.
FWIW, I bet the guy has an ESD mat and it was just too ugly to show.
The only other thing I would add is boxes or large bins. Not for tools or components, but for project work, so you can put it away and work on something else when you need to.
Thank you, my nature is to have everything out like him because I think I might have object permanence issues and other ADHD symptoms like time blindness. I feel like I know exactly where everything is that I've ever handled, but once it's organized, I almost lose track of it like a goto.
Discipline is such a struggle for me that I got rid of all of the furniture in my home office and put up a couple of Ikea Billy bookcases with long shelves that wrap around my desk in an upside-down U so that I can see everything on one wall.
Kind of like these, but with a full-size desk and $20 shelves spanning the middle, in birch:
FWIW, Jim Williams was an electronics designer at Linear Technologies (LT, now part of Analog Devices). He had incredible productivity and wrote famously epic application notes.
He was also known for using bare, un-eteched copper PCB and just soldering components to the PCB and connecting their other leads with wire through the air. You can see this on his bench!
My scopecart was off to the side like that most of the time except when it rolled over to a chemical instrument in the main lab which needed repair or calibration.
Most people who saw my lab when I was in private practice would not have noticed any difference from this museum piece.
> why aren't more on the internet like this, with specific parts lists and sources?
There are forums where people post pictures of their benches, but it's a lot of work to document everything and you're going to use whichever distributor has sufficiently similar items in stock at your price point and can ship to your country.
I maintained page like this, only to have it penalized by Google when they started cracking down on a particular type of SEO spam.
But another problem is that such pages are just really hard to maintain. In a year or two, half of the items you're liking to are going to be out of production. This is especially true for stuff like no-name test equipment, low-cost breadboards, etc. There's just no stable brand or URL to use.
I definitely agree. As someone who is very tinker-minded, I've had various "workbench" setups on my desk. These range from watch repair, to gunsmithing, to electronics repair, to woodworking.
I'd LOVE if all of those hobbies had a concise, illustrated guide to not only the tools I should get, but *how to organize them*. Organizing is a strength of mine on a computer, where every file fits in every folder and there's no limits of size or shape. But tell me to organize my office, and I'll end up with a perfect system that goes entirely out of whack as soon as one item is added or removed.
And, there are no burn marks on that desk or the mat, the trash bin is empty instead of full of Jolt or Rockstar cans, and those cables? Not a single knot.
The bins are labeled and the label matching items in the bins.
Those stacked containers on the right middle shelf? Never would be put back in that fashion after labeling them.
Look at the cute scre driver organizer on the bottom wall-shelf, right side! They are in order! How?!
Those drawer bins on the middle wall shelf? It will fall on your face dumping all, specially with the sharp and pointy parts looking for soft spots in your eyes.
If they're anything like me, they cleaned it up to take the pictures, there's a bunch of junk hiding just off camera, and it will be messy very quickly after! But perhaps they're just that rare breed who actually are just normally this tidy!
> Since there were so many comments about how clean the bench is, I just wanted to leave this here to show how it normally looks when I am working on it.
The biggest difference is that an improperly soldered leaded joint looks very obviously wrong, whereas a good lead-free joint can be pretty much indistinguishable from a bad one.
If you are just starting out - and will therefore by definition have a poor iron, cheap solder, and poor technique - leaded is definitely the way to go. Once your first spool of leaded runs out, it is probably time to switch to lead-free.
The "shiny" aspect is the only way an improperly soldered joint can look the same on lead-free, and as a lead dev on an open-source hardware project that attracts a lot of people new to soldering, I have never ever seen a non-shiny leaded solder joint that wasn't horrendously bad in many other ways.
When a joint is bad, you get obviously poor wetting and weird mushroom shapes, but even so a newbie will not really notice that even using leaded solder.
If you are starting out, and you have a poor iron, cheap solder, and poor technique, you have already made two grave mistakes. We always urge people starting out to shell out in the $50 range for something that won't actively make them suffer, and they do just fine with SAC305.
I often mix up the shininess of leaded solder with the shininess of tacly flux under a ring-lit microscope. Can be hard for me to know if the joint is complete or partly made of goo.
The cloudy diffuse look of lead-free SAC305 is more distinctive to my eye.
I learned from the start on lead-free RoHS solder (doing SMT work) and had zero issues with it. Honestly I've never tried leaded solder as I just use lead-free all the time, though I know people who swear by it.
Under good conditions lead-free solder works fine, but the difference in melting point really starts to hurt when you're working on large belly-pad ICs. The intended rework procedure for that kind of part involves several minutes of hot air from above and below, which is more patience than I have when I'm prototyping.
When I take production (lead-free) hardware off the line for dev work, the first step to removing a large part is to flood it with leaded solder to reduce the melting point.
Has there ever been an occupational study of lead levels among hardware engineers? I'd be interested to see it.
I really love my Hakko FR-830 hot air preheater for lead-free rework.
Took some effort with rollers to be able to pan/rotate the board while it's on the heater but does make lead-free feel like leaded for me (on dense but relatively small boards anyway.)
I find "SMD Sample Books" to be a more effective storage/retrieval system for SMD passives than the lidded parts enclosures. I've got some of the latter, but stopped using them for passives (and repurposed them for small 3-6 pin commonly used parts).
But I have to admit that that setup is far cleaner and more organized overall than my disaster of a workbench...
For prototype/repair/rework parts, we use cheap folders with business card or CD/DVD inserts at work - Cheap and effective!
The labels reflect the location of the item in the folder (Folder x Page y) and also the shelf in Storage (Rack-Bay-Shelf-Place), if it's a part we use also in production.
Sorry about the delay, HN doesn't seem to notify me about comment replies.
I wrote a simple PHP script that generates the labels. It just pulls a bunch of data from our parts database and positions the text/graphical elements on a PDF page using fpdf. The Datamatrix/barcode is generated using Zint.
Once the PDF file is generated, the script passes it to /usr/bin/lp for instant printing to a Dymo LabelWriter, or sent with an attachment disposition for downloading and printing locally.
Hope this helps, please let me know if I may be of further assistance
$625?! I'm not saying it's not worth that, for the ... 510 values, 100 of each, but who's this advice for?
To a newcomer, just get some common values, and perhaps not even 100 of them. Then you find out which ones you use most, or a slightly less common value you're missing but use/want, and restock those.
To anyone else, you know what you do, what you use, get that - I'm not sure there's any point in generic advice.
One thing I would add is that having a solid bench with a replaceable surface to do dirty/cutting things on is really useful.
I have a really solid desk I made out of scaffolding planks and recycled roof timbers. The surface is then made using either Ikea bamboo chopping boards (they were on offer) or some other replaceable work top.
Another thing that might be useful for Beginners +1 is a second hand bench top multimeter. This is only useful if you are not going to be mobile. They have the advantage that they are always there, and aren't moved much. If you have a more fancy o-scope, this isn't probably needed as you can do most things on that (once you've learnt how to.)
This is personal preference, so do take this as a personal opinion.
Analog scopes are still a thing, especially when compared with cheap digital ones that often distort things or flatly don't show them. If one has only 150 bucks to allocate for a scope, unless the digital scope added functions (math, storage, etc) are needed, the best choice is often an used analog one. Digital scopes start to become interesting when they go up in features and price, 12/14 bit ADCs, much higher s/r, high res screens, etc.
I second this advice, and would add another reason: Buy an analog scope while you can still find them for cheap! They don't make good ones anymore. The analog scope is a lifetime purchase.
But the calibration point still applies. On my Tek 454, there are calibration knobs built right into the UI. The user is expected to tweak and calibrate as they go, and depending on the measurement. (Often the shape of the waveform is all you are trying to see.)
I un-second it, if that's 'a thing', I think that was solid advice 10+ years ago, but not any more. The decent ones are less often seen, and they're collectors' items so they go for more than they're worth (to the audience the advice is directed at).
Unless doing something very particular straight off the bat (like audio or power or something) a beginner is better advised to get a cheap MSO / multichannel DSO, IMO, even computer based.
I recommend them, they're great. When I got mine, it seemed like a bit of a luxury, but now it seems like essential equipment. Also, I recommend getting a rotary cutter (link to illustrate the tool type -- not a recommendation for that particular instance) to go along with it.
I'm sure they're the kind of thing that can bw ludicrously expensive, in part because they sound complicated/high-tech. Note that they can be really cheap, as in sub-£10 for A4 maybe even A3.
I just mean don't do much (or any) cutting thinking 'I should get one of those at some point' before getting one, as excuses for new tools/toys go that's a good & also cheap one!
The thing about cutting mats in an electronics lab is that you're never going to be cutting anything big. You're going to be cutting a lot of small things. So the small, dirt cheap, easy to move around ones are perfect. A rare example of cheaper being better!
Yep, exactly. I can see the value in large ESD-rated full desk-covering rolls though, if you've got the cash to splash on it. (But certainly not in a hey beginner here's how I think you should set up your desk/lab type article or anything.)
As someone who runs an University electronics lab I'd recommend to instead get on or more silicone mats (they come with slots for small parts and such). They withstand heat better (curtting mats can deform permanently when heated wrongly), prooved to be more durable and are very easy to clean.
If you need a cutting mat for actual precision cutting of paper, get one and treat it carefully.
I have both the silicone antistatic mat and a cutting mat. Different tools for different purposes. I would never solder anything on the cutting mat, nor cut anything on the silicone mat.
If I could only have one of those two, it would be the silicone mat. The cutting mat is great, but really, you can use any expendable surface in its place.
Bench meters generally have higher precision that handheld units. For voltage and current that doesn't always add much value but this is particularly useful on the Ohmmeter where you can track down shorts by small changes in resistance that can't be detected with a low precision device.
24 inches (60 cm) is not deep enough, IMO. It's incredibly irritating that IKEA stopped selling reasonably priced 75+ cm deep bench tops (except for in a few markets, like Germany, maybe IKEA thinks they still use CRTs there?).
Also: I see that your photos include a proper solder fume extractor, but the BOM doesn't. I think it makes sense to include one.
I did some research a few months ago for a suitable model available in the EU. My research ended up with this one: Weller ZERO SMOG EL KIT 1. About 700 EUR + VAT. (Didn't pull the trigger yet - curious about thoughts on this one.)
I have about 40 linear feet of bench space in my garage. Its cheaper to make durable benches out of 4'x8' sheets of 3/4" plywood with another 3/4" sheet of mdf underneath. I cut them to 3'x8' sheets and use the extra 1' as a shelf. You need the 3' bench space for equipment.
Ikea used to make things out of real wood but they haven't in years. Anything other than actual plywood will sag.
I cut 48x96 sheets into 48x32 benchtops, I find that ideal. Deep enough to hold a lot but shallow enough to still reach the shelves.
Use Gorilla glue to laminate a piece of thin (1/4" or 3/8") ply to a piece of rigid pink foam board, with another piece of thin ply on the bottom. This foam-core sandwich is stiff but lightweight, acoustically dead, and very cheap. You can use a ton of random objects or just a vacuum-bag to apply the lamination pressure. Stick some one-by on the edge and radius it with a router, and you're done.
What works surprisingly well are ordinary folding tables from Staples/OfficeMax, bolted together with brackets for stability. You can create a workbench of any desired shape, size, and depth that way. Once you keep them from swaying side-to-side by fastening them together, the effective load capacity goes way up. Best of all you don't have to feel bad about drilling into them.
Trouble is, I don't think they sell anything but the plastic ones now. Working with anything more ESD-sensitive than 6L6s is a bad idea with those.
That series has a corner piece which is very deep. I got rid of it in all an international move, but I made a workbench with two of those desks one wall, a corner piece and then one more desk on the adjacent wall. It was nice to have enough space for keeping multiple projects out and felt deep enough in the corner for a PC and monitor. I like that it's very configurable too, you can put legs instead of storage units where you want more legroom.
I also just started going through the EE lab setup from scratch after 20 years of programming. What a great little guide, and matches my experience thus far (though the author is way more organized).
I'm pretty proud of the little parts system I've made, albeit much more primitive. I use pretty exclusively Mouser at this point so I invested in a cheap barcode scanner and just keep the bags in a box since I have limited space. I have a parts database that wraps SQLite and has operations such as "inventory" (taking inventory of my existing parts, updating counts), "shipment" which is a quick way to increase counts of a new shipment of parts (I just have to scan the mouser ID and then the part quantity), and "populate" which decrements each part by one per scan as I'm populating a board.
It's one of those quick-hack-and-slash setups that is really fun to build and is just another part of the yak shaving process. Overall getting into PCB design has been a very, very fun hobby, and since I have real projects I need custom PCBs for, it's been a great supplemental skill to have.
Programmers tend to turn everything into a programming problem (guilty as charged). But I got into electronics before I got into programming and rather than spending time on parts inventory programs I would spend the time on fixing things and designing little circuits, then build them up on vero board. No software required!
Mean Well has some constant current dimmable 24v power supplies with zero flicker. You'd need 2 if you want each strip to be independently controllable. They also can take a PWM signal if you're so inclined, but I bought them because I prefer flicker-free dimming.
e.g.
https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/709-HLG40H-24B
You are unlikely to get amazing dimming performance using constant current with a 24V strip intended for constant voltage operation.
For a bench application like this, get a constant current strip from Bridgelux. They’re cheap and excellent. Digi-key sells them. The “thrive” series is a bit less efficient but has a very nice spectrum. The tiny drivers from Cuvee Systems work well, start quickly, and dim well, but any ordinary LED driver can drive them. Or the bench power supply :)
For 24V tape, here are a few decent choices for drivers:
The Meanwell PWM series. The frequency is below IEEE 1789 recommendations but is okay.
eldoLED LinearDRIVE. The best, but kind of expensive and annoying to use. Program it for a log curve. Here, for example:
Yeah, with a CV strip the Mean Wells with CC dimming have an abrupt shutoff at low brightness - maybe 5% (I haven't measured it), and a brief flash upon increasing brightness just above that threshold. Otherwise they work reasonably well for my use case.
I would also expect some degree of uneven output at lower currents, especially as it ages. But maybe LEDs are more consistently manufactured these days.
You may also experience worse failure modes with the fancier strips that have current limiting ICs instead of resistors.
(Pixel strips can be quite good, too. They seem to mostly have very high PWM frequencies. I assume this is because the electrical behavior is better that way rather than due to any particular care for the pleasantness of using them.)
Mean Well’s power supplies are by far the best I’ve used. Apart from working really well, they also seem to be constructed better than others I’ve used.
My 3d printer, grow lights, hydroponic automation hardware, and a little CNC project are all run on Mean Well power supplies now.
“I should just build a floor on my floor!” I joked to my friend. “Yea, I could just put some plywood on top of the carpet. Then it would be safe from metal shavings and other workshop mess.”
We laughed at the ridiculous idea.
However, my subconscious wasn’t laughing. “build a floor on my floor…. build a floor on my floor” it echoed in the depths. It waited.
Good build, not sure why they're making a big deal about the idea, I think it's a pretty normal solution and what a lot of people would do? Makes for more interesting reading at least I guess! A bit more ideal would be to use an ESD dissipative vinyl flooring product on top of the ply and properly ground it, but what they've got is better than carpet and probably fine for most of what you'd do at home I guess.
This is a very comprehensive list (and the organisation is pretty inspiring) but missing a few things I have personally found very valuable in what I do (which involves a mixture of smallish new projects and retrocomputing repairs/upgrades/etc) - main one I'd mention is low melting point solder to use for desoldering larger components (both plated through hole and SMD) - it took me ages before I tried it and it's made a huge difference at least for me. Chip Quick is the well known brand but you can get cheap unbranded "bars" of it as well. I've also found desolder stations much easier to get on with than solder suckers - Hakko 808 is what I see recommended a lot though it's not what I have. Ultimately if it's temperature controlled I think there's not much to choose between them.
Finally there are some great very cheap logic analyzers out there - modern oscilloscopes will do this too but you have to get pretty high up the price list before you can make do with just one device for both uses.
Regarding desoldering tools, I also hate solder suckers and instead use a mix of desoldering stations and desoldering braid. I used to very heavily use desoldering tools in challenging situations, such as large traces/joints covered with a lot of flux residue or conformal coating. I ended up working my way up the Hakko desoldering line and developed some opinions.
The Hakko 808 is discontinued and the FR-301 seems to be the current replacement. I used a FR-301 for a while and it was a fine tool. I've now switched over to a FM-2024 which connects to a FM-206 base station (among others). I found out that with heavy use I had many more issues with the FR-301 due to the longer tube between the nozzle tip and the solder capture chamber. The FM-2024 has a much shorter tube and the nozzle is integral with the tube. These factors make the FM-2024 more reliable and easy to clean under heavy use. The FM-2024 is also more lightweight and can be used with a gun or pencil grip. So if you do a lot of desoldering, desolder a lot of gunky/fluxy stuff, or have/want a compatible Hakko soldering station, I would suggest the FM-2024 over the FR-301.
Interesting - though for nearly £1900+VAT for the FM-206 (including hot-air and soldering tools as well as desoldering to be fair but excluding tips and nozzles) I'd hope it performs a lot better indeed!
The idea is that you add it into the solder already in place. That in turn lowers the melting point of the mixture.
With a low melting point it takes a lot longer to re-solidify after you heat it up which means (if you do it right) you have a lot more time to work - so you can get the solder mixture for all the connections on the entire component liquid at the same time and just pull the component out in one go without damaging the board or the component.
You do then need to clean it up as its a bit messy but solder wick works fine for that.
I see a fume extractor under the desk. As someone who was in the market for one recently, I'd love some discussion (like loudness, price, performance, etc).
Absolutely essential. Fumes from lead-free solder fluxes are nasty [1]. I find that bench-top "fume extractors", consisting of a fan and thin dust filter, are extremely noisy and essentially useless. I love my Hakko FA430-16. It's relatively quiet such that a regular conversation can be had in its presence, and it really works with the right hose & hood setup.
I wouldn't call the simple fans useless - just the fact that the fumes are being blown away from your face is a huge improvement over not even having that.
Of course there needs to be somewhere for them to go, but if you can have an open window close to your bench, that solves that problem quite nicely.
As someone who owns a FA430 and has a sensitivity to flux fumes causing headaches and drowsiness, I agree with everything in this comment. Keep in mind you can become sensitized to flux fumes after repeated exposure (happened to me) so IMO it's better to go overkill on fume extraction before it becomes a problem.
I use the simple fan+filter ones at work, I've always found them to work fine.
Although the comparison is against normal lab air conditions, which aren't great, as opposed to something like a home lab. At home I just open the window.
The coarse carbon mats don't even filter half of the fumes.
These super basic fan+mat fume extractors do get the fumes out of your face, which is the most important part, but the particulate and VOC levels in the room will quickly exceed acceptable levels.
But even with a proper filter stack which filters over 99.9%, you can only filter what's actually captured. You still need some ventilation and it's also a good idea to run an air purifier in automatic mode to filter what wasn't captured at the source. What isn't filtered by filters is filtered by your lungs.
I solder in the garage, never indoors. My bench has a 6" inline duct fan near the soldering station and I just run the fumes out a long section of ducting. These fans high cfm and crazy quiet. Everything stows away easily when not in use.
Hakko FX-888D is great and appropriate with the other stuff mentioned (although I prefer the older version with an analogue knob for temperature control), but it's $115 and for most new hobbyists a $25 pinecil or a $25 knockoff Hakko T12 is perfectly adequate and miles ahead of anything you'd find in a home depot for the same price.
I had tried my hand with hobbyist electronics a few times over the years, and had a few different cheap pencil style soldering irons from Radio Shack and always found soldering so hard to do well. I had no idea how people were getting the kind of joints that all the "this is how it should look" pictures showed. On a whim a few years ago I got a Hakko FX-888D, and it was like night and day! All of a sudden soldering was _easy_. I spent a couple decades convinced that I was really bad at soldering or that it was incredibly hard to do, but all that time, I had just never had a decent soldering iron.
I'm sure there are probably cheaper soldering irons that would work essentially as well as my FX-888D compared to the Radio Shack irons I had, but I don't know which ones specifically they are and recommending a $25 knockoff Hakko T12 sounds like advice that'll send someone down the same difficult path I had. (Unless the floor for all soldering irons has been permanently raised, and no one makes any as bad as those Radio Shack ones anymore?)
The old cheap ones have no temperature control whatsoever and crappy tips that oxidize quickly. I had the same experience as you, and have a trusty 888. I actually got access to a Hakko FM-206 rework station a while back and loved it more than my 888. It has a very compact tip holder, allows you to swap tips when they are still hot, heats up instantly but also cools down when idle to preserve the tip. I looked into getting something similar for home and ended up with a "knockoff T12" that uses the same tips based on discussion on the EEVblog forums. I haven't used my 888 since.
Knockoff T12s can use genuine but still cheap Hakko T12 tips (though I've never had a problem with cheap clone tips), with a temperature sensor built in. Using the word knockoff is probably misleading on my part, they aren't low quality counterfeit copies of Hakko and don't pretend to be Hakko, they just use Hakko T12 tips as it's the closest thing to a de facto standard there is. I can't even recommend a specific manufacturer for them, they just all seem to be using the same circuits and whatever one is available is fine. You need to order online basically. I don't know why they haven't replaced the $25 garbage irons sold in hardware stores, but those still exist and I wouldn't say the floor has been raised.
Pinecil is also great. It also has temperature sensors built into the tips. It has limited power so you might get frustrated on that one day in a decade that you need to solder something big, but it's so convenient for occasional use. I keep mine in my pen holder, and pull it out for short tasks. I just steal my macbook's usb-c charging cable in these cases (although pine also sells a nice silicone high temperature usb-c cable).
Both options have another benefit that I've enjoyed: They have DC power input, and don't become useless after an international move.
The TS100 and TS80 are also good cheap alternatives!
One drawback of the Pinecil is that it is solely the iron. You still need to add a power supply, heat-resistant cable, a stand, and a sponge. Not a huge deal, but it is a bit more than $25 to actually start soldering.
Yes but on the other hand, it works with your existing usb-c charger and usb-c battery if you have one. I always reach for my pinecil over my 888 because it is tiny and sits in my pen drawer. When I need it, I just unplug my laptop and plug in the pinecil.
Nice setup! In addition to a decent scope I like having a USB logic analyzer. There are lots of cheap ones but Saleae (no affiliation) makes really nice ones.
If you have to make the choice between getting a Saleae logic analyzer and a similarly priced oscilloscope, I think the logic analyzer fits more people's use case than the oscilloscope, because digital electronics and signals are more approachable to hobbyists and novices. If you're primarily concerned with decoding digital communications signals, and inspecting their timing, a logic analyzer is the tool for this job.
Nice, wasn't aware of these. We have a lot of NI boards and Picoscopes for analog and mixed signal but this looks like a good choice. We've used their FPGA boards in the past.
Interesting as I'm considering buying a scope. Does this still give the most bang for your buck in 2023? Many online commenters mention the Siglent SDS1104X-E as a more modern alternative.
The key differences: the screen is a bit better on the Siglent, Rigol makes you go through a stupid unlock routine to get your features, but (and this is the killer) Rigol has LXI (scriptable ethernet control) whereas the Siglent only appears to have a web-based remote control mechanism - substantially inferior IMHO.
The SDS1000X-E datasheet says that it supports SCPI over Ethernet, and there’s a programming manual available from Siglent (weirdly the links seem broken on their website)
It's not going to be a popular opinion due to the 10x difference in price, but I think the Rohde & Schwarz RTB2004 is one of the best hobbyist class scopes you can get (in terms of bang/buck).
So what's going on with the RTB2004 that is providing so much bang for that 10x price difference... and why do you claim that such a machine is "hobbyist class"?
Except that those old cheap ones are almost universally analog scopes. They are pretty much completely useless for digital work. In the current Arduino-filled world, you are probably going to need a DSO.
The only argument I have would be the soldering irons. You really want a Metcal or Thermaltronics station. They're just so much better that it's ridiculous.
Yes, they are expensive. However, you will have them forever. And you will never have to worry about too much heat, too little heat, or calibration ever again.
Your soldering will be so dramatically better that you will wonder how you ever did without them.
I love my metcal. It was so expensive I had to buy it from a surplus store. there is no substitute. Also use a lot of Weller, but I have had them for a very long time.
I have one of the more basic UNI-T multimeters and can highly recommend it. It's always there when I need it (the single 9V battery keeps it going for years) and has great precision.
One thing that I don't have - and really want to have - is a variable power supply with constant voltage/current. They can be used when you have an unusual battery you need to charge safely, for instance. Unfortunately, they always seem inordinately expensive considering that all they are inside is a few coils and some ICs. I've looked into building one myself, and found the very informative EEVBlog series on it[1]. However, there's one thing I don't understand: how do you compensate for the voltage drop over your current measuring resistor? Is it a simple linear equation and you just boost the voltage accordingly? I'd love an explanation!
Yep I've had that Korad for years and it's great. I'm sure there are far better power supplies out there but this one is great for hacking on digital stuff and maker projects that aren't demanding or sensitive to the PSU quality (which is like 90% of projects).
In a power supply you can sense your output voltage with a differential amplifier between the positive and negative outputs that way the voltage drop across your current sense resistor is not included in the measured differential voltage. Alternatively you can use high-side current sensing where your current sense resistor is before your positive output. You can also use a differential amplifier for that, but there are purpose made current sense amplifiers which are probably best.
The reason lab PSUs are so expensive is that they are incredibly stable. A regular cheap power supply will provide a sort-of stable voltage, but there will be a loooot of noise on it. Meanwhile, even a basic lab PSU will guarantee the output voltage to within a few mV, no matter what you throw at it. This allows you to completely rule out the PSU as a potential source of faults.
I would caution against taking the power supply recommendation for two reasons.
(1) Don't buy equipment without LXI as IMHO once you get going you really need coherent and scriptable ethernet control of everything. Yes, you can work manually or use some oddball vendor tool over USB. Yes, it's slow, error prone, and frustrating. The difference between getting things done and getting burned out is largely down to choice of tools. Spend the money.
(2) Multi-channel is important. Pretty much anything needs more than one voltage. It really sux having multiple PSUs because it doubles bench space, cable overheads, is a pain to synchronize. I would recommend a three channel supply with LXI at a minimum.
Regarding point 1, USB-TMC is just as good as LXI, really. Completely industry standard, just like LXI or GPIB. LXI is great if you need it, but you probably don't if everything's on the same desk.
And there's even more instruments that just create a virtual COM port over USB and allow SCPI commands over that, and that's perfectly fine. You just have to configure it via something like [Keysight's Connection Expert program](https://www.keysight.com/us/en/lib/software-detail/computer-...) first.
Yeah, no. USB is terrible at resisting electrical interference and has a world of poor cables with a connector half-life of about 10 years. TCP/IP over STP is cheap, ubiquitous and not going away.
I generally find that storage drawers and trays don't work for me. Invariably you get it all nicely organised, then at a future point you acquire a new component that breaks the organisation, or you eventually want finer grained sorting than the number of drawers/trays can provide.
The method I've settled on is a (cheap) set of steel storage shelves. I have a bunch of labelled cardboard boxes (shoebox sized) stacked on those shelves, a box per major category (resistors, capacitors, ...). Inside the boxes are a bunch of (cheap) zip lock plastic bags, each holding a particular value component.
This system is versatile as bag sizes can be varied according to how much space is required. (eg. the surface mount box has lots of small bags). It's easy to add new components as you just break out a new bag and throw it in the appropriate box. Have a "miscellaneous" box for bits that don't fit in a category and if that box fills up break out an extra box or two and create some new categories for some of the "misc" stuff. You can customise what goes inside the box, such as anti-static bags for semiconductors, no bags at all for things that will stack in a box or a box full of loose odds and sods of wire.
Shoebox sized is small enough to easily search, but big enough to hold things. The upside down lid of the box can be used as a sorting tray whilst searching.
This is great. My own setup would benefit a lot from some of these ideas. Glad to see the omnifixo in there! It’s one of my favourite things I keep on hand.
I’ve never found the need to keep heaps of components on hand, but I guess I’m not an electrical engineer or anything remotely like it. I just fix stuff and make junk when I’m inspired. What kind of situation would justify having so much stuff on hand? Maybe if you actually design and prototype PCBs and know which components you’ll typically need?
Yes, if you design and prototype PCBs you find pretty quickly that you don't need that many standard components. It's nice then to think about what you need again and again, and then organize it somehow. You can also just collect it over time, but then you end up with large digikey bags filled with smaller digikey bags of components, and it becomes easier to just order everything you need each time instead of sorting through it all.
The guide needs a section on safety with a notice that users of the bench can read. A cordless vacuum cleaner would be a useful addition to the tool list as well.
Regarding bench design, if the budget allows, it's nice to make the desktop height adjustable via a motor drive. Depending on mood and project, I prefer to set a specific height for working.
For additional test hardware, I like to have an IR thermometer handy to measure critical thermal components. Also nice to have a sound level meter available to calibrate any audio projects.
For soldering, nice to have a diverse set of tweezers to hold SMD components and wires.
Good guide for getting started. I'd definitely recommend having more than one power supply channel.
I use a logic analyzer (and PCBite probes) quite a bit, but that'll vary depending on what you do.
Other tools tend to be more specialized. Function generators are useful if doing analog circuits, board pre-heaters are important for some rework operations, and of course RF circuits have their own set of tools needed.
50% of my garage workshop is from bulk buys from hamfests and machine shop auctions. Its nearly impossible to keep organized because you always get extra stuff that you "can use later" which just adds to the clutter since there isn't always a place to put it.
Some sort of organizational method. I've thought about it alot, its more of an inventory system with an unknown amount of items and categories.
Simple things become organizational nightmares forcing you to rethink you're bench layout for example: I put my LM317s in a small bin because I only had 3 but now I have a bag of 300, I guess I need to get a bigger bin, or do I just use the small bin and save some for later but where, but how many, how do I know how many I have in total?
I fight with this a lot. Best solution I've found is add a 'bulk' label to the bin so I know to refill from my 'warehouse' stockpile when something gets low.
This is the analog/dedicated enthusiast setup. Beginner/Digital:
* Use the Falstad sim to play around. It's amazing and runs in a browser.
* Plano molding ammo boxes. If you can't fit everything in a few, help is available, a few months in parts bin addiction rehab can change your life!
* Pinecil soldering iron
* Unless you're working with mains there are almost no bad meters, just ones with crappy specs. Get one with good accuracy and all the features.
* Now get an ESP32 Arduino-alike module. Something similar to a wemos S3 mini. Don't pay more than $15. Or get an M5stack.
* Those crappy little modules are your friends. Especially if you are making installations and art. You don't wanna be fussing with actual soldering for onsite parts. Use female pin jumpers. Might not even need a breadboard till later!! There's a crappy little module for everything these days and they're all pretty reliable.
* But not LM2596 buck modules Those are actually crappy. Other cheap regulators are probably fine.
* Don't buy a bench power supply. That's more towards the enthusiast stage. Instead buy yourself some USB-PD trigger modules. Watch for 12v ones, they actually give 9v aside from some newer PPS ones, because they removed 12v from the spec.
* When your thing needs power, put a trigger module on. They're like $2. If your thing needs something other than 5, 9, 15, or 20v, use a cheap regulator.
* Or just power it right from the ESP32 Arduino-ish board. Either way, USB saves the day.
* If you want to do anything beyond this, just buy exactly the stuff you need for the project. Parts hoarding is an unrelated hobby that doesn't have much to do with electronics.
* Get a 3D printer or learn woodworking if you want to make nice finished projects
* Wago connectors are your friend if you ever encounter wire bigger than 24awg or so.
* All cherry MX keyboard switch clones are good. All other cheap switches are suspect
Hi all. I am the author of the article and wanted to address some of the points raised here.
First of all, thank you reading the article and giving feedback. I never thought it would ever reach this many people.
I wanted to address the choices I made and the discussion of the lab being inadequate for real EE work. I wont argue that my choices are a bit over the place with some tools being at the highest end (eg. Knipex Side Cutters) while others being at the very low end (eg. Electronic Load).
The math of cost for my lab doesn't work the same way as a professional lab. I don't make any significant money from it. Hence the way I make choices is purely based on my requirements and on how much I use a particular tool. I use the hand tools most frequently hence I splurge on the expensive stuff. For the equipment (Scope, DMM, PSU), I slowly work my way upwards in price on a as needed basis. The current options work fine for me for the projects I work on and hence I dont see a good reason to invest in the more expensive piece of kit right away. If I need it, I will realize that and then go and buy that.
Compare that to a professional lab where there is a big cost of time and failures. Hence it makes sense to have higher end, more reliable equipment from the get go. And most labs are more purpose driven and will have equipment for that specific purpose anyways.
Moving on, there was good advice on soldering irons. I would admit that my setup might not be the best option for the current times. I have ordered the Pinecil and other similar options and will update the guide with my findings accordingly.
I will also add info about some of the missing stuff like the fume extractor, tweezers (dont know how I missed those), logic analyzer etc.
I will share more details about my component inventory and organization system soon.
My setup is always evolving and improving based on my needs, knowledge and experience. This was just a snapshot in time of how it currently stands with hopes that it would help and inspire other makers and engineers out there. There wont be a singular solution that works for everyone and that is the way it is. I just wanted to share what currently works best for me.
Finally, I apologize for not disclosing the Amazon affiliate links. I added that to the post and will be more transparent about it in the future.
As an actual electronics engineer.
Author is an RC Arduino hobbyist not really applicable to RF or hard core electronics.
The Uni-T meter is only usable if you work at less then 50 volts. These DMM are unsafe at high voltage.
Xcelite is a joke only techs from the 1970 and 1980s use their stuff nowadays it's rebadged made in china by the Apex tools conglomerate. Could by the same tool from home depot rebranded.
Interesting recommendation for a multibit screwdriver when in commercial electronics screw are deeply recessed in narrow openings.
This is truly an amazing write-up, thank you!! I would love it if someone with experience in the bio lab scene (PCR machines, electrophoresis, western blot, pipettes, cell incubator, and so on) could write something similar.
I was expecting to grouch all over this, but I really like it. A lot of thought went into this, and the choices are mostly very good. A few notes from someone who's been doing this 30+ years and 10 of those years as a volunteer in a community makerspace:
* 10" shelves aren't nearly deep enough for vintage test equipment. If all you need is a DS1054Z, that's fine, but as you move up and your needs expand, you'll find that more advanced test equipment is astonishingly expensive new. Some older stuff is obsolete junk, but some is still relevant and performant, and wonderfully affordable, albeit bulky. A cart can be a good way to accommodate the larger infrequent-use items without corrupting the elegance of the shallow shelves.
* The FX888D was indeed an inflection point in hobbyist-priced soldering stations, but the UI/UX is so terrible it's easier to blow away the calibration than to adjust the active temperature, and more than half the ones I've found in the wild have suffered exactly that. (I carry a calibrator.) The result is that someone either doesn't know why their solder behaves terribly when they set "the right temperature", or they've found a setting that works and the display is just showing a completely insane number that has nothing to do with anything. Either way it completely negates the benefit of a display in the first place! The old analog FX888 is a gem, but the D is so terrible I'd love to just yeet them all into the sun. As soon as the TS100 and Pinecil came out, it no longer made sense to buy any other soldering station, full stop. I keep one of each on my bench, with my two most commonly used tips in them, so I rarely find myself swapping tips, and I can dual-wield if the need arises. And all that is still cheaper than one FX888D.
* The digital microscope is a pale shadow of the experience with a proper binocular view with true depth perception and zero lag and stuff. Worth having for portability alone, and ultra affordable, but recognize that it's a crutch and you should upgrade to genuine glass if you find yourself using it a lot. This is the only thing on the list that really made me cringe.
* The Knipex side cutter is indeed great, if you don't need a true-flush end. I really like true flush, especially on zipties, because it doesn't leave a burr. (Ask anyone with ziptie scars down their forearms about sharp burrs!) The Fastcap Micro Flush Trimmer is the best I've found, and ridiculously durable. My first one is now 15+ years old, the edges have picked up a few dents and the jaw is slightly skew, but I keep it around because it still does better work than the Xcelite cheapies. New ones put in 5+ years of hard service before they start to show any age at all, and that's frankly incredible. It's roughly twice the price of the cheapies and does 100x the work.
* For tweezers, look no further than the Electron Microscopy Sciences economy tweezers kit K5-ECO.SA, $26: https://www.emsdiasum.com/economy-tweezers-kit-00-2a-3c-5-7 These are an order of magnitude nicer than the Amazon cheapies, and within spitting distance of the same price. I've got hundreds of hours on mine at this point and I give sets as gifts to anyone getting into SMD. Friends don't let friends suffer with bad tweezers.
Interesting you say that about the pinecil, I'm a little embarrassed to say I haven't touched mine since the day it arrived after impulse buying it. I guess I assumed it wasn't as capable as my Metcal. I'll have to give it an honest try.
Pinecil is a great soldering iron, especially the 88W v2, but it definitely doesn't compare with a fixed temperature inductive Metcal. I haven't found any soldering iron with a PID loop that does, simply because there is zero delay in the Metcal between the time the tip makes contact and the RF reheating it.
I'v looked up TS100 and Pinecil and by default looks like they come with long tips?
I'm in the market of soon buying new soldering iron, so paying some attention, but I can't/won't order from US, so would be excellent if someone can point out where to buy quality tip that is short and holds solder like new after many uses.
The unified cartridge, where the heater and tip are one assembly (as seen in the TS100/Pinecil, T12, etc) tends to have much tighter thermal regulation than the separate tip style (T18 / 900M / etc). I've found it more than adequate on all but the skinniest tips.
Mechanically, eh, the grip-to-tip distance is already pretty long, another 3mm isn't going to change anything there.
Just a quick note that you DON'T want the Hakko FX-888D soldering station. It has a push button UI that doesn't make sense. Louis Rossmann had complained about it on YouTube a loooong time ago.
If you still want a simple Hakko soldering station, pay a bit more and get a Hakko FX-950, which has an analog turn-knob UI; the old FX-888 (without the "D") had been discontinued a loooong time ago.
The iron itself works great. The UI is insane, though: you'll want to keep the instructions next to the station in case you need to make any changes. However, in practice you probably won't need to make changes much.
I think the UI of the FX-888D was really designed for production environments, where managers set them for a certain setting and leave it there, and then prevent the operators from changing it.
Yes, but it’s all well researched and they obviously spent a lot of time finding a good setup. I think quality stuff like this deserves the affiliate revenue.
This is some unpopular opinion but please, do not buy extra components thinking that you will use it in some extrea projects. Only buy components that your current design needs. It's even better if you can get a board house to assemble them before it arrives at your desk. Otherwise it is the beginning of the fall to a hoarder life.
Except if you are playing in RF or some black magic where simulation does not cut it...
This is often impractical when shipping costs more than the components.
Yeah, there are things you shouldn't be buying "just in case" - for example, a stash of SoCs will age faster than you can use them - but definitely buy a hundred of common capacitors, such as 100 nF, 1 µF, or 10 µF, rather than buying them one-by-one.
You generally don't need a complete set of all standard resistances or capacitances - there are precious few circuits where you need precisely 47 pF and 6.8 kΩ - but there's plenty of stuff that goes into almost every single project you build. Battery clips, 100 Ω / 1k / 10k resistors, 100 nF / 1 µF / 10 µF decoupling caps, LEDs, PCB-mount switches...
I prefer to buy components I need, but buy enough extras to deal with failures or losses easily. E.g. if I'm buying SMD resistors (of reasonably common value & package like 4k7 in 0402) I buy at least 100, even if I only need 10. That way when I inevitably drop one or send one flying by forgetting to turn down the hot air flow I can just grab another. And 100 costs $0.56, 10 costs $0.14, so there's not much point trying to save money. When I run out of a cut tape of 100, I know I've used enough of them and I just buy a reel of 10,000 for $15-20. Lifetime supply, easy tracking.
That obviously doesn't apply to the more expensive components.
> That obviously doesn't apply to the more expensive components.
Or the larger ones! I bought a 100 of pretty much every standard resistor value in through-hole format from a bulk seller and came to regret the mess of loosely taped together resistor bundles intermixing and tangling and the shelf space they occupied!
This is not good advice. If you are just doing paint-by-numbers projects, sure. But they usually come with the parts. Being blocked on a lack of parts is not a good use of your time.
Oof, we must have different concepts of what that means; I thought just the opposite. The dummy-load is awful and prone to oscillation on certain sources. The o'scope is entry-level, 50MHz (100 with hacks), and doesn't support any advanced analysis. There's no discussion of scope probes whatsoever. There's only one power supply, for cryin' out loud, and it's neither precise nor clean. The DMM is 3½ digits and there's only one of it. There's no AC isolation transformer, variac, or current-limit box. No signal generator, frequency counter (no, the scope isn't very good at that), etc. An ESD mat but no strap or tester.
Further, there's nothing of what you'd want to actually bring a product to market. No EMI/EMC precompliance setup. No hi-pot tester. No ESD gun.
I mean, this is a very capable setup for someone poking at arduinos and stuff. But I wouldn't want it anywhere near analog, audio, radio, or power. It's a great start for a hobbyist with modest ambitions, but "real EE work" would be the last description I'd reach for.
You have a good point. I'm thinking of prototyping more generic "stuff" with that setup. For my own work (mostly amateur radio stuff) the setup is quite different.
I also noticed that the scope was only 50 MHz and the power supply was... ungreat.
Even in a professional environment, there's a limit to how specialized the gear on a single bench can be. With a constraint of finite money, there's a tradeoff between specialized and general-purpose equipment. The Analog Discovery Pro is only 50Mhz, but it's radically smarter than any "real" scope I've ever used. It takes the place of the frequency counter and signal generator. The most obvious omission is a good power supply.
A $70 screwdriver. Must be nice to have the kind of budget where numbers just don't matter. Ironic that he said about his iron, "Get this once and never think about it again". But he got it twice! What do you do with dual soldering irons? Does he need someone to foster the spare $120 tool in a good home?
As someone who has multiple times heated up my soldering iron and realized it had the <big|small> tip on it when I needed the <small|big> tip, and then gone through the annoyance of swapping tips on a hot iron, I can think of at least one thing to do with two irons.
If I were to attempt to re-buy any large portion of my tools all at once, I'd consider it an absurd amount to spend.
But over a lifetime of things breaking, you'll get a lot of large quotes for professional repairs, or replacement of a much bigger part than what actually broke.
When the washer fluid sprayer on my old Tacoma failed due to decades of a wire rubbing against a sharp metal edge, I was quoted $300 for the whole harness, and 2 hours of labour at $100 an hour.
Suddenly, the $120 soldering iron didn't seem so expensive.
tldr: I'm only 30 and own thousands of dollars worth of tools, but at no point have I ever spent more than the quote to fix the problem at hand.
I still use the cheap soldering irons, carry about a dozen different ones for different occasions in my truck in a travel case.
One of the most challenging was a fish-finder on an offshore boat where the very expensive underwater sensor was just fine but it was only the business end of a long waterproof multi-shielded power, analog, digital cable which was what the marinas replace whole-hog when somebody ends up with the cable caught in the propellor or something like that.
Can't bring that kind of thing to the bench anyway.
I’m pleased to see the similarities with my own setup which is likely a year or two behind this setup. Same desk, organizers, most of the products, similar challenges with a proliferation of components. Separate work desk from bench.
I look forward to the inventory post as it is definitely a challenge for me.
Does anyone have recommendations for a cheap rack mount setup of power supplies, testing equipment etc?
We have a 1/3 height wheely rack in the office that can be wheeled over to someone’s workspace, and it would be more convenient than setting up a dedicated station.
Good quality, 30" wide wire shelving on wheels can support the weight of a small (e.g. 12U) rack loaded with equipment. For cost savings, you can use an open rackmount frame instead of an enclosed rack. Additional wire shelves can be used as needed for containers.
Depends on what you consider cheap and how janky you're willing to go. I put together a $350 22U SysRack this week. Not my first choice, tolerances are high, everything is flimsy, but it works on a budget.
As for rack mount power supplies: HP models on ebay or the university auction are usually a decent option.
(It's so solid we've had multiple UPS and Dell PowerEdge in it .. probably hundreds of kgs, not even a small flex. 10/10 from us for the rack)
We're looking for equipment that we can fill it with to convert it to a portable lab, like power supplies and oscilloscopes that will mount to it.
The rack mountable options we found for power supplies, scopes etc were starting at ~2-6k per unit plus like 1k rack mounting kit, but ideally we were looking for max 1.5k or so.
I’ve never seen rack mount kits for that equipment. Best bet would be to buy some rack shelves and affix standard equipment to it. Get a little horizontal PDU or 2 for the back side and you’re made.
Me too! I have never used airtable before but have heard of it. I needed an inventory system but I wasn't satisfied with the options I found so I created my own. Right now it is rudimentary but it can import BoM, export to CSV, "build" BoM's (auto-deduct from inventory), octopart API integration for grabbing component info/specs, and all of this compiled to single binary for lightweight selfhosting.
I don't have any experience with Airtable, but I do have experience with Retable. If you're looking for an inventory management system, Retable offers customizable templates for various types of inventory management, including product inventory, asset management, and more. Let me know what your specific needs are, and I can help you find the best solution with Retable.
I know this is probably the dumbest question but I hate mounting swivel arm monitors / TVs to stud wall / plasterboard. The stud is either in wrong place and all the clever expanding screw fix things just seem ... meh.
I found the Inventory system interesting. I have lots of small items I would like to inventory, i need something like a ECC200 sticker 5mm x 5mm that has a GUID. Anyone have ideas?
This is a great writeup. I'd personally go with a binoc scope and some other personal preferences, but either way it's awesome to see a nice breakdown like this.
No, much much less. That o-scope is $349 and that's the most expensive item (well outside of the computer workstation), and everything is cheapish (which as pointed out elsewhere is only going to be used for a restricted set of hobbyist work).
It is somewhat telling that there is more money paid on the computer - this is more a computer enthusiast who dabbles in electronics setup (not that there is anything wrong with it) - but if you're doing serious circuit design work you're going to find this setup lacking in many ways.
i dunno man, stuff adds up. He says he has "more than a thousand different electric components for PCBs" and that's just some random stuff not the big ones. How much do you think his more than a thousand different electric components for PCBs would cost, just by itself? Do you think he buys each one in bags of 1? That's not including any of the other random things.
1000 different components is really not that many - especially if you're counting individual resistors and diodes (as the pictures would suggest). These passives are literally pennies or fractions thereof in bulk. You can buy large kits of 100s of resistor values for less than $20.
> How much do you think his more than a thousand different electric components for PCBs would cost, just by itself?
Easily less than $500 based on the items there's a glimpse of - probably much less.
> Do you think he buys each one in bags of 1?
I doubt it - that would be utterly stupid for passives and this guy doesn't seem stupid - if anything obviously frugal to a fault. I think there are too many corners cut - there is some bench equipment that is worth splurging a bit on. But even when you buy small quantities of SMT components they are usually cut off a tape - and in the US sold for a huge ass markup. It seems his bagging and inventory system is homegrown.
Anyone who has access to a good LLM maybe you could use this as an example puzzle for it? I tried but my context window is too small and it's not allowed to browse the web, and I'm too lazy to break up into tiny parts.
Wow! Not my kind of workbench but I appreciate a well organized workbench. The site looks like an excellent resource if I ever wanted to get into this hobby.
I'm still searching for a solution to organise the hundreds (thousands?) of anti-static component bags I have from the likes of LCSC, Mouser, etc.
It's so difficult to find something that is the right size and shape to hold them upright, allowing organising, sifting through them to find the one I need, etc. The repackaging shown here is nice, but I don't want them ultimately stuffed into a drawer, nor can I see myself going to the effort - especially the part where I'd need to enter them all into a database.
I use assorted long boxes roughly the dimensions for storing CDs. Then I wedge stuff like cardboard and packaging foam periodically so the bags don't all tip over and pile up on each other. It's literally garbage, but it works well enough for being free.
But the thing is that I never had a clear idea of how it worked; or, if some parts were broken, how to identify what was broken (other than, of course, sniffing for burned smell or charred look on the PCB). That condition is what I now realize as being unable to reason about the circuit at hand. As in, how would I arrive at that circuit by myself - being able to point at components and say, "this guy does this, and the other guy does this, and voila, we've dancing light".
I can name individual components and stuff, and can wave my hands and say what it does individually. The fact that I can't compose a circuit from scratch still gets me. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how one can build an intuitive understanding and a mental model?
EDIT: it just occurred to me "dancing lights" are called Astable Multivibrator! We were taught this at school, after I built them. Oh, I still can remember how smug I felt!