Hi welcome to the Eev blog an Electronics Engineering Video Blog of interest to anyone involved in electronics design. I'm your host Dave Jones Hi One of the most common questions I get asked from beginners is what do I need to buy to set up a basic Electronics lb? Do I need all this stuff behind me here? What do I need? What should I buy? What tools and test gear do I need? Well, it's a very good question and I've mentioned it often in a lot of my videos, but I thought I'd do a complete summary video on just the basic gear you need to get started to make a decent Electronics lab. Not just a lame ass lab, a decent Electronics lab now. I've done countless very in-depth long videos, some up to an hour on the best multimeter and the best oscilloscope to buy and all sorts of stuff.

So I won't repeat that here if you want more detail. I'll link the videos down below there. check them out, you can watch them to your heart's content. This will just be a very quick summary video on the basic stuff you need.

not real Rock Bottom Uh stuff. But to set up a decent lab, let's go. First up, we got basic test gear you're going to need for any lab. First up is the multimeter.

Now all you have to do is spend 50 bucks on a multimeter like this one and you're going to get a decent one. Don't spend five bucks and there's no need to spend over a 100 now. I Recommend that you get not one, but two multimeters. Why? Because you're going to have to measure voltage and current at the same time.

And how do you know this hasn't drifted out of spec? If you only got one, you don't know if you got another one. You can do side by-side comparisons. No worries. get spend 100 bucks.

$50 each. Get two multimeters. Don't buy those cheap ass ones. Stick to the name brands.

We've got Xtec here. Amprobe Uh, BK Precision even Unity Uh, they're just some basic good brand meters. Spend 50 bucks I Highly recommend this one. Won by $50 Shoot out the Ex 3330 from Xtec.

It's got all you need. It's got resistance, it's got capacitance, it's got continuity, It's got temperature, it's got uh, current, and a good Electronics meter should have a microamp range. Make sure both of your meters have a microamp range. No, just milliamps.

You're going to need microamps. Trust me. 50 bucks. All you need.

Don't spend anymore. It can be important to measure the temperature of heat sinks, components, and other stuff in electronics. so you multimeter should come with one of these uh, temperature thermocouple probes if not, get one and these little wallet type multimeters. Very, very handy.

Highly recommend you pick up one or two of these they can't usually can't measure current, but they're so DN handy just to throw in a tool pouch. And if you're working with Main's voltages at all 110 or 240 volts, you must have one of these. It'll save your life one day. It's a voltage detection stick.

It lights up when it's close to the mains. Uh, this is a fluke volt alert. Not that expensive at all and now. but if you bought the multimeter I recommended it's already got one buil in Beauty Every good Electronics Lab must have an oscilloscope and 2 years on I Still recommend the Riyo DS 1052 e.

It's great value for money. Hard to beat couple others on the market, but really, don't touch those USB Scopes And don't touch those little pocket Nano oscilloscopes either. They're just rubbish. Get a decent bench scop, spend 400 bucks.

Best money you ever spent. And if you got the room on your bench I Highly recommend. Pick Pi up a secondhand oldfashioned C analog oscilloscope. You'll learn a hell of a lot with one of these babies.

trust me. And uh, 20 MHz Dual channel is all you need. Some people even give these away for free. Pick one up.

ask on forums, ask on your local University whatever you might be a to score on for n otherwise about 50 bucks on eBay Certainly under 100 bucks can pick you up a 20 or 50 MHz dual Trace 100 MHz Even better any of the major old old Brands Tectronics HP Hitachi Phillips Uh, you know Kikui, it doesn't matter. Pick one up. One of the best buys you'll ever get. Trust me And you got to have a way of generating signals.

sign, square, triangle, Basic signals like that, You're going to need a function generator like this: Goodwill Slin one. They come in two types. this is an analog one as is this Uh wave Tech Model 2 I've got. They basically generate the waveform with the analog or you can get the newer DDS type which I highly recommend which generate the signals digitally.

Either way, 150 bucks you can get one of those the Uh Instc 13 at 150 bucks bargain. Pick one up one with an output frequency of 2 to 5 MHz Perfect. Some of the more advanced ones have modulation capability, sweep and modulation IM FM Stuff like that. not absolutely essential, but well worth paying for if you want to.

Every lab must have a good bench power supply or more importantly, a couple of bench power suppli. The old adage is you can never have too many power supplies now. This is one of the classic projects which you can and you should build yourself. You can build them from Junkbox Parts It's amazing what you can do with just an LM 317 and a couple of knobs and you know Bingo Now this one's um, a kit from Silicon chip.

It's uh, powered from an external AC PL pack so you don't have to do worry about doing Main's wiring and it's just selectable output voltages. Very handy. It's got plus and minus uh what's called a Uh dual tracking Supply but this one's not variable fixed output but still very handy. And here's another kit: power Supply: As you can see, it's got a fixed 5volt output here with a load switch.

Load switches are very handy for switching your load off and on. You don't have to disconnect it. Highly recommend you get them. This is a dual tracking Supply It's got ground and positive and negative.

So as you uh turn up the voltage you get um dual rails that's great for powering Op amps. Highly recommend you get a dual tracking Supply and this one has a separate Earth uh terminal as well. So good. A good power supply will actually be Mains isolated it will have.

You can tell that by it has a separate green Main's Earth terminal and that is essential because it allows you to not only uh, join your power supplies in parallel to get extra current, but join them in series as well. If you don't have a dual tracking Supply you can get two single ones. If you had uh zero on 5 Vols here and you had another 0 and 5 volts both isolated, then you could just put them in series. Flip it around the other way and you get plus - 5 volts.

So I Highly recommend you build one of these yourself with a load switch and a multi-turn pot. Very important. Highly recommend you get one that does that because then it allows you to adjust it very finely. I Don't like the one on with just the fine and the Co knob not nearly as good.

And here's another do-it-yourself uh kit power supply once again from Silicon chip and it's got adjustable current limit. You can actually set a constant current output very handy and I highly recommend if you're going to build one that it has uh, adjustable current capability as well. And once again, it's got that multi-turn pot. You can turn that around 10 times to set the voltage output precisely.

and there's tons of info out there on building your own power supplies. Go visit the Eev blog Forum Plenty of info there. Build them yourself and you'll get exactly what you want. 100 bucks in Parts Can build you a couple of really decent lab power supplies.

Go for it! for General Electronics Use you don't need that much High a voltage or higher current unless you're specifically into Power stuff. Things like that: a 15 volt Supply 1 amp maximum that'll do most work. that's plenty. Uh, plus minus dual tracking 15 volts that's usually as high as Op amps will go.

Usually don't need to go higher than that. you see a lot of these uh eBay uh power supplies and Jar 1's 30 volts 3 amps very popular. You don't need that much power usually unless you need something specific and they've usually only got fine and coarse single turn adjustment pots. Hopeless.

You need one of those 10 turn pots. Make one yourself. Don't need to go that higher power. If you need higher power, get a specific high power supply just for that.

Next up, we've got soldering and there's a lot to soldering. Really, the first thing you need is a decent soldering station. Now, do not. Please Do Not buy a cheap ass noname soldering station.

You'll regret it. And also don't buy one of those ones which don't have the base unit. They're just plugged straight into the mains. Do Not get one of those.

They're hopeless. Spend you no need to spend over 100 bucks. For under 100 bucks, you can get a Hoo Fx8 like this. Highly recommend.

Recommended. Tiny Small doesn't take up much foot uh print on your bench. It's got a lovely uh stand like this. It's got a cleaning uh sponge.

It's not only got a cleaning sponge, but it's got uh, the other cleaning stuff as well. Highly recommended. Probably the most popular soldering station of all time. The Heo 936.

This is the older model 926. the 936. you can still pick up excellent iron Pace uh met cow. uh Weller they're Ursa They're all decent Brands don't touch anything else.

Whatever you do, make sure you've got a variable temperature soldering station. Don't fall into the Trap of getting one of those Weller or other brand ones which uh, you have to change the CH tip to change the temperature. No, don't let anyone tell you different. You need a good variable temperature soldering station.

Now you'll notice that this Hoo Fxa comes standard with what's called a conical or round tip. These are absolutely useless. Don't get or use these at all. Make sure you get what's called one of these chisel or uh, sometimes called screwdriver type tips.

something that's about 1 mm wide or 1.5 mm wide or even 2 mm. something like that. It allows you to get much better. uh, thermal contact with the pad and you can use these for both through hole and SMD work as well.

They dual use now. Normally a hot air rework station like this 858d would not be on my beginner list, but they've come down to such a ridiculously low price. You can pick one of these up for 60 bucks. It's an absolute no-brainer Get one for uh, surface mount soldering work for heat shrink for all sorts of stuff.

Now solder. You might think this is pretty basic. Just buy a roll of solder. Well, don't.

This is a huge big trap for young players and they wonder why their soldering is crap. It's because you don't have the right diameter and the right type of solder. I Highly recommend. Standard uh, not that lead free stuff standard 6040 or other stuff which uh may have a little bit of.

uh Silver Load as well. You've got to have a multicore rosin flux in there as well. This is a multicore flux one now. One of the keys is that it's really, really thin.

This is the number one tip I Can give you for good solder and use incredibly thin solder. This is 0.46 mm, 26 s swg or under. anything under 0.5 mm or .02 in is essential. Don't use the8 mm or the 1 mm stuff you're soldering will be crap.

You just feed too much on there. You can't control the amount of solder. Huge tip and one of these solder spool stands I Highly recommend I Wouldn't say they're essential, but a really nice touch allows you to work really easy. Another essential item that you're going to need a lot of is what's called solder.

Wick Now this is a multicore brand I Highly recommend it. Um, it's 2.2 mm. uh, width. They come in different width types so you may want to stock a couple.

I Like um, this is a good general purpose one. You can get fine and you can get bigger for bigger work, but it doesn't last very long. So you're going to need multiple spools of this and make sure that it's a quality brand. Don't buy a crap brand.

This one's actually a flux. Uh, coded one which, um, ensures that it will work. Crap brands do not work and you'll wonder why Solda Wick is a load of garbage. Get a good brand and you'll be a winner.

And for through Hle work, you're really going to need one of these solder suckers. Highly recommend it. Pick one up, they're only about five bucks. No-brainer Another essential item if you're into Uh SMD work is one of these flux pin.

This is an Electrol Lube uh brand. It doesn't really matter what brand you get, but it basically is like a ad tip uh marker and allows you just to wipe flux directly onto the board before you put chips down. Highly recommend you get one and absolutely essential for SMD Work is a pair of good quality fine straight tweezers like this: very uh, large opening, wide opening like that, very sharp Point straight. It's important to get an anti magnetic and uh, stainless and these are anti- acid and all sorts of things.

They don't cost much at all and you can get them in sets like this and these curved ones are kind of Handy in different tights. But really, you can do most work with just a basic set of tweezers like that. Now, soldering can be dangerous in a couple of ways. One is solder Splash make sure you've got a decent pair of goggles like this, the next is the solder fumes and the Uh and the flux fumes as well.

not only from this, but also from the the soldering iron, but from the solder braid as well and the boards and other stuff. Now there's no need to get a proper paste fume extractor like this. this one with the charcoal filter or Hob brand one. They're reasonably expensive, just a simple uh 12volt DC fan sitting on the side of your bench that just blows air across your bench and blows those fumes away.

As long as your room is open, then you'll be just fine. But pay attention to safety and because the service ma components these days are so darn small, it's important to have Vision equipment now. you don't need. uh, a nice big Olympus stereo microscope like this that'll set you back at least a couple hundred.

No need for that or even one of these professional uh mantis eye pieces which I've got here. Um, just for reading? uh, just inspecting solder joints after you're done and reading. uh, component markings on Ic's and stuff like that. One of these x 10 Jewelers Loops Just fine.

Or a lot of people just use these. uh uh. simple $25 headmount? um uh. magnifying glasses? That's all you need really.

And those bench mounted magnifying lamps like the Maggie brand and lamps? uh, they're pretty good too. But I Highly recommend you get a five Diopter one the three Diopter ones I don't think uh, cut it And the built-in lights are quite handy as well. But uh, really, there's no need to go for that expense if you don't want to. As a general rule for inspecting SMD work you're going to need at least uh, times 4, um, preferably times 6 or x 8 uh for doing really fine surface mount soldering work.

And in electronics, you'll be dealing with a whole bunch of different cables and interconnects. So these kind of uh, little adapters here are quite handy. You got standard banana plug to BNC and vice versa 50 ohm uh Terminators for coax uh Co B andc to um RCA and all sorts of stuff like that. Te piece is just very handy.

Apart from screwdrivers, the most essential hand tool on the electronic bench is a pair of side Cutters Now you don't have to spend a hundred bucks to get a pair of these. Um Swiss uh Lindstrom brand Cutters Okay, these you know are: $10 for a good pair of made in USA um, exite ones brilliant or even cheap JC Car ones not a problem, get a couple of them. These ones with a nice spongy handle look quite nice. The most essential thing with the pair of side Cutters is to make sure that this backside here is completely flat or flush, that the blades close completely flush and that allows you to cut things off flush with the board or allows you to.

It's better when you're stripping wires and all sorts of things. that's a key. make sure you get a pair like that. And of course, you need some pliers as well.

A big uh, standard pair, a big standard pair of needle L's But it's also important to get a pair of very fine uh needle nose pliers like that very handy for electronics work, and a smaller uh uh, blunt nose pair. And there's another pair of needle nose. very important to get a range of those. Now there's various types of wire strippers on the market.

From these oldfashioned standard art T-Rex ones. they're not bad at all Tyrannosaurus Rex Um to more sort of, uh, more sort of professional uh ones that have fixed size wires on there, or these really cheap and nasty uh, combination wire stripper and crimper. But most of the time I Find I Just use a pair of side Cutters and you're going to want a nice little set of uh, spanners like this for doing up uh pots and things on front panels alen key of course, and just a whole bunch of general purpose tools that you'll find at your local hardware store for next to. Nyx In electronics, you simply cannot live without a hot glue or a Hot Melt or sometimes called a hot snot gun.

It just has so many million one uses in electronics projects to stick things together, stick boards down, do whatever, get one couple of other items you're going to want. just a basic Uh set of various shaped files. and for doing front panels I Highly recommend you get one of these nibblers. It allows you to you drill a hole in the front panel and there then allows you to nibble out uh shapes in your front panels.

Square Cutouts Things like that. Great. No lab is complete without an Xacto knife which is a Uh brand name. this is actually a exolite one but ones with the uh replace or scalpel as they're called ones with the replaceable blade.

A nice good quality one. Different types of blades absolutely essential for uh cutting, uh uh, traces in uh, Pcbs, and uh, rework and things like that. Got to have one! You're always having to measure stuff in electronics so it's important to get a proper engineering ruler. not one of those cheap ass plastic ones from the stationary store.

This is a proper engineering ruler which is a standard at a certain temperature. It's got Imperial on one side, metric on the other, half a millimeter graduations. various other Uh graduations on here as well. In the Imperial scale, you can get nice 6in rule like this and get a set of Veria digital Veria Calipers like this are only about 20 bucks and of course you have to take stuff apart and screw things up.

So it comes to screwdrivers. You need tons of screwdrivers. A standard set of Uh Jewelers screwdrivers. Of course you need your basic Uh Phillips and Flathead ones and you need these uh combination uh SL security sets with all the different types of bits you've got.

Uh, you know you've got Torx you've got. security Torx with the hole in the center, you've got Tri Wings You've got hex nuts. Security hex nuts. All sorts of things.

Don't skimp on screwdrivers and it could be handy to magnetize and demagnetize your screwdrivers for picking up screws. And if you're always adjusting trim pots and things like that and uh, trimmer capacitors. sometimes that you can't use a metal one, it'll upset it. So you need these plastic ones.

And don't forget Dave CAD Available in standard and widescreen version. Heat shrink's important too. You can get various sizes in mix packs like this. And to do wiring, get yourself a set of uh, crimp terminal connectors as well.

You're going to need leads and lots of them. All types. Uh, alligator clip to Spade terminal you're going to need BNC to alligator clip you're going to need BNC to Banana plug um female BNC to uh alligator clip banana plug to Banana plug Uh, you want these alligator clip attachments for your multimeter? Real? Handy You're going to want these alligator clip to alligator clip leads like this. Uh, you're going to want uh BNC to BNC leads like that, Various ones of those and these I've got heaps of which I find really useful are just a simple banana plug to alligator clip leads I got heaps You can plug them into your multimeters into your power supplies.

Whatever. Don't forget: various types of tapes electrical tape, duct tape, masking tape, double-sided tape, vinyl tape. Whatever you're going to need. wire and lots of it.

Standard, uh, small? uh, you know, eight strands by .1 millim stranded stuff, larger, thicker stuff, solid core stranded. You're going to uh, some of this. uh, rainbow ribbon cable very handy. You can break it up, use it for all sorts of stuff.

Very handy stuff. Wire wrapping wire some very small stuff. I've got some 30 AWG comes in various colors, great for modding circuits and things like that. That's a solid core and really small stuff.

You can get into individual legs on Ic's and modify stuff and we've got the tin copper wire as well. It looks like solder, but it's not. It's actually solid core tined copper. Without a doubt, you don't have an Electronics lab unless you have one of these traditional breadboards for building up your prototype circuits.

On a standard double size one like this will do just great. Maybe get a, maybe get two of them or something like that. and make sure you pick up some of these uh, pre-cut uh, pre-shaped uh, jumper wire kits as well. They're real.

Handy They can save you a lot of time, but you can buy the uh, the right size solid core wire in uh, reels and strip your own if you like. And the other traditional way to build up prototype circuits is with a Vera board or sometimes called strip board and it's basically just a single-sided board with copper strips going all the way down. You can get sort of fancy ones with uh, little uh cutouts for various components and stuff, but just your standard variable like this. Get tons of it.

and if you're into Verab board prototyping, get one of these. uh Verab board uh Cutters as well. It allows you to just get in there and go. just twist it and it a and instantly cuts out one of the strips.

Two essential items in any Electronics lab: some electronic cleaning solvent like this and an air duster. And here's a little tip for you. if you turn your air duster spray upside down like this, it becomes a freezer spray so you don't have to buy freezer spray. It allows you to freeze down components on your board to to Aid in troubleshooting.

and if you can afford it, get yourself a Dremel There's nothing like having 30,000 RPM to do some serious damage. Every good lab needs a range of components. Now these component kits. Uh, that.

some of them might be a little bit expensive, but they're well worth getting. This is an inductor kit. All surface mount inductors. This is a bunch of surface mount capacitor kit.

You can get these cheap on eBay and a bunch of surface mount resistors as well. And of of course you got to have a component collection of through hole resistors and through hole capacitors. Uh, these through hole resistors. I sort mine into E12 Series So 10, 12, 15, 18 and all the various values go into there.

so 33 will have 33 Ohms 330 Ohms uh you know 3K 3 33k 330k all that sort of stuff. so divide them up like that into your component cabinets and you're going to want a basic selection of other parts as well. You can get grab bags from various Uh suppliers or you can buy them in 10 of or 100 of quantity. quite cheaply.

you can get mixed bags on eBay uh you get capacitors of All Sorts uh ceramic, uh electrolytic Tanum modern lithic uh various types of LEDs You're going to want a whole bunch of voltage Regulators 7805 LM 317s You're going to want uh standard transistors, Npn, uh PNP types some general purpose ones, power and Signal types mosfets. You're going to want Uh header connectors. You want these dual in line type and single in line header connectors. You want various Ic's 4,000 series logic 74 series logic uh basic uh opamps and things like that.

Triple Five timers. You just collect all these things over time and to protect your bench and uh, minimize ESD as well. You might want one of these antistatic work mats. uh, they come with the studs and the Uh attachment wire to go off to Main's Earth just to dissipate that static.

Uh, get a little a basic antistatic wrist strap like this and really they are quite nice. but they do come in several types of cheap ones. Can actually burn quite easily with the solder and iron, whereas this blue mat is quite one. I've got on here with a conductive uh rubber backing on.

it is very expensive stuff, which you can't burn with the soldering iron, but it's well worth it to protect your bench and do ESD Now I've also got uh, one of these um Earth uh bonding points on here as well which I attached to my bench and goes off to Main's Earth It just allows me to plug the um antistatic uh wrist strap into there and I can just come and go as I please. Two more essential items: You're going to need a bin for throwing in all your failed projects cuz that's how you learn. Electronics You build stuff, you fail, you toss them out, and you try again. And don't forget your fire extinguisher.

So there you have it. That's just a quick look at a basic setup for a good, solid electronic lab. Sure, you can get by on a lot less than that. Everyone starts off with just a multimeter, a pair of side Cutters and a Dicky soldering iron, but if you get all that stuff in there, then you've got a really good solid Electronics General Purpose Electronics Workshop You can use for pretty much anything, and you'll acquire more specialized tools.

As you go along, you might find you need a logic analyzer, an IR spectrum analyzer, microcontroller development tools, all sorts of stuff and I'm sure I've forgotten a whole bunch of other stuff and if you think I have, hop on over to the Eev blog Forum at Eev Forum.com and discuss it. I'm sure it'll be red hot arguing over what should be in a good Electronics lab, but there's some Basics I had L around and I thought I'd show you I hope that helps you out I'll catch you next time. Have fun with electronics and don't forget to subscribe to my Uh YouTube channel if you want to get the Uh email alerts. as soon as a new video comes out there, a subscribe button up there somewhere.

Do it? See you.