Best bang for the buck here in my opinion: The Engineer SS-02.
Before I bought this I thought all solder suckers were the same. I was wrong. Well worth the ~$20, built like a tank, and works very well.
Electronics Lab Bench Setup Guide
81–90 of 274 posts
Re: Electronics Lab Bench Setup Guide
#82I 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…
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.
Re: Electronics Lab Bench Setup Guide
#83This is a very nice guide. Lots of good choices. 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…
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.
they also typically have some sort of serial output, which opens up a whole world of data logging.
Re: Electronics Lab Bench Setup Guide
#84This 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 mad…
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.
Re: Electronics Lab Bench Setup Guide
#85This is a very nice guide. Lots of good choices. 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…
A DMM is a precision tool. Especially a good 6.5 digit desktop one.
An oscilloscope is fantastically useful, but it is not a precision tool. Calibration is just OK, and most use 8-bit converters.
Re: Electronics Lab Bench Setup Guide
#86FAR too organized.
Re: Electronics Lab Bench Setup Guide
#87I 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!
Re: Electronics Lab Bench Setup Guide
#88I'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.
Re: Electronics Lab Bench Setup Guide
#89I wonder how much this entire setup costs is it like $20,000?
Re: Electronics Lab Bench Setup Guide
#90This 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 would also love to see something like that. It would be a fun premise for a blog, kind of like Uses This [0] but for workbenches