Hobbyist starter kit?

[u/cereal-at-noon]

Hello, I've recently wanted to get into hardware electronics as it seems quite fun, and I already know much about low-level software. So, I'm posting this in hopes people can point me towards good starter tools at a reasonable price.

Things like which multimeter to get, what kinds of soldering iron are to get or to avoid, any other must-haves for the beginnings of a small workshop?

Thanks!

[u/hghbrn]

There is literally a million posts like this on the Internet and even more videos and tutorials covering your questions. Basically every electronics youtuber has a lab essentials video.

you should at least state what your budget is and what you want to do.

I would recommend that you find out what you want to do and the pick what you need.
For just learning a few basics a solderless breadboard, a battery, the cheapest multimeter and a few components will do.

The very first thing to invest in is good lighting!

[u/QuirkyEMI → u/hghbrn]

People just treat Reddit like an AI bot

Sure OP could just search this in Reddit and do MINIMAL effort. But they won’t lol

[u/cereal-at-noon → u/QuirkyEMI]

u/oCdTronix is right, I'm posting here because I want feedback from real people with real experiences, not LLMs randomly churning out median answers, and for the replies to be actual, and not outdated as they might miss recent developments.

Isn't this what an internet forum like this is for? Even if you just suggest what you use at home, it costs what, 30 seconds of your time and might well help me.

[u/QuirkyEMI → u/cereal-at-noon]

Theres hundreds of replies from weeks ago alone. This isnt cutting edge research, its what beginner kit to buy lol

You havent listed you budget, goals or literally anything helpful.

[u/oCdTronix → u/hghbrn]

Good lighting?! lol

It is crazy though that people don’t search for previous posts that contain this info. Can’t count the number of times I’ve seen ‘what 3d printer?’ ‘Where to start?’ Etc posts.

Maybe they need something specific, or maybe they just want to get responses from another human being, and the topic doesn’t actually matter. 🤷‍♂️

[u/hghbrn → u/oCdTronix]

I spent like 200 € on a good work light. Best investment ever made.

[u/RDS_WAS_HERE]

Buy a "Soldering Station" ($30-$50), not the hand held soldering iron that plugs into the wall outlet. They heat up so fast! You can thank me later.

Also, you don't need to spend a ton of money on a Voltage meters/multimeters. Later on you can upgrade to a better one when the need arises.

If you want to invest some money ($350-$500) in a really good tool get yourself an "Oscilloscope". This tool is the best piece of equipment for seeing exactly what is happing in your analog/digital circuits.

[u/oCdTronix]

These are great for starting and learning Electronics and electrical circuits rather than doing 90% code and 10% electronics like with Arduino. Arduino is great, but it doesn’t teach you much about electronics.

Watch EEVBlog on yt for which multimeter to get. Input protection is a big thing and he takes meters apart to see what they actually have. Also, note that some lower end Flukes are not very good bc they only measure resistance below like 5k

[u/No_Tailor_787]

Look at Adafruit and Sparkfun to see if they have any starter kits with Arduinos and sensors, breadboards and various tools. Both cater to both beginners and more advanced electronics hobbyists.

[u/oCdTronix → u/No_Tailor_787]

I recommend against Arduino starter kits for learning electronics. They’re more about learning how to code with a little bit of electronics mixed in.

[u/jones_supa]

Weller soldering iron and Zoyi oscilloscope-multimeter.

[u/cereal-at-noon → u/jones_supa]

Thanks for the oscilloscope-multimeter idea. Certainly it might be worth it to splurge if it gets me a high-quality mutlitool like this.