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Science Forum Index » Electronics - Basics Forum » Equipment for Electronics Lab...
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 Posted: Fri May 30, 2008 6:15 pm |
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Guest
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I'm setting up a hobbyist electronics lab. What kind of equipment
should I buy to equip this lab? My budget is $3000. |
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| CDESC... |
| Posted: Sat May 31, 2008 12:34 am |
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Guest
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Hello.
Here is a short list of the content of a basic hobby lab... I'll try not to
forget too much!
- Precision and standard screwdrivers sets (~15$)
- Precision pliers of all kinds (~10$)
- A good wire cutter (the kind used to cut excess leads under pcbs) (~5$)
- A set of tweezers (~20$)
- A lab power supply (~100$)
- If your budget allows it, an oscilloscope is always useful (~350$+)
- A multimeter (~50$)
- A breadboard or two with jumper wires (~30$)
- A soldering iron and soldering wire (~40$)
- A de-soldering pump (aka a sucker) (~5$)
- Aligator clips are always good (~5$)
- Lots, Lots, Lots, Lots and Lots of assorted parts of all kinds. ICs,
Transistors, Resistors, Capacitors, Pots, everything you can get. (~1500$+)
- Prototyping PCBs or blank PCBs with everything needed to etch them might
be useful if you intend to keep your projects in one piece. There are
several techniques so the hardware will vary.
If you're going to work with programmable ICs, SMD/SMT and the such, I
suggest to consider the following too:
- A SMD rework station (hot air gun) (~100$)
- A pick and place vacuum pen
- A set of wax carver tools (these are useful to manipulate parts,
straighten small IC pins, etc.) (~15$)
- A microscope (~100$ to 300$)
- A programmer (the Willem kind is fine as it covers most of the basic
programmable ICs out there) (~35$)
- A computer dedicated to your hobby room (running with the project board
all over the house isnt a good idea) (~I bet you have an extra one!)
- A signal/function generator is not a must but might save your day, one
day. (~200$)
For added paranoia, or if you're going to work with expensive or sensitive
microcontrollers, get an anti-electrostatic mat for your desktop
and/or an electrostatic protection wirst strap.
The rest is up to your needs depending on your specific projects and the
type of work you're gonna do.
All of that hardware can be found on eBay. The prices I gave are based on
what I remember (or think I remember) I paid.
<sodaant at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote in message
news:dadb5398-6838-4895-9cf6-970c7de09c79 at (no spam) g16g2000pri.googlegroups.com...
Quote: I'm setting up a hobbyist electronics lab. What kind of equipment
should I buy to equip this lab? My budget is $3000. |
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| Ecnerwal... |
| Posted: Sat May 31, 2008 8:03 am |
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In article
<dadb5398-6838-4895-9cf6-970c7de09c79 at (no spam) g16g2000pri.googlegroups.com>,
sodaant at (no spam) gmail.com wrote:
Quote: I'm setting up a hobbyist electronics lab. What kind of equipment
should I buy to equip this lab? My budget is $3000.
"What you need" depends a huge amount on what you plan to do. Radio,
microprocessors, audio, ...
One approach is to buy stuff as your hobby project of the moment
requires - that will tend to match up your equipment to what you are
actually doing, or have done, rather than tying up bunches of money in
things you never use for your particular projects. If you are somewhat
vague about projects, start in with things you need - you can build
power supplies, buy kits to build meters, etc.
Oscilloscope (but there's a huge range, depending on what you plan to
do.) Big differences are Analog .vs. Digital, number of channels, and
speed.
Function generator
Frequency counter (perhaps, depending...)
Spectrum analyzer (perhaps, depending, but even old ones will probably
blow your budget, so perhaps not)
Soldering tools - a combined iron/hot air system is one approach.
Anti-static (not essential for some things, but cheap enough to just do
right once - get a good rubber bench mat and wrist-band)
meter(s) - multimeter, perhaps more than one or some dedicated less
capable meters (advantage being that you can look at two parameters at
once if you have more than one meter). Simpler meters have the advantage
of being dirt cheap. One that does L/C (inductance/capacitance) is
invaluable, especially if getting used parts by scrapping old equipment,
as the markings are often obscure - or if winding your own inductors.
Power supplies
Parts to play with - resistors, capacitors, transistors, diodes,
op-amps, ...
cables, wires, breadboards etc.
--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by |
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| John Larkin... |
| Posted: Sat May 31, 2008 11:28 am |
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On Sat, 31 May 2008 13:03:50 GMT, Ecnerwal
<LawrenceSMITH at (no spam) SOuthernVERmont.NyET> wrote:
Quote: In article
dadb5398-6838-4895-9cf6-970c7de09c79 at (no spam) g16g2000pri.googlegroups.com>,
sodaant at (no spam) gmail.com wrote:
I'm setting up a hobbyist electronics lab. What kind of equipment
should I buy to equip this lab? My budget is $3000.
"What you need" depends a huge amount on what you plan to do. Radio,
microprocessors, audio, ...
One approach is to buy stuff as your hobby project of the moment
requires - that will tend to match up your equipment to what you are
actually doing, or have done, rather than tying up bunches of money in
things you never use for your particular projects. If you are somewhat
vague about projects, start in with things you need - you can build
power supplies, buy kits to build meters, etc.
Oscilloscope (but there's a huge range, depending on what you plan to
do.) Big differences are Analog .vs. Digital, number of channels, and
speed.
Function generator
Frequency counter (perhaps, depending...)
Spectrum analyzer (perhaps, depending, but even old ones will probably
blow your budget, so perhaps not)
Most digital scopes nowadays, even the sub-$1000 ones, will measure
frequency and do basic spectral analysis. A decent color digital scope
is worth it.
John |
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| Tim Wescott... |
| Posted: Sat May 31, 2008 11:31 am |
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Ecnerwal wrote:
Quote: In article
dadb5398-6838-4895-9cf6-970c7de09c79 at (no spam) g16g2000pri.googlegroups.com>,
sodaant at (no spam) gmail.com wrote:
I'm setting up a hobbyist electronics lab. What kind of equipment
should I buy to equip this lab? My budget is $3000.
"What you need" depends a huge amount on what you plan to do. Radio,
microprocessors, audio, ...
One approach is to buy stuff as your hobby project of the moment
requires - that will tend to match up your equipment to what you are
actually doing, or have done, rather than tying up bunches of money in
things you never use for your particular projects. If you are somewhat
vague about projects, start in with things you need - you can build
power supplies, buy kits to build meters, etc.
Oscilloscope (but there's a huge range, depending on what you plan to
do.) Big differences are Analog .vs. Digital, number of channels, and
speed.
Function generator
Frequency counter (perhaps, depending...)
Spectrum analyzer (perhaps, depending, but even old ones will probably
blow your budget, so perhaps not)
Soldering tools - a combined iron/hot air system is one approach.
Anti-static (not essential for some things, but cheap enough to just do
right once - get a good rubber bench mat and wrist-band)
meter(s) - multimeter, perhaps more than one or some dedicated less
capable meters (advantage being that you can look at two parameters at
once if you have more than one meter). Simpler meters have the advantage
of being dirt cheap. One that does L/C (inductance/capacitance) is
invaluable, especially if getting used parts by scrapping old equipment,
as the markings are often obscure - or if winding your own inductors.
Power supplies
Parts to play with - resistors, capacitors, transistors, diodes,
op-amps, ...
cables, wires, breadboards etc.
I can't second this advise more. You need to buy what you're going to
want, and beyond the very basics you can't know that until you've been
doing it for a while. I suggest you start by spending $200 to $500 now,
and stash the remainder under a cabinet or in a special bank account (at
least in the US banks are quite happy to let you open a second account,
which makes it easy to separate your money).
That much money will get you a ton of basic equipment, or about 1/20th
of a top-of-the-line oscilloscope. So you _do_ want to figure out what
you want to spend your money on before it's all gone.
I also suggest that before you buy anything beyond pliers, multimeter,
wire cutters and soldering iron, that you sit down and answer the
question "is there a way that I can do this job with the equipment that
I have". There are many pieces of specialized equipment that will do a
job fast, and are essential for a profitable business, that you can
replace with basic equipment and time spent in careful work in a
hobbyist shop.
--
Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com
Do you need to implement control loops in software?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" gives you just what it says.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html |
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| David L. Jones... |
| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 7:30 am |
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Guest
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<sodaant at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote in message
news:dadb5398-6838-4895-9cf6-970c7de09c79 at (no spam) g16g2000pri.googlegroups.com...
Quote: I'm setting up a hobbyist electronics lab. What kind of equipment
should I buy to equip this lab? My budget is $3000.
That is a huge budget for a hobbyist setup!
If you can seriously afford that sort of cash, then spend $1000 to maybe
$1500 on a decent digital oscilloscope, this will be by far your best
investment. For that price you can get one with decent memory, bandwidth,
and a digital logic analyser as well.
Then all the other basics like function generator (say a 20MHz one),
multimeter (nice accurate autoranging Fluke or Meterman), lab power supplies
(plural, you need more than one), and a decent SMD soldering system. Plus
all the usual cables and hand tools etc.
As other have said, you need to know what sort of stuff you will be working
on before you can know what to get in the more exotic line of test gear.
Save a good chunk of that cash for specific development boards, parts etc
for specific projects you are interesting in.
Dave. |
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| Bob Masta... |
| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 7:38 am |
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Guest
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On Sat, 31 May 2008 13:03:50 GMT, Ecnerwal
<LawrenceSMITH at (no spam) SOuthernVERmont.NyET> wrote:
Quote: In article
dadb5398-6838-4895-9cf6-970c7de09c79 at (no spam) g16g2000pri.googlegroups.com>,
sodaant at (no spam) gmail.com wrote:
I'm setting up a hobbyist electronics lab. What kind of equipment
should I buy to equip this lab? My budget is $3000.
"What you need" depends a huge amount on what you plan to do. Radio,
microprocessors, audio, ...
One approach is to buy stuff as your hobby project of the moment
requires - that will tend to match up your equipment to what you are
actually doing, or have done, rather than tying up bunches of money in
things you never use for your particular projects. If you are somewhat
vague about projects, start in with things you need - you can build
power supplies, buy kits to build meters, etc.
Oscilloscope (but there's a huge range, depending on what you plan to
do.) Big differences are Analog .vs. Digital, number of channels, and
speed.
Function generator
Frequency counter (perhaps, depending...)
Spectrum analyzer (perhaps, depending, but even old ones will probably
blow your budget, so perhaps not)
SHAMELESS PLUG:
If you are going to be working at audio frequencies, you might want to
consider my Daqarta sound-card software. It does all of the above
(and a whole lot more) for US$29 (personal/hobby license). You can
try it for free, and even if you decide not to buy, the function
generator features keep on working after the trial period. You are
welcome to use Daqarta forever like this.
The function generator does *way* more than any benchtop unit.
You get 2 independent output channels, with up to 4 separate "streams"
per channel. Each stream can have its own waveform (all the standards
plus Arb and file Play and different kinds of noise, including
Band-limited) and can be modulated: Burst, AM, FM, Phase or PWM, and
Sweep. You can add the streams to get a combined output, or use a
stream as the modulation source for another stream.
The Frequency Counter has a much better resolution/response tradeoff
then most benchtop units because it actually measures the period and
takes the reciprocal. So you can read 440.001 Hz without waiting 1000
seconds. It also can show msec, or event Total.
Spectrum mode offers a range of windowing functions, log or linear
X and/or Y axes, automatic peak tracking (for cursor readouts) and
the ability to apply weighting or calibration curves. (You can, for
example, read SPL directly with a calibrated microphone.)
Besides Spectrum, you can view a 256-color Spectrogram to see time,
energy, and frequency on the same plot.
The standard waveform (scope) mode offers several trigger modes,
including internal sync to the signal generator. You can use positive
or negative trigger delay (negative allows you to see what happened
*before* the trigger), calibrated hold-off, the usual level and slope
controls, and a special hysteresis control.
Best regards,
Bob Masta
DAQARTA v3.50
Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis
www.daqarta.com
Scope, Spectrum, Spectrogram, FREE Signal Generator
Science with your sound card! |
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| Joel Koltner... |
| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 6:09 pm |
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Guest
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"John Larkin" <jjlarkin at (no spam) highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
news:90v244t4cef5sosegskm1i12pt3nr7mer9 at (no spam) 4ax.com...
Quote: Most digital scopes nowadays, even the sub-$1000 ones, will measure
frequency and do basic spectral analysis.
John knows this, but for others: The dynamic range of a scope is usually
little better than ~50dB. If you find yourself liking what you're seeing on a
scope's spectral display, but want to dig out weaker signals, any old
purpose-built spectrum analyzer (read: something cheap you can buy used) will
generally give at least 90dB dynamic range -- much more useful for, e.g., low
level RF work or sniffing around boards for EMC checks. |
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| John Larkin... |
| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 6:56 pm |
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Guest
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On Sun, 1 Jun 2008 16:09:24 -0700, "Joel Koltner"
<zapwireDASHgroups at (no spam) yahoo.com> wrote:
Quote: "John Larkin" <jjlarkin at (no spam) highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
news:90v244t4cef5sosegskm1i12pt3nr7mer9 at (no spam) 4ax.com...
Most digital scopes nowadays, even the sub-$1000 ones, will measure
frequency and do basic spectral analysis.
John knows this, but for others: The dynamic range of a scope is usually
little better than ~50dB. If you find yourself liking what you're seeing on a
scope's spectral display, but want to dig out weaker signals, any old
purpose-built spectrum analyzer (read: something cheap you can buy used) will
generally give at least 90dB dynamic range -- much more useful for, e.g., low
level RF work or sniffing around boards for EMC checks.
Yeah, the fft's are mediocre. I found one of my guys complaining about
some huge odd harmonic distortion on a sine wave. Turns out he'd
cranked up the volts/div knob to better resolve the distortion, and
overloaded the front end, turning the signal into a square wave.
John |
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| BobW... |
| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 7:09 pm |
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Guest
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"John Larkin" <jjlarkin at (no spam) highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
news:ohd6449dlf22uqd3nos7chlpuiefvb5qsq at (no spam) 4ax.com...
Quote: On Sun, 1 Jun 2008 16:09:24 -0700, "Joel Koltner"
zapwireDASHgroups at (no spam) yahoo.com> wrote:
"John Larkin" <jjlarkin at (no spam) highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in
message
news:90v244t4cef5sosegskm1i12pt3nr7mer9 at (no spam) 4ax.com...
Most digital scopes nowadays, even the sub-$1000 ones, will measure
frequency and do basic spectral analysis.
John knows this, but for others: The dynamic range of a scope is usually
little better than ~50dB. If you find yourself liking what you're seeing
on a
scope's spectral display, but want to dig out weaker signals, any old
purpose-built spectrum analyzer (read: something cheap you can buy used)
will
generally give at least 90dB dynamic range -- much more useful for, e.g.,
low
level RF work or sniffing around boards for EMC checks.
Yeah, the fft's are mediocre. I found one of my guys complaining about
some huge odd harmonic distortion on a sine wave. Turns out he'd
cranked up the volts/div knob to better resolve the distortion, and
overloaded the front end, turning the signal into a square wave.
John
Jheez! He must be a young guy.
Why can't they be like we were? Perfect, in every way. What's the matter
with kids today?
Bob
--
== NOTE: I automatically delete all Google Group posts due to uncontrolled
SPAM == |
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| John Larkin... |
| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 9:27 pm |
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Guest
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On Sun, 1 Jun 2008 17:09:39 -0700, "BobW"
<nimby_NEEDSPAM at (no spam) roadrunner.com> wrote:
Quote:
"John Larkin" <jjlarkin at (no spam) highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
news:ohd6449dlf22uqd3nos7chlpuiefvb5qsq at (no spam) 4ax.com...
On Sun, 1 Jun 2008 16:09:24 -0700, "Joel Koltner"
zapwireDASHgroups at (no spam) yahoo.com> wrote:
"John Larkin" <jjlarkin at (no spam) highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in
message
news:90v244t4cef5sosegskm1i12pt3nr7mer9 at (no spam) 4ax.com...
Most digital scopes nowadays, even the sub-$1000 ones, will measure
frequency and do basic spectral analysis.
John knows this, but for others: The dynamic range of a scope is usually
little better than ~50dB. If you find yourself liking what you're seeing
on a
scope's spectral display, but want to dig out weaker signals, any old
purpose-built spectrum analyzer (read: something cheap you can buy used)
will
generally give at least 90dB dynamic range -- much more useful for, e.g.,
low
level RF work or sniffing around boards for EMC checks.
Yeah, the fft's are mediocre. I found one of my guys complaining about
some huge odd harmonic distortion on a sine wave. Turns out he'd
cranked up the volts/div knob to better resolve the distortion, and
overloaded the front end, turning the signal into a square wave.
John
Jheez! He must be a young guy.
Yes, but very smart. He won't do that again.
Quote:
Why can't they be like we were? Perfect, in every way. What's the matter
with kids today?
Partly the problem that there's about 50x more stuff to learn.
John |
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| ... |
| Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 11:28 am |
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Guest
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On May 30, 10:34 pm, "CDESC" <feedb... at (no spam) realitymedias.com> wrote:
Quote: The rest is up to your needs depending on your specific projects and the
type of work you're gonna do.
I guess I forgot to mention this, didn't I?
I intend to work mostly with micro controllers, such as the AVR and
the Propeller chip, and with various peripherals such as motion
sensors, pressure sensors, and motor controllers.
Does this knowledge change the list? |
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