Building up the workBench..your fave tools?

Other Hardware General Electronics
1

So i use to be a bit active in this forum , then i got married :confused:
now im back trying to build up a new tool set , however with all the brandnames and knockoffs
i dont know which are actually the good ones...

for example trying to purchase a new Multimeter but do i get the 40$ one or the 161$ one or am i just paying for a brand name
as oppose to actual functionality

also whats a good entry - mid level oscilloscope

good soldering /hotair reflow station i currently have an ebay one that cost like 200 havent used it in ages ill turn it on sometime tomorrow to make sure it works fine.

so yeah main querstion is what brands are known to be good for such tools?

2

Congrats, and welcome back!
Good luck in the tool search.

3

If you are working with digital logic (ie. microprocessors) then I use my Logic analyzer a lot lot more than my oscilloscope:

For $149 you get something that can measure 8 logic levels at once and store billions of samples, as well as analyzing SPI, I2C, serial, and so on. Very very useful.

As for the multimeter you get what you pay for to an extent, but I would watch some of the videos by David Jones or Martin Lorton (search them on YouTube). Both have done videos with multimeter comparisons, as I recall. Say if you only spend $60 or so, those videos might help you choose a good $60 meter rather than a crappy one.

4

Hello .
I would suggest a nice multimeter wich is capacitance meter
http://www.antoniou24.gr/p.Monterno-PSifiako-Polymetro-Kapasitometro-tis-UNI-T-UT-50A.528410.html
And for a good price

Then get a nice and simple soldering iron of good quality , couple of leads , wire stripper, soldering wire in different sizes, soldering paste, solder pump remover, silver solder if you deal with hifi audio, side cutters,20-30 alligator clips, helping hand tool,electrostatic tweezers, screwdrivers...

Consider some quality lighting , also you can construct a nice variable lab power supply .

About oscilloscope if you deal with audio projects you can DIY one easy. Otherwise there are some hameg 20mhz out there for $100
But I don't think is necessary just for arduino.
For me its only mandatory in smps psu prototyping and repair.

Hope I gave some ideas

5 
If you are working with digital logic (ie. microprocessors) then I use my Logic analyzer a lot lot more than my oscilloscope:

I took this advice and got the 16 channel model.
This has proven to be a very useful tool and I second the suggestion. I do wish the software had an option to print the screen with a white rather than the black background. This would save on ink!

I have found a logic probe is a useful tool. You can find DIY circuits on the WEB.

6

thebadtall:
Hello .
I would suggest a nice multimeter wich is capacitance meter
http://www.antoniou24.gr/p.Monterno-PSifiako-Polymetro-Kapasitometro-tis-UNI-T-UT-50A.528410.html
And for a good price

Multimeter Post:

FOr those who haven't heard of Uni-T its one of the more reputable meter makers in China. Uni-T is the ODM for Tenma, Voltcraft and a few others. Their lower price handheld meters seem to be the best value. That UT50A is not a bad meter for the price but in general the best bang for the buck from Uni-T is the UT61E. Note: NOT the A, B, C or D which are ENTIRELY unrelated meters, different IC, worse specs, completely different circuit boards. The UT61E can be had for around $55-$70 depending on where you look. The 61E is a 4.5 digit, 0.1% DC accuracy, Auto-Ranging, TrueRMS (though it can have issues with AC+DC combination signals), RS232 logging ability, that has excellent build quality overall. That being said, the input protection is not horrible but could be better. It does come with ceramic HRC fuses (though they are rated at 250V). I have one and can attest that it meets or beats its specs across the board. For example, my meter is about a year old it hits around 0.15% error on resistance on my 0.01% accuracy resistor.

As for other meter companies:
Besides Fluke, Agilent and Amprobe which all make great stuff.

Avoid any meter from Victor (typically model numbers VCxx or VCxxx) they are complete crap. Even the native Chinese hobbist won't touch Victor stuff. Uni-T and Mastech they will use, not Victor.

Mastech makes hundreds of meters (including they are the ODM for many other brands) so they vary wildly in quality.

Extech tends to be crap unfortunately, many of their meters suffer from bad to horrible QC. It used to be a recommended brand but way to many failures (and failures of the replacement or repaired device).

Brymen - There are some good values from this company (called Brymen Technology Group). Brymen is a Taiwanese mutlimeter manufacturer and they focus on safety in particular. So all of their meters tend to be some of the best safety wise. Also, Brymen is the ODM for Greenlee, but unlike most other ODMs the Greenlee models are 100% idential internally to their Brymen counterparts (externally the color is different). A good value model from Brymen is the BM-257 at around $135. It has phenomenal input protection and has nice accuracy. While the Brymen 869 (also known as the Greenlee DM-860A) is one of the best handheld multimeters period and cost in the $200-250 range retail. It rivals and or beats anything from Agilent and Fluke. 5 5/6 digit (500,000 count), crazy accurate, true CatIV 1000V input protection etc. As for the latter, the Fluke doesn't make anything rated higher than CatIII 1000V CatIV 600V.

Thats all I can think of right now, lol.

7

A 40$ multimeter? Here in India we use 2$ multimeters and 10$ multimeters are considered the expensive ones. :frowning:

8

LarryD:

If you are working with digital logic (ie. microprocessors) then I use my Logic analyzer a lot lot more than my oscilloscope:

I took this advice and got the 16 channel model.
This has proven to be a very useful tool and I second the suggestion. I do wish the software had an option to print the screen with a white rather than the black background. This would save on ink!

I have found a logic probe is a useful tool. You can find DIY circuits on the WEB.

You can just throw it into paint or some imaging software and invert the colors.
I will look into the Logic Analyzers as well as the mentioned meters,
Thanks Guys

9

Cool, thanks for pointing this out. Just ordered mine (:

10

Last year I upgraded to an Atten ADS1102CAL+ 100MHz oscilloscope (there are many similar scopes about),
its been serving me well for general use (a few little niggles, but for the price I'm not dismayed).

11

Sweet, got mine in mail today. Haven't had time to play around with it yet though.

12

Test it out with something simple, like the ASCII table serial sketch. Fire that up, and then get the analyzer to show you the data.

13

Nick you should get a cut.
I picked one up a few months ago based on your recommendations.
Great tool!