I’m new to electronics and looking to assemble an array of components and tools for working on and designing electronics & circuits. Something immediately apparent is that all of the widely available kits orient you towards working with microcontrollers and SBCs; these kits are cool, but I want to have a halfway decent understanding of the underlying analog components and circuit design before I go digital.
With that in mind, what should I get? If anyone could specify specifics to look into, I’d really appreciate that! Thanks for the help.
Current list
- A decent breadboard
- Jumper wires
- Multimeter
- Batteries
- Variable Power Supply?
- Assorted resistors (1Ω-?)
- Capacitors (Electrolytic and ceramic?)
- Various ICs?
- Transistors?
- Diodes, probably?
- Potentiometers
Analog electronics are really cool, but they’re also less forgiving in learning than digital electronics are.
Taking an Arduino and doing some simple projects is simple enough, but it’s not always that easy with analog electronics. I don’t mean to discourage you, it’s perfectly possible, it’s just somewhat harder to understand.
Very soon into your journey in analog electronics, you’ll run into working with AC signals, and at that point I’m quite sure you’re going to need some sort of oscilloscope. There are cheaper desktop oscilloscopes for 300€-ish (for example from the brand Siglent) that perform very well for the price. If you wanna go cheaper than that, I have a DS212 mini handheld oscilloscope from Miniware. It’s quite basic and lacks some functionality, but it’s a banger for the 90€ it costed when I bought it.
To your list I would add a soldering iron, and if you allow me a recommendation, I’d buy the latest model of the Pinecil available, I think that would be the V2, from the Pine64 website. It’s an amazing little soldering iron that, again, is impossible to beat at its price point.
Good luck in your endeavours!!