So I've been working at converting a small half-bedroom in my apartment into my own little batcave where I can work on stuff, and I want to get into making and modding some hardware stuff, things ranging from assembling my own LSDJ keyboard to painting some consoles to creating PCBs for flash cartridges (no guarantees on that last one, my electronics knowledge is pretty basic right now). I'd like to get a bit of an idea as to what sort of tools I should start picking up, so what I'd like to know is what tools do you have on your bench and what do you use them for?
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Matthew Joseph Payne
If you're just getting started, your top stuff is gonna be:
a good variable heat soldering iron
a good pair of wire cutter/strippers
a wide range of screwdrivers incl. jewler's drivers and tri-wing/specialty bits
some kind of soldering hands free device - a desk clamp/vice grip, or those little grippy clips on goosenecks or whatever
GOOD LIGHT
and a little test amp
oh and a digital multimeter
also getting a lot of exercise on my bench:
dremel
heat gun
wire brushes
full size drill with step bits
oscilloscope
test oscillators
paint scrapers (for cleaning old stuff - like getting the glue off game boy cases where the screen used to be)
not tools, but disposable stuff I use a lot:
contact cleaner
compressed air
rubber cement
painter's tape
heat shrink tubing
Best of luck getting started in all this stuff! Nothing beats making sounds with your own gear built from scratch. 
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Wellington, NZ
tweezers are great for soldering tiny things. Also some little magnetic trays, they sell them at automotive shops, great to throw tiny screws in.
Also Personally I always dissect things like gameboys on a square of towel. Helps keep stuff from being scratched and helps screws from rolling away.
And some spare razor blades, good for a lot of things
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Buffalo, NY
All good things I've been thinking about off and on, thanks! I've already got an okay soldering station (it's variable temp, but just controlled with a dial going from 1-5) and some good screwdrivers. Any particular multimeters you might recommend, or any reason to stay away from the cheap ones?
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hardcore, Australia
If you plan on soldering.
ALWAYS REMEMBER A SOLDER SUCKER AND SOME SOLDER WICK
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Matthew Joseph Payne
A good, easy rule of thumb: Don't buy a multimeter with permanently attached cables. Make sure you get something with a continuity tester option (beeeeeeeep!)
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Matthew Joseph Payne
godinpants wrote:
ALWAYS REMEMBER A SOLDER SUCKER AND SOME SOLDER WICK
oh god yes definitely
personally, I've never been into desoldering wick, but you definitely need some good way to desolder
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Wellington, NZ
kineticturtle wrote:
godinpants wrote:ALWAYS REMEMBER A SOLDER SUCKER AND SOME SOLDER WICK
oh god yes definitely
personally, I've never been into desoldering wick, but you definitely need some good way to desolder
I've managed without for this long
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Matthew Joseph Payne
I lasted without for a long time too, but when I got a good solder sucker, my life changed, and I wished I'd had one previously.
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Melbourne, Australia
A hot glue gun can come in really handy too. It's one of the things I love being able to reach for.
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Canada
The Triplett 9045 has served me well over the past five or six years. Also, depending on what you're doing, a lower cost alternative to an oscilloscope would be a logic analyzer. Even cheaper is a digital logic probe (and for debugging, my logic probe has saved me huge amounts of time).
Last edited by Rolf (Oct 21, 2010 7:31 am)