#1179 What Electronics Tools Do You Need?

[Music] i had a viewer ask me to go kind of around my lab and talk about each of my instruments and i thought about doing that but uh and i still might do that someday but i think i want to do a a slightly different version of that topic uh today um and i don't know if it's gonna be a one part video two part video depends on on how quickly we can get through this but that is kind of if you're going to be setting up an electronics lab what instruments do you need and i try to like to give an example of a cheap solution and a kind of a high-end solution um and those two terms are relative you know what what is cheap to one person or what is expensive to one person but but basically i'll show you two versions you know a lower end version and and a higher end version and i thought about trying to make the list myself but i know there's already a list in existence so we're going to use a list in a book okay remember books so let's go take a look at this book so this book is called troubleshooting analog circuits and it's written by a famous engineer bob pease i don't know if anybody called him robert but anyway bob pees and he's he was a character and he wrote a lot of articles for various uh magazines stuff like edn those thing called the peace porridge and anyway he has this great book i recommend this book if you want to learn analog circuits and stuff so he has a chapter here on uh choosing the right equipment so i thought i would just go down bob's list of equipment okay and uh we'll just we'll just go through them there's let's see one two three four see how many things he has here 17 he has a 28 he has 28 things that you need so i don't know if we'll go through all of them but uh yeah let's go through it one by one and uh the first he has listed here is a dual dual trace oscilloscope all right and uh he talks about the qualifications of the scope that you need so this is an example of a high end scope okay i paid 900 for this scope and um a lot of people are not going to be able to spend that kind of money i i i didn't for a long long long long time and it wasn't until i made some money on uh ad revenue from my youtube that i was able to afford something like this and uh but you can get really nice oscilloscopes pretty cheap these days try to find yourself i think 100 megahertz oscilloscope you need at least 20 megahertz so i would and and that's like super easy to find um so on the low end first of first and foremost i think look for a used oscilloscope especially if you're just kind of getting into electronics you're not quite sure how serious you want to be and everything i think adam savage always says you know buy the cheapest tool that will get you by until you figure out you really need one and then buy the best one that you can afford and so like i said buy yourself a a used one if you can and analog scopes are fine just be learning and stuff like that i recommend digital oscilloscopes 100 100 megahertz digital oscilloscope so i'm going to set you back maybe 200. and maybe you can get one even cheaper than that but um it's probably going to be the most expensive thing you buy originally and um you know you will learn a lot from from having an oscilloscope all right so the next thing he says is two or three scope probes those usually come with with the oscilloscope but a two channel oscilloscope is great and a four channel this little scope is a real luxury um so anyway uh and scope probes on the high end you can spend a lot of money on them they usually come bundled with your with your expensive oscilloscope but low end scope probes the chinese ones for like ten dollars they're actually quite good i use one all the time in my other lab inside the house and they're just fine they're just fine all right three uh an analog storage oscilloscope so this is before digital oscilloscopes he wrote this right so yeah get a digital oscilloscope um voltmeter all right so he says you need one with at least five digits of resolution um and uh so that's certainly on the high end i would say on the high end yeah get yourself a nice a nice one uh here are two uh that i have on the high end a hewlett packard three four four zero one and uh a keith lee 2015. okay both of those are six and a half digits so those are those are way on the high end i paid about 300 each for for those things um but uh you don't need anything better than a uh a a a little handheld meter uh and uh i can hi highly recommend this one this is an a a n uh 870. i think you can find these for 35 or something like that and they're great uh they're actually quite a quite a few uh digits these are um 20 000 count or something i think so anyway yeah these are these are great meters um and almost any meter you get is going to be fine uh it doesn't you're not going to be limited so much by by your by your volt meter all right uh let's see what else does he say here um he talks about having a high input impedance of the dvm which they all are these days have to worry about that uh okay number five you might want two dvms um yeah sometimes you want to measure both current and voltage and so uh having having a second one is good so even if you have an expensive meter you might want to pick up a cheapie meter to have a second one uh general purpose function generator okay uh so i have over there there i have a helipacker 33120a now that's a 15 megahertz arbitrary waveform generator um so that's a pretty fancy high-end one you can get uh kind of out of the box two megahertz ones um that's a great one to start out with i think you can buy one of those maybe for 80 bucks or something or you can just build your own um and if you're super super broke just use a 555 and if you need a sine wave just filter it just turn your square wave into a sine wave um uh or build one out of an op amp find a circuit and build your own little thing and there's kits you can buy little chinese kits that use certain ics and you get a square wave a sine wave and a triangle wave for for for five bucks i mean they're super super cheap so that's what i say on the function generator um if you're lucky to have a fancy fancy oscilloscope this one has two over here it has two function generators built into the oscilloscope those are both function generators and arbitrary waveform recorders so they're recorders and generators both so that is that is on the high and that is certain certainly luxury all right what's our next thing here number seven uh power supplies okay yeah power supplies so um i made a video on on this thing that i purchased recently um i really like it it is a dp 8 832 um again i would say look for a used one i bought this one used um you know signal makes them a bunch of people make them okay and so those are on the high end those are going to cost you a couple hundred bucks and uh yeah though those are definitely on the high end now on the low end i recommend getting one of these things um these things here you can get these for i've seen them for 28 28 new um so this is an 18 volt three amp supply it's got two knobs one for current one for voltage so it does current compliance current limits and and voltage limits um and to make mine better so here's the hack that i made mine better this was my main power supply for years and years in fact i probably used that power supply more than any other power supply in the room right now i still use it because it's just handy that's why it's sitting right in the middle i just glued i glued this meter on the front it's actually sticking out about an inch you can't tell it from the video it's actually sticking out about an inch and it's just hot melted on there and but it's a nice high resolution digital meter as i think i paid like eight bucks for that or something like that and um but that just makes it super good i mean i don't have to measure if you have a kind of a cheapy power spot you're always measuring it with a volt meter now this thing this thing is dead accurate and so i don't have to look anywhere i just set that number and i know that's the real number um so that helped a lot the other thing that helped a lot is i replaced this potentiometer and i replaced it with a 10 turn and by having a 10 turn potentiometer i'm able to set real real accurate voltages very easily so those are the two hacks i did with with that um when i was really young and poor i built my own power supply i got a transformer and i built a little lm 317 circuit and i had to own my own little adjustable power supply and um yeah you can get by with you can get by with pretty cheap all right what does bob say is next number eight number eight a few rc substitution boxes ah now this one i'm gonna have to reach around and try to find so this is definitely on the low end um these are pretty cheap and these just have little jumpers that you move around and so uh this one will do 0.1 ohms up to 100k ohms and you just set whatever value you want it comes out here so this is what i would recommend on the low end uh on the high end uh these are super nice uh they're quite pricey uh but they're really good i bought this one used and it has a broken wheel one of the switches got melted and i moved it over to the least significant digit so i don't care what it is but at least i have all the other ones all the other ones working so it'll work from from 10 ohms all the way up to uh 10 gig ohms 10 meghams um so yeah so these are really really nice um and i would i would recommend those two people have seen my other box uh if i can show it here i have a decade box up here and that one is called the deca box and it's just for calibration you wouldn't use it for troubleshooting or doing anything that was for calibration but that's on the super high end scale of things all right let's see what bob has next all right the next thing bob recommends is an isolation transformer i think that's quite a quite a luxury but if you are working on high voltage circuits it is a must um i have one way in the back let me let me take a picture of it with my cell phone so i can insert it here yeah having an isolation transformer is a really really good idea um and it will save your bacon someday so um yep um they come up on the used market every once in a while i i've bought both of mine i had two or three of them i bought them all used uh so if you get lucky find a used one um the other thing i recommend that bob didn't was uh build yourself one of these let's see if i can turn it on it is a see there we go it measures uh it measures volts amps and watts and i have that in series with my isolation transformer so i can measure uh things and if the amperage starts going up very fast i'll i'll i'll shut off the uh i'll shut off this supply all right and the next thing he talks about is a variac all right and so uh i have a variac in series with my isolation transformer so i can vary the voltage as well you see it's 119 volts right now and i can grab my variac and i can turn it down right i'm using an old labvolt bench supply for like a high school lab like high school physics lab or a chemistry lab it's really old school but it has a really nice variac in it so you can vary the ac ac voltage okay let's see here next thing bob recommends a curve tracer wow that's a real luxury i would say yeah you don't need a curved tracer um but uh i did a series of videos building your own curved tracer i don't have a curved tracer um you can build cheapy ones anyway i don't think you need one i would i would say don't don't bother with a with a curved tracer okay spare parts all right all right spare parts you need resistors okay so you need lots and lots and lots of boxes of resistors and then you need parts so all my ics are over here and they start out with a little connectors and stuff they go into inductors and they go into ics ttl then they go into analog ics then they go into oscillators and crystals leds diodes more diodes and it goes up into capacitors and then all the way at the top it goes into potentiometers and switches so um yeah so you need lots and lots of spare parts um it it's a luxury to have them nice and organized like this but just have some parts laying around keeps you from going to the store all the time the next thing he says is schematic diagrams you can get lots of those online so that's no problem anymore access to an engineering or production test equipment if possible yeah so this is kind of a funny thing if you actually work for a company and are able to use their equipment either off hours or borrow it and take it home that's just a super super luxury my very first vna back when you couldn't buy them and they were a hundred thousand dollars back in the 1980s they were super super expensive um there was one at work and i because i was a big boss i kind of abused my power and went used to the dna in the back um all right he talks about maybe using other things uh something to detect short circuits using an am radio as a detector using a grid meter nobody's going to use a grid meter any anymore they're going to use a vna or something um they're going to use a probe on a on a spectrum analyzer and stuff let's see here a few working circuits by comparing a good one to a bad one you can identify problems well yeah it's always easier to repair something if you have two side by side a sturdy workbench yes i have a big sturdy workbench it is a inch and three quarters maple i paid a lot of money for it but a piece of plywood is fine if you don't got no money or just use your mom's kitchen table all right um let's see here safety equipment all right safety equipment might explode safety glasses and fire extinguishers so i did not stage this there are safety glasses and there is a fire extinguisher okay so they are in my lab and they were very close by okay a suitable soldering iron yeah so people have seen my soldering iron before it is a metcal 500 the only reason i have such an expensive um soldering iron is because they were throwing it away and i took it home uh so it is very nice it has a bunch of replaceable tips and stuff that are easy to put on i don't remember the brand name it starts with a j i think but there's a very popular uh kind of a if you buy the real deal it's kind of expensive but there are clones of it that are nice adjustable uh soldering irons that you can get fairly cheap and then on the low end just get yourself some type of temperature controlled well weller a soldering iron i had a weller soldering iron for ages and ages so i looked in the drawer i still have my old weller i had that before i was an engineer i spent some money on it i think i paid 70 for that thing and i had no money but i knew that i would have it from my lifetime and i did i had it all the way up to the to the point where i got this metcal so yeah get yourself a good soldering iron okay it says tools for unsoldering desoldering um and uh here's my uh clean clean your iron out and this uh umbrella pad stuff uh get yourself some solder wick get yourself some solder sucker here's a big one here's a here's a little one they're on top of my bench so i use them all the time and then the high end if you want to spend money get yourself a a desoldering tool but they're going to spend you know you can spend like 300 300 to get one of those so they are quite the luxury i'm fortunate to have one but yeah they're a lot of money hand tools okay uh i keep uh some hand tools on the bench uh that i use all the time so little little diagonals uh little pliers exacto knife tweezers pencils insulated tweakers ruler yeah i keep stuff right here so i can get to it right away i keep my solder uh my wire stripper right here and so between those those are the things i use just all the time all the time um other things i would recommend is get yourself a some type of measuring device or ruler or something and then directly behind me you don't see this because it's it's in the back of me when i'm doing filming but i have a set of drawers right behind me and so i have wrenches i have screwdrivers and torx pliers and wire strippers sockets so i have all kind of stuff right right behind me um and so that's definitely on the high that's definitely on the on the high end of stuff if you're gonna have a nice cabinet and be organized it's always good to be organized all right uh signal leads connectors bnc adapters well blah blah blah blah blah blah right over here i have uh the jumpers and clips and bncs and banana jack stuff all right here that i use all the time i have another rack another place in the in the garage where i've got even more um yeah i keep a little uh [Applause] i keep a little box of that 50 ohm load and a a t connector and anyway i keep a bunch of adapters right right in a little box right next to my oscilloscope because that's when i use them the most freeze mist and hair dryer i have both of those if you want to cool down the circuit or heat up a circuit to see how it behaves it's a good way to do troubleshooting magnifying glass i've showed that before i always have some magnifying glasses on hand i had a video on that on how to make your own because they're usually super stupid expensive another nice luxury is a magnifying a magnifying light for doing soldering i use that whole time it's right over my right might right over my vice um a flashlight yeah that's true i use it all the time i keep flashlight right on the bench uh thermocouple based thermometer yes a lot of times your dvm will have that built in uh there'll be a thermometer and you can just plug in a thermocouple right into your dvm and so that's that's handy uh little filters and neat little boxes so he says you should have a bunch of our you know low-pass high-pass filters and stuff to separate signals out and stuff i don't i don't find that really useful maybe the type of stuff he did uh it was useful but i don't find that too useful line adapter is two wired three wire yeah i've got a bunch over there um and that's that's his list um what would i add to that list um he never never mentioned a um frequency counter so uh that can be really happy handy especially if you're working on radio stuff he never mentioned the spectrum analyzer that can be handy if you're working on frequency stuff both of those things have low end and high end you can get a tiny sa cheap you can get an expensive one you can get a mid-priced range one and sig lent or regal have thousand dollar instruments that are definitely mid-grade um and yeah i mean what else that's about it uh i would say uh analog meters come in really really handy once in a while so that's a luxury i've got two analog meters there and i use both all the time um what else what else i don't know uh it's good for this video so yeah if you're looking to put together a lab um you know you can get kind of i want that i want that i see everybody you get envious you know try to avoid getting too envious and it's nice that it pushes you and and makes you maybe get things and stuff but but don't be too envious um a lot of times cheap is even better you know if you're gonna do something and you break it you don't mind it because it was cheap and like i said you know things like 30 volt meters are just great i mean they're just fine uh don't be shamed into thinking you need a fluke or something right just don't be ashamed um the cheap oscilloscopes you know you can either not have an oscilloscope or a super cheap oscilloscope that you're embarrassed about get the one you're embarrassed about get the oscilloscope i don't care right um and don't be embarrassed about it it's an oscilloscope you know you got one and and you know other people don't um so you know don't don't don't get hung up on it i need everything the best and you know i'm gonna be embarrassed if i got a junkie when that's how everybody starts out oh my god you wouldn't believe the cruddy equipment that i had when i started out i mean my first oscilloscope was a joke it was bad and and my my power supply was was home built and dangerous as heck because i couldn't afford putting the sheet metal around it so it was just out in the wires out in the open right um so yeah so don't don't don't don't beat up on yourself [Music] you

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Keywords: s100, s-100, cpm, cp/m, cpm80, intel 8080, 8080, 8085, zilog z80, vintage computer, vintage computing, IMSAI, IMSAI 8080, ALTAIRTTL CPU, cpu design, eagle cad, eagle pcb, 8-bit CPU, 8bit CPU, diy cpu, 74181, 74381, 74382, ALUZeta, Zeta2, ROMWBW, Zeta SBCelectronic test equipment, vintage electronics, DIY electronics, electrical engineering, electronic engineering, electronics, PCB design, Circuit design

Id: 7QklhR-LuJs

Length: 25min 35sec (1535 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 01 2022