Tips For Building Kits

We all have to start somewhere don’t we? I discovered the joy of making my own electronics from kits when I was only 17 (too many years ago now to think about….). This culminated in my first audio amplifier, pre-amp, active speakers and even an FM tuner (all designed by John Linsley Hood and sold by a British company called Williams Hart Electronics…halycon days…), most of which is still working well to this day! Building from a kit can be a very rewarding experience, not only by putting a little of yourself into the finished product, but learning (hopefully!) along the way. There are some extremely talented folks out there who spend countless hours designing, making and documenting so others can enjoy this hobby too. If you decide you want to try this yourself, you’ll need a few basics to get started with. It’s best not to skimp on the quality of these tools if you think this is going to be a lasting hobby…

  • A decent temperature controlled soldering iron (with a smallish angled tip) – I use an Edsyn Loner (951SX), not the cheapest by any measure, but still going strong after 25 years…Weller are also a good make.
  • Good quality solder with flux (60/40 Pb/Sn) or similar (Kester is a good brand), preferably a reasonably thin diameter.
  • Solder wick (we all make mistakes, Superwick is a good choice).
  • Good set of wire cutters (Hakko for example).
  • A diopter/magnifying lens (with LED lights).
  • A half-decent multimeter (Extech EX330 for example)
  • If you want to do some SMD (surface mount device) soldering, then it’s a good idea to get a flux pen. This will make your life a lot easier, trust me.
  • An ESD safe mat to work on is also a good idea.
  • Wire strippers and pliers.
  • Good set of screwdrivers.
As you get deeper into the hobby then you may want to get yourself a dedicated bench power supply (I use a Siglent SPD3303C) and also a reasonable oscilloscope (I use a Siglent SDS1052DL), but to build a lot of kits, these are a nice to have and not essential unless you need to do some debugging or want to go deeper into how things work.

Some electronic kits require basic knowledge of how to use programmers to upload firmware and there are various flavours out there for PIC, ATMEL etc. Most just need some basic knowledge of a specific piece of software and a USB cord and aren’t that daunting.

I also make frequent use of 3D printing, it’s a game changer if you want to prototype cases, fittings, adapters etc etc…. you’ll note that a lot of the kits offered on this website make extensive use of 3D printed parts (to good effect I hope!). I use Prusa printers as they’re available as kits (spotting a theme here?) and although they may not be the cheapest, they are very high quality with a great user base and amazing tech support (no, I’m not getting any endorsement fees from any of these suggestions… :).