Any electronics hobbyists in? Looking for advice

Can anyone recommend a decent beginners electronics kit for someone who is looking to get into this and learn?

Thinking older type electronics but as I learn will work towards more modern stuff. I’ve had a look to see if there are local college evening courses but nothing, and I’ve also tried to find any local electronics hobby clubs but nothing coming up sadly. I was thinking there may be some decent kits out there – breadboards, kits with a few wee things to build and learn how they work etc, but I started to google and I’m way out of my depth, many seem quite advanced and I’d like to start with the basics and work my way up…

Cheers!

Any interest in microcontrollers? This will keep you busy for a while, I’m about to make a start on it:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ELEGOO-Complete-Ultimate-controller-Compatible/dp/B01IUY62RM

It’s the way electronics has gone, the days of screwing a torch bulb into a holder and attaching a battery and a switch with screw-down terminals are long past.

^^^ have you actually bought that yet? As much as I love the good old Arduino, it’s old, old hat now. All about the ESP32 these days!

I bought probably that exact same kit some years back, did a couple of the exercises, then got bored of it and slung it all in the parts bin (which has been very useful actually as there’s a lot of stuff in there!)

What worked for me was thinking of a project I actually wanted to do, and just working out how to proceed from there. I’d really recommend joining some relevant hobby groups on FB – they’re generally very friendly, helpful and don’t tolerate abuse/snarkiness – i.e. the complete opposite of normal FB 🙂

You could go down the “old school” circuits style route, but I never did really beyond the basic principles i.e. Ohms law etc, so couldn’t build e.g. a timer circuit out of ICs – personally I find microcontrollers much simpler, more fun, and more relevant to helping with the projects I actually want to achieve!

I’ve been an electronics hobbyist since I was a kid. Microcontrollers have been a gamechanger. You buy a controller and some kind of add ons (sensors, motors, lights, etc) then stick the whole lot together with hook up leads and program the controller. Then try and work out why it doesn’t work 🙂 Once you get the measure of the basics you can build your own circuits onto breadboard or a prototype shield. This is pretty much exclusively what I do now. Even if I just wanted to blink a light I’d used a microcontroller

There is loads of help online such as tutorials and forums. I use Arduino as it is open and has a big following and loads of compatible parts. Its quite a steep start but with a bit of help you’ll get the hang of it. I think the key is to have a project in mind. Just building something for the sake of it can be a bit uninspiring but making a thing you want with a useful goal can really motivate.

Electronics hobby clubs are usually a part of a hackspace or makerspace if you are trying to find something local, or find an online club

What worked for me was thinking of a project I actually wanted to do, and just working out how to proceed from there.

This is what I did.  Started with Rasp Pi’s (still use them for house monitoring/control) but more recently be using esp8266 which are way cheaper!

I use Arduino as it is open and has a big following and loads of compatible parts.

I started off with Arduino and agree the big plus is the massive amount of projects/resources/libraries etc available for it. Generally though all the same components can be used with ESP32 so that’s what I use now (except for maybe something niche involving analog stuff that an Arduino is actually better for!) ESP32 is massively more powerful, and even the tiniest ones have WiFi/bluetooth built in which is why they’re always used for IoT stuff which is basically what all my projects are now!

The dudes behind Home Assistant took over the ESPHome project a while back so this is massively popular now and has loads of support. It makes integrating your project with the outside world a 2 second job which is the main benefit! Also a lot of the “programming” is just scripting rather than Python, C etc (plus or minus depending on how you look at it!) but certainly makes things quicker/easier especially for beginners IMO. They even released their own voice assistant hardware (like an Alexa/homepod etc) last month which is awesome – all open source hardware & software (unlike an Alexa obviously!) but potentially much more powerful as it can easily be integrated with a cloud-based or local LLM.

What sort of projects do you have in mind “for later”?

That said, the posts above are correct, most projects now are centred around a £5 ESP32 module or Arduino, and a handful of external components to do the real world bits.

I haven’t dabbled for years, so, pinch of salt, etc. (although, this sort of thing is part of my day job)

have you actually bought that yet? As much as I love the good old Arduino, it’s old, old hat now. All about the ESP32 these days!

It was a Christmas present like two years ago. I’ve just completed the two PiHut advent calendars which are based around the Raspberry Pi Pico and MicroPython. They were ace, but both showing out of stock currently. The ELEGOO kit is next on my todo list after (this) Christmas Lego.

What worked for me was thinking of a project I actually wanted to do,

This is why I have a drawerful of unloved Pi’s, I need some sort of goal.

This is why I have a drawerful of unloved Pi’s, I need some sort of goal.

there’s two things that really ignited this as a hobby for me – a 3d printer (because then you really can do pretty much anything you can imagine!) and (to bang the drum again!) Home Assistant. HA allows me to indulge in projects that actually have a use rather than just doing something for the sake of it! One of my first DIY HA projects was converting the door on our chicken coop to an automatic, IoT one. Genuinely useful! Of course the project soon snowballed into adding environmental sensors and a camera which uses AI to alert you when there are eggs ready for collection 🙂 (the last part sounds complicated but, having already set up the AI classification system on HA, was literally about 5 mins of coding!) Stuff which you would have needed to be extremely smart to figure out 10 years ago say (if it was possible at all!) is now easy, which I think is really cool!

We’ve discussed this before I think but the answer keeps falling out of my head. Can you run HA in parallel with an existing setup or is it either/or?

The reason I ask is that whenever I try to improve it my g/f shouts at me for ‘faffing’ with it. Short of kicking her out of the house for a week I’d need to be confident that any transition would be seamless.

in parallel. A lot of people run it alongside Alexa. I run it with Apple HomeKit. I think there’s like one guy who runs it alongside Google Home 🙂

Yes, I am at the moment, just been on it for a couple of weeks, and it is a big learning curve. A lot of the good information is absolutely swamped by tonks trying to show off what they know, or just repeating something they have heard rather than something they have experience of.

But at the moment everything is running in parallel, I will keep the hue hub because that does stuff that can’t be done in HA yet. but other stuff will be moved off the “company” hubs into HA alone soon as I get a better handle on what I am doing.

That’s really useful, thank you. I might have to have a ‘faff’ with it then.

This probably should be a separate thread rather than hijacking this one. I’ll do that presently.

A lot of the good information is absolutely swamped by tonks trying to show off what they know, or just repeating something they have heard rather than something they have experience of.

Ha, yeah, having said how useful FB is for hobbies, the official HA FB page is absolutely swamped by newbs these days lol (although that shows how popular it is now I suppose!) 🙂 You’ll get more sense out of the official forums, Github issue pages or even Reddit.

Would love to do something like this in the pub with a group of people also interested. Soldering irons and beer would be awesome, I’ve been building speakers and want to break out into Pre-amps / amps!

Would love to do something like this in the pub with a group of people also interested. Soldering irons and beer would be awesome

yeah, as per OP, hardly any clubs locally which surprised me when I looked! There is one that meets once a month about ½ hour drive away, not been down yet although looks pretty interesting and while not in a pub, a few tins of beer involved sometimes by the looks of it 🙂

Would love to do something like this in the pub with a group of people also interested.

I can confirm that this sort of behaviour makes muggles very nervous.

Many thanks for the replies!

Okay, so what got me thinking about this is that I have an old 90’s amp, and CD player that stopped working, I thought it would be great if I could end up being able to fault find and repair them. Or am I wasting my time?…

This microcontroller malarky sounds interesting, but I think my idea of hobby electronics is way older than this haha! I guess I need to step into 2025…

Are there any recommended websites to visit?

Oh! And recommendations on a soldering iron and anything else I may need would be great!

Cheers!

Or am I wasting my time?…

Probably.

Oh! And recommendations on a soldering iron and anything else I may need would be great!

I can’t really comment on soldering irons, the one I have is completely coincidentally identical to the ones supplied when I was at high school for some odd reason. I believe a ‘solder station’ is the thing these days, something with a means of controlling temperature.

With reference to the above suggestions, there’s little else you need. The kits are self-contained and, unless you plan on building a project permanently, solderless.

r/soldering and eevblog forums might be a good start for basic kit lists. I’m about one step further on than you.

I just picked up an Aixun T3A smart iron for £120. Costs more than the fan favourite T101 and Pinecil but by the time you actually factor in tips and power supplies it’s about the same (if you’re starting from scratch) and I can use JBC 245 tips which should last forever if I don’t abuse them.

Aside from that you’ll need a multimeter – preferably one with micro tips for really getting into components, flush cutters (Knipex for me), screwdrivers in suitable bitting, some tweezers (I just have a Parkside special kit), a decent light source and a magnifier. I have an all in one ring light with magnifier that works well but other folk use loupes. Plus consumables – solder, flux, solder pump and braid – don’t skimp on these! You really will see a marked difference between the cheap crap and the proper stuff, I thought I was useless for years but it turned out I just needed some decent flux for desoldering and good solder for putting stuff down.

Oh and a suitable work surface, RS do ESD safe silicone mats (mind and get the associated cables if you care or it’s pointless) or you can use the 15 quid amazon specials if you are less discerning. @cougar will probably argue about this but the thinking is the ESD damage is more of a latent than immediate issue, YMMV especially with older thru-hole stuff.

Everything else I’d say is a nice to have. FWIW I have done work up until now with an old Antex basic iron I got in Maplin 20odd years ago. Not brilliant but will get you there eventually. Oh and people talk about electronic microscopes but you lose your depth perception. I’ll cross that bridge if I ever come to it.

Beyond that, have fun. I have an old Cambridge Audio 540R that’s succumbed to the usual cap plague and is economically unviable to fix even myself as there are so many caps. However it’s probably worth having a look at and even if I do it for fun it’ll be time well spent. On top of that I’ve a pile of shavers and stuff with internal batteries needing renewed

You could also ask at your local computer shop for any dead motherboards to practice on, mostly around the chips so you can learn how to reflow. I have a dead one I can practice on plus a completely fried system I can start diagnosing. An original Xbox is also cap plague era so could a dead one could well be fixable and earn you some money back. 360s suffered from broken joints that need reflowed, probably a step up though.

@cougar will probably argue about this but the thinking is the ESD damage is more of a latent than immediate issue

I will.

The risk of ESD was specifically related to CMOS-based products. Damage down the line as you describe was accepted wisdom in the 1990s, at that time I was working at a large computer manufacturer and this was taken seriously (though whether this was a perceived or actual risk is debatable, capacitor plague as you say is a far greater problem for kit of that era IMHO). Today it is surely a non-issue for most home hobbyists, the only people promoting antistatic mats and wristbands are people who sell antistatic mats and wristbands.

That said. There is a solid argument for having a decent workmat. It’s a grippy surface, it makes it easy to find dropped screws the size of a spider’s willy, and you’re not blobbing solder onto the dining room table.

I’d doubly echo the “find a project you want to do, and learn how to do it”.

I’m into music and music tech, so I build (esoteric, weird) synthesizers and guitar pedals.  I almost never use a micro-controller, preferring “analog” components like op-amps, transistors and CMOS logic chips.

I program all day for a job, and don’t want to be doing it in hobby time.  Although writing small programs for an Arduino, or ARM Cortex, is much more enjoyable than the large systems I write at work.

Hey nerd, I would be very interested to learn more about those synthesizers! This would be very cool as my son is into music in a big way!

Yeah there still seem to be a lot of people that swear by anti-ESD. If I’m honest I’m not knowledgeable enough to decide for myself so don’t see the harm in taking sensible precautions (crocs are bloody awful for generating static). I have an earth point on my solderer so why not utilise it. That said I don’t know how many things I’ve fixed, poked and prodded at and not killed up until now so meh.

That said. There is a solid argument for having a decent workmat. It’s a grippy surface, it makes it easy to find dropped screws the size of a spider’s willy, and you’re not blobbing solder onto the dining room table.

Oh hell yes. And not burning the dining table. Did I mention the Antex is good for freestyle pyrography?

Hey nerd, I would be very interested to learn more about those synthesizers! This would be very cool as my son is into music in a big way!

I can recommend this book:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Make-Analog-Synthesizers-Ray-Wilson/dp/1449345220/

and you can buy the PCB to make it from here:

https://shop.musicfromouterspace.com/cart/noise-toaster-pcb

I have nothing to add other than recommending shopping at CPC Farnell. I recently got back into this sort of stuff so so ordered some new soldering supplies from there and the prices are way cheaper than Amazon for some really good kit.  For example the official arduino starter kit is £95 on amazon but £78 on CPC. Their catalogue is insanely large

Yeah, I got a bag of cheap capacitors to practice fixing stuff with from Bitsbox, not the highest quality but fine for a clock radio.

RS are worth checking as well if they have a counter near you for smaller orders.

I can recommend this book:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Make-Analog-Synthesizers-Ray-Wilson/dp/1449345220/

and you can buy the PCB to make it from here:

https://shop.musicfromouterspace.com/cart/noise-toaster-pcb

Many thanks! Will let you know how I get on with it and look forward to hearing some sounds! 🙂

 That said I don’t know how many things I’ve fixed, poked and prodded at and not killed up until now so meh.

Well, there is the thing that static damage tends to result in reduced device lifespan – as much as instant death.

Bitsbox is brilliant, BTW.

Parts arrive bagged and tagged so you don’t even need to faff around reading tiny indistinct letters of small caps or ICs to know what they are. Prices also always reasonable.

I third Bitsbox.  The range of components they have is a lot less overwhelming than mouser or digikey.  For example, they sell one type of TL074 (a quad op-amp), rather than the 48 that mouser carry!  Most components from Bitsbox are through-hole as well, rather than SMT.

Another similar shop is esr.co.uk, who I have also ordered from.  Similar prices and (good) service as Bitsbox.

That’s handy to know.

I built a kit over Christmas and there was a component missing. It suddenly hit me, where do we go these days for parts? Time was I’d pop to Maplin or (for those local to me of a certain age) PV Tubes trade counter upstairs. Online shopping falls flat when you just want a capacitor, there’s a dozen almost-but-not-quite-identical parts and it’s either three quid postage for a 7p part or it’s a minimum order of 50.

Credit where it’s due here, I emailed PiHut where I bought the kit from (back in April). They sent out a bag of caps Royal Mail Tracked 24, it arrived the following morning. Over Christmas. Astounding customer service.

Bitsbox is basically Maplin from circa 40 years ago, but online.

They have something that fits into almost every place in your average hobbyist circuit, without – as nerd notes – overwhelming choice.

No particularly specialist parts, but so what… They’re first choice for me if I need a few odd caps, a 10W resistor and a bit of vero.

@captaintomo this looks like a good starting point for me so I have decided to go this route.

The amp repair will go on hold for now, I’m now thinking about a lighting and control project, then some security ideas I have for something. This may be quite a rabbit hole…

I have a drawerful of unloved Pi’s, I need some sort of goal.

If you have any kind of smart devices at home I’d highly recommend looking to Home Assistant.

I stumbled on it with a spare Pi 4 2GB and so far it’s a game changer – and my Mrs loves it!

I added a £6 USB-SATA SSD cable (Pi’s are fussy, evidently) and an old SSD (don’t use an SD card, too many read/writes) and imaged Home Assistant.

It picked up my heating, lights, sockets, windows, alarm, telly, NAS and Octopus Home Mini and I have it all running in one app, with custom dashboards. I made one for the Mrs and she just opens the app and everything she needs is there.

Pick up an SLZB-06 dongle and you can add Zigbee devices.  IKEA bulbs, sockets and buttons with no additional hub? Done!

Then you add automations.

Bedroom light comes on dim, at 2300k, then brightens to daylight over 15 minutes.  Then off at 8:45.

Office lights come on at 8:15, but only on a workday, and if I am home.  Then at 5:30 they change from 4000k to 2700k as a wind down….

Porch light comes on with motion.  But only if it’s dark enough.

If the door is opened and the alarm is set the light flashes red until the alarm is disarmed, then reverts to the previous state…

Oh.  Yes – tinker time is unlimited!

If you have any kind of smart devices at home I’d highly recommend looking to Home Assistant.

never heard of it 🙂

I have a drawerful of unloved Pi’s, I need some sort of goal.

Pi-Hole could be a shout. It is essentially a dedicated advert/tracker blocker server thingymabob you install on a pi or similar.  Multiple ways to configure it. I just choose to route a few of my devices through it such as my phone. It really has blocked out quite a chunk of shite over the 6 months I’ve had it running. Straightforward to set up.

I have a PiHole. That’s the one Pi that’s actually in use. I have it set on the router to be primary DNS, secondary being the router itself pointing upstream as normal. It works well, the one thing it’s missing is a trivial way to go “no, this is OK.”

I’m kinda kicking myself for not using a Docker install so I could add HA to the same Pi, and of course once it’s in place then tearing it out again gets a bit brexit.

I was out with one of the co-creators of the Raspberry Pi last night…. Just sayin’ 😉