I genuinely value the opinions of so many on this forum, I thought I’d ask if anyone has holiday gift ideas for a University Electrical Engineering Student.
My oldest son had the opportunity to take a lot of university classes as a high school student through a unique situation where the charter high school he attended was run by the university (and shared the campus.) As a result, he has room in his 4-year plan (he’s year 2) to expand from his current Software Engineering major to double major in Electrical Engineering.
He has been having the most fun in an embedded systems class, but when the expected behavior doesn’t match actual, his current strategy is to take my multimeter (returning it is … well … he’s 19) and jam the probes into a breadboard to try and figure out which pins are sending which signals. In my mind this is a good beginner application for an oscilloscope. It’s about 30 mins from his place to the school labs (which have limited access when the instructors are not logged into the building) so he often struggles through with his home tools.
So - for Christmas I’d like to gift him a kit of starter equipment for his Electrical Engineering journey. (I’ve been saving for this, his younger brother will need his college laptop, and I usually try to keep things even.) Whether he ends up on the software side, or the electrical side for his job, I suspect he’d get good use of some basic home equipment.
I’m currently looking at a Siglent Technologies SDS1052DL, and perhaps another EXTECH EX505 (maybe this first so he stops taking mine.) I bought a very cheap bench top power supply off Bangood, but it does seem pretty clumsy and limited (which is perfect for me, also clumsy and limited.) I think he’d also appreciate a good soldering station with hot air included.
Any recommendations? If I’m off base for the first steps in a hobby/home electronics workbench, please let me know. Obviously any recommendations to let these things be useful from the outset would also be greatly appreciated (probes/extensions/clips/etc.) Note - I’m sure I can’t do it all, so if there are opinions on most important to least important, I’d be grateful.
From a former EE college student, the answer is always: Cash
But if he’s serious about it and really enjoys it, outfitting a test bench with an oscilloscope, or even some basics like a variable power supply, soldering setup, etc sounds great
Students are always short on cash, so there is that…
Any hardware/equipment that he would use for testing/troubleshooting/design, etc. would probably be available in his school lab, so unless he is prone to doing that in his off-hours as well, maybe something else would be more suitable .
Gift certificate for games, books, etc?
However, if you are thinking about a gift that he can use in the longer term (post-graduation) related to EE, then there are lots of options:
oscilloscope
DMM
basic hand tools (micro screwdriver set, Allan key set, Torx driver set, nut driver set, small pliers/cutters/needlenose, other basic hand tools, etc.)
soldering station (temperature controlled, not just a basic hand unit) including de-soldering, ventilation, etc.
I got a Pinecil not too long ago and it is wild how fast it gets to temp. Pair it up with an Omnifixo and a 3d printed case and you’ve got a cool little soldering kit.
It is!! And it maintains it well! I also like how it will go to a low setting when it doesn’t move for a min or 2, but by the time I pick it up and touch it to anything its already back at full temp. And even more it will turn all the way off after being on low for a little while. I am horrible about setting down my other solder station and forgetting to turn it off. Its been sitting there hot for way longer than I would like to admit before LOL
When my son expressed an interest and aptitude in high school we started building a bench.
Multimeter: A decent (not junk, not top tier) multimeter is essential. The Extech looks good to me, though you could probably go a bit cheaper for a first meter. He will likely end up with a 2nd (or 3rd) if he sticks with it and that can be better. Flukes are very nice (and worth the premium) but overkill for starters IMHO.
Soldering iron / station. After a “toy iron” he got a generic station with soldering iron, hot work air gun and power supply. Looks great, but the soldering iron was crap and made the whole tool a bit of disappointment (other stuff actually works pretty well). Now he has a Weller WE1010NA ($120) and loves it. No matter what you choose, I recommend individual tools, so they can be replaced / upgraded individually as needed. I haven’t tried a PINECIL ($40), but may soon and if starting from nothing that might be a very good place to start.
Benchtop power supply: Something with adjustable voltage & current limits good to at least 24VDC and 5A. I have an HM305. I don’t love the user interface for making adjustments, but its not horrible and once set, it works well. (~$60)
I tried to talk my son into a usb based oscilloscope/function generator like a Picoscope (I’ve used them at work), but he pushed for a Sigilent - I don’t recall which one, but they are also great bang for the buck feature wise and it appears to both work well and be good quality. He likes it a lot, but now he is in college he got an ADALM2000 in/for one of his ECE classes and may be a convert to something that takes up less desk space. The analog devices active learning module looks super cool (I haven’t had a chance to play with it) and has tons of great learning support, though it is not super cheap @ around $210.
Hand tools like snippers, strippers, helping hands, screwdrivers, tweezers etc. make great stocking stuffers too ($5-20 ea.)
But about 2.5 semesters from graduation, I changed my major
Switched to software… Been doing that amongst many other things for 20-ish years now…
I’m a “Guidance Counsellor” because I found it in the settings, and at the time, I didn’t see anyone else using it lol… But it’s uniqueness has vanished, as I see more and more people have that tag selected.
But I don’t have the power to put anything else in there… So I just leave it
I’d suggest portable versions of what might be available in the school lab in case he gets involved with any competitions. Something like the pinecil soldering iron and multimeter are portable from the get-go, but a portable oscilloscope might allow fixing something that the meter might not in the middle of the sort of EE competitions I could imagine.
If he’s already mucking around with embedded hardware stuff and seems pretty keen on it then there are a few fundamental key pieces of equipment that’ll be great. You haven’t mentioned a budget which would be useful.
Multimeter is the obvious one, especially if he’s already stealing yours! This is something where it’s well worth stretching to something decent. There’s definitely scope for getting a cheap multimeter (I think I have 6 in total) later, but having something better than you’d buy yourself can be a great gift to receive. Fluke is the ‘gucci’ brand to have here but is expensive and tends to have a featureset more towards electricians. Keysight do some nice ones that are geared more towards EEE in terms of features. We have a mix of both at work, with our standard lab multimeters being the Keysight U1252B and Fluke 179. My personal ones are a Keysight U1252B and a Fluke 87V. At the moderate price, the U1233A looks good, has plenty enough resoluation and still maintains some useful stuff like capacitance range, temperature sense via thermocouple and diode test. At the lower end the UniT multimeters are quite good. I have a couple of UT61E multimeters that I use for things where I need a simple PC connected datalogging solution. They chew through batteries a bit in that mode but it’s a zero-effort way to log/remotely monitor stuff that would be awkward otherwise. The Brymen BM235 or whatever it is that gets the EEVBlog branding is supposed to be excellent, too.
Oscilloscope would be another good option, especially for the embedded stuff as you can look at faster signals and comms interfaces etc. It doesn’t need to be super high bandwidth, 50MHz is plenty to start with. Something with digital channels is a nice to have for embedded stuff. This is something where you can go ham with the budget though. I have a Keysight 3000 series scope that I bought as a factory refurb ($~5k USD) and it’s pretty glorious, but there are better value for money options unless you specifically want the brand name. A 2000 series mixed signal is $2k ish. We have a Siglent scope that we’ve been playing with at work that’s decent. Rigol is great and they have a few models that are pillars of the DIY/enthusiast community with the DS1054Z.
I would strongly advise staying away from anything hand-held or USB. They’re great for what they are but usually extremely compromised in form/function for normal use.
Logic Analyzer - These are a great value for money option if he’s mostly focused on embedded stuff. These are something where I’d go PC based before a standalone unit. The Saleae Logic is one of the OGs here but they’re way more expensive than I remember. A comment on reddit shows that they appear to do discounts if you contact them for hobby/educational purchases. I have USBEE SX but they’ve gone out of business. There are a bunch of cheap AliExpress Saleae clones that will work with PulseView that work well according to a colleague of mine, from memory.
Other - There are also some other useful tools that are a bit more special purpose like the Bus Pirate which I’m a huge fan of or the I2CDriver/SPIDriver for mucking around with peripherals.
Soldering iron - I’m a big fan of the Hakko range of irons but to start with the one linked above looks good enough.
Hand tools - A decent set of tools is always good. It’s especially good if he’s already got some cheaper stuff. I like having cheap screwdrivers/clippers/pliers as well as a good set for when you need good/precision work. Wiha stuff has treated me well.
Roughly based by budget.
Sub $100 - Soldering iron, bus pirate, cheap logic analyzer, hand tools
$100-200 - Cheap multimeter
$200-500 - Decent multimeter
$500+ - Cheap Scope
$1k+ - Decent scope
I wouldn’t worry about anything hot-air related. I have a full Hakko rework setup with solder vacuum and hot air and seldom use either. A syringe of solder flux, some decent quality desoldering braid (Goot/Hakko, definitely not anything cheap), good tweezers (I like the Wiha ESD safe ones) and a decent iron are all I typically end up needing for most SMD rework tasks. Hot air does make it a little easier to remove large ICs and it’s the only option for reworking BGAs, but there are other techniques that work well for removing TQFPs with an iron, etc.
A bench power supply is definitely another good idea. I’m less familiar with any options there, though.
Thanks so much for all the suggestions and brands. I try to teach my sons that gift giving isn’t supposed to be an obligation where you give money, it’s about taking time to think about the recipient and trying to find something they would like. Albeit, I understand that they may return my gift and add some money to get one they think is better. So, chuckle, this may be the world’s most expensive way to give a gift certificate.
I was grinning as I read many of the responses. I could probably just make a list of all the stuff missing from my tools, and give him some of those so I can have mine back! My soldering iron, side cutters, multimeter, soldering microscope, iFixit toolkit, and Omnifixo is probably my shopping list. At least then I can get back to work on my projects!
Thanks so much for this. He has a 19 year old, college student work schedule. He gets up right before class, then zooms to his work/study, then naps until 9PM and works all night on his homework and projects. Incomprehensible to me, but it seems to work for him. (My kids came in my mid-late 30s because of my own university journey. I’m old.)
I think he wouldn’t NEED any of this for his university work. But he loves working on this stuff at all hours. Also, I suspect he’ll be a tinkerer anyway, so maybe he’ll just use this as a hobby bench and sell Real Estate or something. Who knows!
I super appreciate the pricing reference as well. His birthday is in February, so I’ve been know to stretch on his Christmas gift and go light in Feb if it gets him something that he’ll use for a long time. (i.e. computers.)
That’s a thought. Of all my tools, the ones that used to be my dads are some of my most cherished tools. Get yourself replacements and tell him to keep your tools.
No, probably not if the university is decent. However…
In my experience, that’s the SINGLE biggest predictor of success in an actual engineering role. A genuine enjoyment of learning about things, figuring things out and working on random tangentially related stuff has served me extremely well in my own career and it’s the kind of thing that comes across vividly in the interviewing process.
If you decide you’ve got a specific budget and category of equipment or specific gear in mind, please feel free to DM me or tag me to check it out and pass some judgement. I’m a bit more utilitarian with my equipment choices but my colleague is a major equipment nerd. We are power electronics engineers but spend a lot of time doing embedded hardware design so between us I hope we can offer some useful insight.
@Jonathjon For anything hand tool or long lived I 100% agree. For anything a bit more rapidly changing like an oscilloscope or more modern dev tools like logic analyzers, maybe not. A multimeter or soldering iron would be a mid-ground there, it’d depend on the quality of the gear to begin with.
At least then I can get back to work on my projects!