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SparkFun Deluxe Tool Kit

REVIEW

f you’re kitting out a workshop for

electronics, what do you need? Well, a

soldering iron – that’s a must of course –

then there’s tweezers and diagonal cutters.

Oh, a pad can be useful. There’s that thing

of course, you know the one, it does the

gripping in different angles – what’s

it called? Are we forgetting

anything? Wouldn’t it be

useful if someone just put

everything together into

one place? That’s exactly

what SparkFun has done

with its two tool‑kits: the

Beginner’s Tool Kit ($49.95)

and the Deluxe Tool Kit

($224.95). We took a look at the

Deluxe version, which includes

a Weller soldering station, heat

gun, multimeter, and 20 other little

bits and pieces that you need to make

great electronics.

Keeping a kit like this affordable, while

complete, is a balancing act. The hardware

needs to be good enough to provide users

with a pleasant experience, but at the same

time, keep the cost manageable. Everything

in this kit works and is perfectly good enough

to get started with, but there’s not many bells

and whistles, and at this price, that’s what we’d

expect – after all, you could spend more than

the price of this kit on just a multimeter. Looking

at this multimeter, for example, it has all the

basic features that you need for electronics,

but if you’re using it regularly, getting an auto‑

ranging meter can be useful. The soldering iron

is a decent iron with adjustable power, but for

trickier jobs, better temperature control may be

SparkFun Deluxe Tool Kit

By Ben Everard @ben_everard

A workshop in a box

SPARKFUN $224.95 sparkfun.com

Right

Two spools of solder

wick are included

because we all

make mistakes

a little more

frequently than

we’d like

I