What's your repair setup (and suggestions for beginner)?

[Ed Oscuro]

Hey there. I've started working towards building up a hobbyist repair kit, aimed mainly at doing some simple through-hole repairs (capacitor replacement mostly). So far I have:

- One Hakko 808 desoldering gun
- One Hakko FX951-66 soldering iron setup
- An Extech MN16A Lowe's Special multimeter and continuity tester
- A DigiKey account
- An old Taito cocktail that may be my DIY repair bench...

That is my lopsided foundation for a repair shop. What are some typical projects I had in mind? Repairing my X68000 XVI (dead caps, almost certainly), repairing a busted cap on a VHS/DVD player combo, maybe even repairing a busted PC power supply someday, and many other odds and ends that have accumulated over the years (80s-early 00s vintage).

What I think I should add to the list:

- Going from this EEVblog post, 1.6mm and 2.4mm chisel tips for the Hakko should do nicely, but please share your thoughts.
- Kester 60/40 leaded solder (or similar)
- flux in some form or other (probably a no-clean pen)
- flush cutters
- silicone mat for soldering
- Safety odds and ends (KN-95 mask, safety glasses - already have an air filter, such are the times).

I have left out an oscilloscope or logic analyzer for now as that appears to be beyond my needs / budget for the moment. Am I kidding myself, miss anything? Please share!

[RottenToTheGore]

I can list a few things that have been helpful for me.

- Self Adjusting wire stripper. Like one of those big ones that can strip multiple cables at a time.
- Various forms of flux. Pen, liquid, and paste
- Ribbon cable

Went from having a hell of a time getting a ribbon cable stripped and tinned, to a much cleaner result. Stripped 5 wires at once, dipped the ends into the flux paste, tinned.

- Magnifying clamp lamp. Works well as a light source, then flip open the top and bring it down to get a closer look at things
- Some kind of helping hand clamp thing.
- Set of different style tweezers
- Some kind of storage for various parts
- Solder wick
- Heat shrink

Hope this helps!

[Ed Oscuro]

I was gonna come back and stealth edit in solder wick! The other stuff you mention sounds good to have too. Most of the stuff I've got that needs work comes on bigger PCB or just are heavy but I am weighing whether to try to get a loupe for magnification, or just get a helping hand with a built-in magnifier, since they're pretty cheap.

Haven't done an inventory of the caps I will likely need but I hope I could get good value out of a kit like the Rubycons at Digikey, which come in a nice case. https://www.digikey.com/en/product-high ... citor-kits
To match what was originally installed on the X68000 I would really like to get Elna brand...

Haven't looked in seriously to a variac or bench power supply either. That would again be a "down the road, maybe" kind of purchase.

[bahamutfan64]

- Self Adjusting wire stripper. Like one of those big ones that can strip multiple cables at a time.

Any specific one you can recommend? I hate working with ribbon cables since I can't strip them properly without being frustrated.

[RottenToTheGore]

Any specific one you can recommend? I hate working with ribbon cables since I can't strip them properly without being frustrated.

I've been using this one - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000O ... UTF8&psc=1

[darcagn]

Personally I've found it frustrating to use a magnifying lens and vastly prefer using a digital microscope.
Since beginning to install mods like PS1Digital, the microscope is vastly superior.
Of course, if you're just doing repair, this might not be necessary, but IMO it's just so much easier to check your work with the microscope.

[buttersoft]

Personally I've found it frustrating to use a magnifying lens and vastly prefer using a digital microscope.

Recommendations for a make and model? My eyes are going to shit and i'm going to need one soon

[Ed Oscuro]

I've been using this one - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000O ... UTF8&psc=1

Those have a lot of reviews claiming that the stripper mechanism slips. There are some good Irwin and Ideal strippers on Amazon but some of them can get expensive...

RE: Digital microscopes, it looks like things are much more advanced than a few years ago, with some cheap options having sufficient resolution.
https://www.amazon.com/customerpicks/Ex ... 5705f98709

examples:
(stand)
https://www.amazon.com/Jiusion-Aluminiu ... 0797PPX8D/
(microscope)
https://www.amazon.com/Jiusion-Magnific ... B06WD843ZM

About $40 (and an extra stand, unless you just want to buy the microscope and deal with the badly reviewed standard stand). I can't vouch for it personally, but it looks like there's many happy customers.

[matt]

One of my best investments has been a cheap pair of reading glasses. They're perfect for when something's too fine for the naked eye but not small enough to warrant a microscope.

[maxtherabbit]

or if you're nearsighted simply remove your contacts like I do and have enhanced near point vision

a bench power supply is missing from your setup

these cheapy component testers are handy too https://www.ebay.com/itm/LCR-T4-Transis ... 4320314956

just don't expect super accurate ESR readings for caps used in high frequency switching circuits