@freemo decided to get the soldering iron you recommended and cheap(ish) multimeter btw, reckon that'll do me for now
thanks again for the advice!
@skells The soldering iron is sooooo nice, you wont regret it. ITs probably the most important thing to have nice since soldering is hard enough in the best of conditions when you are new. Next purchase should be a cheap o-scope, but you wont need that until you start to try to understand circuits better, which obviously is secondary to building circuits.
Feel free to hit meup with questions as you progress, it can be a tough subject for many to get their heads around at first.
@freemo will do, I'll send a few snaps once I've got something decent together
@skells also once you start getting into harder to solder stuff, like small SMD, or really large connectors like ground planes, you might want to consider the different tips for the soldering iron which make a huge difference. For now the tips it comes with are fine though, just keep in mind you have that option.
@skells I was actually revisiting them thinking I might re-write them geared towards a journal article and see if i cant get some future version of this published in a journal, perhaps the IEEE. So yea, figured I'd reshare them while they are on my mind. Glad you are getting something out of it.