Ada's Kit Recommendations

[Kwami]

Hello,

I need to buy some new tools. I saw Ada's $100 kit, but I don't actually need all of that. I've got tons of wires, breadboards, etc. lying around. But, I lack some of the other tools (e.g. soldering iron!).

I found another kit page from Ada that listed three kits. The best kit ($265) is of interest to me. Going through the components, I noticed that almost all of the prices listed are incorrect and at least one product (I think it was the tweezers, actually) has a dead link. This leads me to believe that the kit hasn't been updated in a while!

Now, I don't want to buy old tech only to find out next week that I could have had something better for the same price. So, I was wondering if you all had any suggestions to improve the kit without stretching the price too much. I can go about $300, but that's probably my limit for this.

Thanks in advance.

[adafruit]

the list hasnt been updated in about a year, but its still a pretty good guideline

[Kwami]

I guess the two parts most likely to need updating are the iron and the multimeter. Can anyone recommend something better than those parts for about the same price, or are the guides still the best out there?

Thanks again!

[Entropy]

For the soldering iron - I'd recommend the Aoyue 936, 937, or 937+. They all perform the same, the difference is:
936 - Analog dial with no display of temp
937 - Analog dial to set temp, digital display
937+ - Digital display of temp, buttons to change temp

The 937+ is only $50 and is on par with that Weller in terms of performance. The Aoyue 93x series tips are fully compatible with the Hakko 93x series irons they are a clone of.

Note that as far as I can tell, the item description for some items (including the meter and soldering iron) have links to an Octopart search for that item, so even if the Elexp link to the right is broken, you can still do the Octopart search. I have an Extech meter I'm pretty happy with, don't remember which model though.