What to buy to get started with Arduino and Electronics

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My recommendations on what to buy to start with Arduino and electronics, from the Elegoo UNO R3 starter kit to a basic multimeter for your first experiments.

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In my Electronics tutorial series I do use a set of tools that I bought over time.

I can definitely give you some recommendations on what to buy to get started with the experiments I do.

Arduino is an amazing project, and I highly recommend you to buy original Arduino parts to support the project and the whole ecosystem.

But when you’re starting out you need a lot of little components that bought individually might cost a lot. You can find kits that come with many, many things at once.

Arduino’s current Uno boards are the Uno R4 (Minima and WiFi) and the Linux-capable UNO Q. If you want the official kit, look at the Arduino Starter Kit R4, built around the Uno R4 WiFi.

An Uno R3-compatible clone kit is still fine for these tutorials, and it costs less. In particular I would suggest a kit made by Elegoo, sold on Amazon as ELEGOO UNO R3 Project Most Complete Starter Kit w/Tutorial Compatible with Arduino IDE (63 Items).

It’s a box that contains an Arduino Uno R3-compatible clone board, and lots of components, sensors and small parts that are often useful:

Elegoo UNO R3 starter kit contents laid out in clear compartments showing Arduino board, sensors, breadboards and components

All individual components from Elegoo UNO R3 kit arranged on white background including Arduino board, resistors, LEDs and sensors

It comes with a lot of stuff: a breadboard, lots of wires, resistors, LEDs, a battery, a shield, a power supply module, a water level sensor, a keypad, an LCD screen, buttons, a joystick, a stepper motor and a servo motor, an IR receiver and transmitter, a relay, an ultrasonic sensor, and much more.

Another very complete and cheaper one (but seems to have less components and sensors) is the ELEGOO UNO Project Super Starter Kit with Tutorial and UNO R3 Compatible with Arduino IDE

Elegoo Super Starter Kit showing storage case with Arduino board and various electronic components arranged in compartments

Complete contents of Elegoo Super Starter Kit laid out showing Arduino UNO board, breadboards, wires, resistors and various modules

I got one of these for a friend of mine, and it is pretty cool.

Other similar kits exist. Make sure the board is an Arduino Uno (R3 clone or R4). That’s the best board to start with for these tutorials.

Then I suggest you buy a multimeter. Any multimeter works fine. You can get one at your local tools store or online.

That’s it, to start with. You need to try first with cheap kit, then if you like tinkering with electronics, the sky is the limit.

You can get a device that communicates with WiFi and Bluetooth like the Arduino MKR Wifi 1010 and the Arduino MKR GPS shield to work with GPS, for example.

Tagged: Arduino · All topics

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