Hakko Soldering Station, FX951-66

You guys will probably laugh at this, and it is really low tech, but... maybe my favorite purchase was a pair of hiking boots. Specifically these Cabela's 360 Mid boots.

https://www.cabelas.com/shop/en/cabelas-360-mid-gore-tex-hik...

So, what's the big deal? Well, the boots themselves aren't necessarily all that special in relative terms. They're not cheap boots, but they're not expensive ones either. I'd say they're pretty average. The difference is between "boots" and "no boots". For most of my adult life, I've generally worn sneakers / tennis shoes of some sort more or less everywhere (excepting the rare occasion when I had to don dress shoes for some weird reason). And I finally got tired of my feel getting wet every time it rains. Seriously, I hate being outside and find that just running the 25 yards from my car to the entrance to a store, when it's raining, or FSM forbid, stepping in a 1/4" deep puddle of standing water in the parking lot, leaves my feet soaked.

So I bought boots. And I wear them pretty much everywhere now. Now my feel don't get soaked from a light drizzle, and they have turned out to be a lot more comfortable than I probably expected. They're also generally better for doing a lot of outdoor stuff I like to do (fishing, etc.) than tennis shoes. Honestly, I should have bought a decent pair of boots years ago. Not sure why it took me so long to get around to it.

On a more technical note: I've bought a lot of test equipment over the last couple of years, as I set out to build the electronics lab I always wanted. And by and large I'm happy with everything I've bought, but the one thing that stands out as the most useful of all has definitely been a proper bench power supply. I went with a Rigol DP832A and I've been very pleased with it.

https://www.amazon.com/Rigol-DP832A-Channels-Programmable-Su...

Really nice aspects of finally having a real power supply:

1. Instantly dial up any voltage I want (within its range of course). And that has been more useful than I probably would have expected, because I find myself dial up 3.3V more and more often lately, and I never had a quick and easy way to get 3.3V before. Maybe there's a 3.3V wall-wart around here somewhere, but I doubt it.

2. Configurable current limiting. You can set a current limit to avoid accidentally dumping too much current into something and frying it.

3. Current read-out on the LCD display. Turns out it's also very useful to hook something up and empirically observe how much current it tries to consume.

The other "tech" item I really like is my Hakko FX951-66 temperature controlled soldering station. People have been telling me to get a proper temperature controlled station for years, and I finally understand why. It's a huge improvement over those crappy Radio Shack soldering pencil style soldering irons.

https://www.amazon.com/AMERICAN-HAKKO-PRODUCTS-INC-FX-951/dp...