Well I spose I should start with the tools and setup I am using.

Just a standard temp controlled soldering iron

My dear friend from Surrey who builds real F1 cars bought me this fume extractor so I don't die of lead poisoning - mad as hatter anyway.

It's a cheapy from China or something but it works really well. Hot air soldering iron with a normal iron.

A really good pretty standard multimeter.

Cheap dual 100mHz oscilloscope meter from China.

Crimpers to burn. A wirestripper, Deutsche crimper, a Klein tools stripper which I love (highest level professional tool), a crap vacuum sucker, desoldering wick, pliers - and don't miss the Redhat pen (they suck now). Believe it or not I have even more.

An EEProm reader/programmer with every adapter known to man. Thanks to Matt Brown's youtube channel for educating me about these.

A USB logic analyzer which with a trusty Linux box you can use Ghidra to analyze 16 signals at once.

A cheap chinese power supply. I have good reason it will have pretty bad droop. But it was cheap and I don't need a scientific instrument.

These are good - they can click on and hold to anything small.