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Collin's Lab: Soldering
The gentlest starting point. Collin Cunningham explains why solder isn't just a hot metal glue, and that one idea is what makes good joints click: you heat the component lead and the copper pad together where they meet, and the solder flows onto both. He covers tinning a new tip, keeping it clean on brass mesh or a slightly damp sponge, and spotting a cold joint before it causes trouble.
Adafruit's companion guide to the episode gives sensible first dial positions: around 650°F for leaded solder, up to 750°F for lead-free, and heat on the joint for two seconds or less.
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EEVblog #180 - Soldering Tutorial Part 1 - Tools
Watch this before spending money. Dave Jones opens his three-part 2011 soldering series with an episode that is all about the tools you might need. For a beginner on a budget it is the most practical episode on this list, because knowing what each item actually does keeps you from buying a bundle of extras that will sit in a drawer.
Treat it as a reference to pause on while you build a shopping list, then move on to part 2 for the soldering itself.
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EEVblog #183 - Soldering Tutorial Part 2
The heart of the series and a beginner's guide to hand soldering in the plainest sense. Dave works through through-hole parts, the kind whose legs pass through the board and which most first projects use, showing good practice alongside the common mistakes to avoid. Seeing a bad joint next to a good one is what trains your eye.
Watch it the evening before your first practice board, then keep it open on the bench.
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EEVblog #186 - Soldering Tutorial Part 3 - Surface Mount
Tiny surface-mount chips look impossible to solder by hand, and this episode shows they are not. Dave demonstrates drag soldering and the tack-and-reflow method on fine-pitch chips with pins 0.5 mm apart, then moves on to solder paste and hot air.
As the third and last part of the series, save it until a few through-hole boards have gone well. It is the video that opens up modern breakout boards and small-gadget repairs, where almost nothing has legs anymore.
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Collin's Lab: Desoldering
Sooner or later every beginner puts a part in backwards or needs to rework a joint on a cable or controller board. This Collin's Lab episode is devoted to taking solder off again, the skill that turns a mistake into a quick fix instead of a scrapped board.
It pairs naturally with Collin's soldering episode, and it is the video to watch before attempting any repair that starts with removing an old part.
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EEVblog 1636 - Ultimate Multimeter Beginners Guide!
Posted in August 2024, this is the one to watch before buying a meter. Dave covers what a multimeter is, how to choose one and how to measure with it, and the chapters let you jump straight to continuity testing, the beep that finds a broken wire inside a cable.
The part that matters most for safety is the one he flags as the dangerous bit: measuring current, followed by CAT safety ratings and fuses. A chapter on why not to measure resistance in-circuit saves a lot of puzzled readings on a first repair.
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Collin's Lab: Schematics
Schematics are the map for every project guide a beginner will follow, and this 2011 episode covers the vital basics of reading them. Its most encouraging point is that if you can read a schematic, you can build a circuit before you fully understand how it works.
That makes it the bridge between watching tutorials and building from a diagram on your own. Watch it with any simple project schematic open beside it and match each symbol as Collin names it.
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Collin's Lab: Breadboards & Perfboards
Every first circuit goes together on a breadboard, and this Collin's Lab episode explains the one thing that confuses beginners most: which holes are connected. The inner rows join components horizontally, with a gap down the middle that keeps a chip's pins apart, while the long columns down each side carry power and ground, and the rails on opposite sides stay separate until you bridge them with a wire.
He also suggests making jumper wires from 22 gauge solid-core wire rather than stranded, then moves a circuit onto a perfboard laid out the same way as the breadboard, which is the natural next step once you can solder.
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Astable 555 timer - 8-bit computer clock - part 1
The best first breadboard build here for anyone who wants to understand what they are wiring, not just copy it. Ben Eater sets up a 555 timer as an astable oscillator, a circuit that pulses on and off by itself, and works out how the resistors and capacitor set the charge and discharge times, and with them the rhythm and the duty cycle.
It opens the clock module of his 8-bit breadboard computer, but it stands perfectly well alone and needs no code. At about 28 minutes it is slow and careful, which is exactly right when you are checking every wire against his.
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The unofficial guide to electrocution (and how to avoid it)
Watch this before touching anything that plugs into a wall. Big Clive explains plainly how electric current affects the heart and lungs and can even break bones, how to avoid a shock and how to help someone who has had one. He starts at the most basic level, right down to wearing gloves.
It is the honest counterweight to the many videos that pop open mains-powered devices casually, and the clearest case for why a beginner is better off learning on batteries and low-voltage supplies first.
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