Probably goes without saying, my whole journey with diy basically started on the day I received my Prusa Mk2. I currently own 2 prusa printers mk2s and mk3s and I can’t recommend them enough, if you wish to have a simple out of the box experience without the need of buying 20 mods on day1 in my opinion this is the way to go.

Ordering a kit is a bit more painful, took me probably 12-15h to get it running, but the biggest advantage of building it was getting to know how everything works which helps resolving issues that might occur over time.

Of course I’m aware prusa is far from being cheap.

Personally I don’t have experience with other printers, but based on my knowledge the best budget option would be ender 3 pro (not v2) + skr mini 3 board (makes it ultra quiet) + bigtree TFT35 v3 (touch ui) + aluminium extruder + bltouch z probe. For a little over £300 this gives you a very good introduction to 3d printing. Think any cheaper than that simply doesn’t make sense.

Here for me there’s basically just one option – TS100. It’s cheap, small, light, powerful, heats up extremely fast and is very reliable. I’m using mine for about 5 yrs now and is still going just fine.

Additional accessories :

• brass tip cleaner
• solder – as my builds usually involve small electronics I would strongly recommend 0.4mm

Yes I know it’s not technically a tool, but I use it all the time to hold the parts I’m soldering on the working surface. Have the ‘helping hands’ as well but use Blue Tack at 99% of times, fast, convenient, cheap and reliable.

One of the most useful tools I own. When working on a design, especially one that involves a modification of existing item, or incorporating off-the-shelf components it’s critical to get the right dimensions.

Length wise I don’t think more than 150mm (6in) is needed, I have a 300mm (12in) one but use it very rarely.

There’s a massive amount of various models available, but don’t even look at anything under £20, it’s a pure waste of money, here are the two I own:

• Budget friendly option – Moore and Wright, the build quality is good+, functionality and precision is on par with more expensive products, the main downside for me is the battery life, much shorter than the more expensive callipers
• Pro – Mitutoyo 500 – these are extremely expensive but the quality is just second to none, if you can afford it don’t look anywhere else

This one is definitely not something you need to buy, especially if you’re just starting your tools collection, but I use mine non-stop. At first it takes a bit of time to get used to it, but afterwards one just can’t go back.

If you’re not familiarised with it – the 3d mouse (or space mouse) is a device that enables you to move objects (mainly in cad software) in multiple planes (up/dwn, left/right/fw/back, cw/ccw) without the need of any keyboard shortcuts or pushing multiple mouse btns.

For me it massively improved the convenience of designing 3d models in Fusion 360.

There’s three models with wired and wireless variants: Compact, Pro and Enterprise. I got the compact wireless, but in my opinion the best value for money is compact wired, all the additional features of Pro come at a unreasonable premium.

Most of the bolts I’m using in my projects are hex type so having a good set of keys is a must.

I have 2 sets:

• Sealey – very budget friendly, acceptable build quality, not sure about longevity cause I don’t use them much but are doing OK so far
• Wera – pricey but the quality is amazing, brilliant set and highly recommend

Everybody needs something to cut all the wires used in diy projects, but in this case heavy duty ‘pro’ tools don’t really make much sense, therefore few years ago a got a Draper set and use it to date without any issues.

You just need them, get the cheapest or ‘borrow’ from your wife/girlfriend

For all the M2 and M3 screws (which are the main sizes I use) normal screwdriver set simply won’t work. Due to their small size durability is important, I have 2 sets:

• super cheap ones from B&Q – they’re cheap, that’s it, 3 out of 8 broke pretty quickly
• Wera – they’re expensive, like way too expensive for a set of screwdrivers, but you will probably never need to buy another one

Poor quality bits can easily strip and you’ll have a bad day, that being said a semi-decent set like Stanley will do the job for quite some time.

• Stanley – cheap but acceptable quality
• Wera long reach set – by now you probably noticed I’m a big fan of Wera tools, this set is no exception, very useful for deep screw holes (and for any other tasks involving screwdriver)
• Wera Tool Check Plus Mini – this is one of my favourite tools, it’s super small but has basically everything you’d need : ratchet, sockets and multiple bits, simply an all-in-one package that I always keep on my work table.

For prototyping anything that requires higher durability than what a 3d printed plastic can offer this is a must. There’s quite a learning curve with it, but when you get the hang of it – sky is the limit. Purchasing the CNC opened a whole new world of possibilities for me (in terms of the designs ofx :).

We rarely make stuff from wood for simracing, therefore a machine capable to comfortably mill aluminium is required. For that you need a fairly powerful spindle (I’d say min 700W), as rigid as possible body (linear rails, steel plates and lead screws are recommended, don’t buy anything that’s belt driven!) and strong motors (Nema23+).

Size of working area is another factor to consider, in my opinion the rule is buy the largest you can fit in your workshop, cause there’s always going to be a moment when you’ll think ‘I should have got the larger one’.

There’s loads of different options out there, but from my perspective anything under £1k is not worth it long term (as long as you don’t go diy and build it yourself from scratch).

I went for Ratrig Killerbee with working area of 500x500mm (because workshop space) and Makita RT0700CX4 router. A very popular option is also Workbee, but Ratrig’s version is more rigid so I decided to pay the extra.

In terms of the accessories you definitely want the following:

• XYZ probe
• Dust shoe + wet&dry vacuum + dust separator
• Loads of WD40 (best budget coolant for aluminium)
• Clamps to hold your workpiece in place
• Loads or cheap milling bits until you know what you’re doing and won’t damage expensive ones
• Surfacing bit to keep your spoil board nice and flat

You just need one, that’s it, I have Bosch 18v and that’s more than enough for my needs

Drilling perfectly vertical holes is not something you can easily achieve with power drill, therefore the drill press. I use it mainly for drilling holes (duh!) in alu and steel, chamfering and cleaning stainless steel parts with wire wheel.

There’s loads of these that you can get for under £100, but I went for Bosch PBD 40 mainly because of it’s variable speed setting (instead of having to change the belt) and laser.

What is there to say, everybody needs a Dremel, it’s an universal multitool that any diy’er has to own.

I have 2: Dremel 4000 and Dremel Micro 8050, but due to all the other gear I have the 4000 is barely used, only in rare occasions where I need more power for small (size wise) jobs, any other time I use the cordless micro which is super convenient due to it’s size. The main thing I dislike about 4000 is that it’s corded, if I were to buy a Dremel again I’d go for cordless 8220 instead of the 2 I own.

You need 2 sets: a small ‘needle’ type for precision jobs, and full size to remove large amount of material. I use them mainly for cleaning aluminium cuts and SLA prints.

There are many budget options that include both sizes in one set, but I went for slightly higher quality large ones from Bahco and a cheap small set. Both perform very well so far.

SLA = high detail, if you’re printing miniatures definitely get one, for simracing accessories… I mainly use it for knobs and LED domes from clear resin. The biggest problem for me personally is that it’s much more difficult and ‘messy’ to operate than FDM, and takes a fair amount of time to get good results.

One massive advantage of resin printing for me is the ease of sanding, with PLA you need to use a filler and sand it for ages, here it’s just a quick cleanup of the support marks, spray paint it and you’re good to go, perfect surface finish.

I got a Elegoo Saturn due to it’s build volume as I thought I’ll be running some larger prints on it, turns out I didn’t really so could have bought something smaller and cheaper. One suggestion – get a printer with min 2k screen resolution.

SLA printing is not just the printer, there’s a ton of accessories that are needed:

• Loads of single-use gloves (resin is toxic!)
• Paint filters (when pouring resin back to the bottle)
• Wash & Cure station (or ultrasonic cleaner + uv lamp)
• IPA alcohol – 5l bottle min (for cleaning the prints)
• Paper towels, a LOT of paper towels
• Flexible steel plate (to easily remove the prints)
• Spare resin tank if you plan to print in colours other than black (ie one for black the other for eg clear resin)
• I can also highly recommend following 2 accessories from thingiverse that make the whole process just a little less painful
  • Resin Vat Drainer: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3841061
  • Build Plate Draining Arm: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4569412

This is something that’s needed for larger ‘heavy duty’ projects, I don’t use them often but when I was building my 4040 extrusion simracing rig or the 3030 workbench table these truly showed their worth. I got a semi-decent set from Stanley, but looking at how often they’re being used I could have bought something more budget. I guess this is a generic rule, if you think you will use it a lot – don’t cheap out 🙂

When you get to a point of designing and assembling your own PCBs this becomes a very helpful tool. Just place your circuit board and it evenly heats it up, making soldering of even very small QFN chips an easy task.

I use it mainly when the heating station is not applicable, eg when there are components on the other side of PCB, or pins sticking out. It’s fairly cheap and does the job, but it’s probably more suitable for occasional use, I don’t have high expectations with regards to it’s long term performance.

I have two from Bosch: 18v orbital and 12v ‘triangle-like’. The larger one is mainly used for wood, like cleaning spoil board on the CNC or any other job that involves larger sheets of material. The small works great for cleaning aluminium cuts from CNC, roughing the surface before painting etc. If I were to chose only one I’d go for EasySander 12, mainly because it’s much lighter and tip on the front enables me to clean difficult to reach areas of the parts I’m working on.

I wanted one mainly for cutting aluminium extrusions precisely and that helped me a lot with a couple of projects. Got a 210mm blade version because of the price. It’s a good tool to have but I don’t use it much.

One recommendation – if you’re going to buy a mitre saw get a stand for it as well if you’re not making a dedicated station for it, it folds nicely so doesn’t take much space.

Don’t think there’s much to say here, very helpful to hold material when filing, sanding or cutting with angle grinder. I purchased a budget option from Stanley as I have no need for heavy duty one. So far after several months I’m very pleased with it.

This is probably a bit of an overkill for me, but I’m planning to build enclosures for my printers and some shelving in the workshop. I also use it for cutting new spoil boards for CNC.

I knew this will be rarely used so I wanted to get a fairly budget option, but after reading the reviews of entry level Einhell’s and similar decided to increase the budget a little and bought Evolution RAGE5, it had pretty good reviews and a major selling point for me – it can be collapsed and moved around which is a massive space saver.

This is probably the only purchase on this list that I’m not 100% happy with. I wanted something to cut vinyl, which Cricut can do very nicely but a massive downside is it doesn’t accept .dxf files, which is the only vector output that Fusion 360 can generate, so it’s a pain cause I have to convert the files, scale them etc, not a very convenient solution. Fortunately I got it half price on Black Friday so it’s not as painful 🙂 The model I have is Explore Air 2, it’s an older one and doesn’t have all the bells and whistles but I don’t need any of that, the sole purpose of this machine for me is to cut vinyl.

There is a hidden but extremely valuable advantage of the Cricut vs all other vinyl cutters – if your better half is into arts & crafts you can buy it ‘for her’ as a ‘gift’ and not be accused of getting too many devices 🙂

None of the projects I do require a full size super powerful corded angle grinder, but the tool itself can be useful sometimes for cutting rods, shortening bolts or simply applying brute force to anything made of steel. Just don’t use it on aluminium, it melts and kills the discs.

I was looking for a small (76mm) and cordless grinder, but unfortunately apart from ‘lidl grade’ tools I couldn’t find anything else than Bosch Professional GWS12, which is annoyingly expensive, but so far for all my use cases it worked great.

I don’t have a lot of uses for bench grinder, and I also rarely need belt sander, but if I ever need sharpen something made out of steel and sand off large amounts of material quickly this is a perfect 2in1 solution that doesn’t take up a lot of space

Please please please, never ignore the safety equipment, most of the tools listed above can cause a lot of harm and accidents do happen. As a bare minimum you need:

• Safety glasses
• Work Gloves
• Dust Mask – mainly when cutting or sanding wood
• Paint Mask – for spray painting and working with resin

Different diameters, different lengths, different types, washers, nuts etc etc. It’s a never ending story, I have two large organisers but still quite often don’t have the size I need…

24-28 AWG is what I use most often, also prefer silicone ones as they’re way more flexible and durable compared to plastic insulation. Recommend getting more colours than just black and red 🙂