The Master Bench
Every item the series asks you to own, with how many volumes and how many experiments actually use it. Counted from the parts list of all 265 experiments in the books rather than kept by hand, so it cannot drift out of date.
Sorted by how many volumes need the item, which is roughly the order to buy in. Costs are the ones printed in the volumes themselves. Nothing here is specialised: a $20 multimeter appears in more experiments than anything else, and a tape measure appears in more volumes.
Measuring
| Item | Volumes | Experiments | Cost | What it is for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tape measure or ruler EMAG FRIDGE SOLAR WIND NUKE FLUID PLASMA LASER | 8 | 32 | — | Steel tape for machines, a ruler for the bench. Half the experiments are a length measured carefully. |
| A phone camera EMAG SOLAR WIND NUKE FLUID PLASMA LASER | 7 | 31 | — | Long exposure, slow motion and a timestamp. The most capable instrument most readers already own. |
| Multimeter EMAG FRIDGE SOLAR WIND NUKE PLASMA | 6 | 52 | — | The one instrument the whole series leans on. Any $20 meter with DC volts, DC amps and resistance will do everything asked of it. |
| Stopwatch EMAG FRIDGE SOLAR WIND NUKE FLUID | 6 | 20 | — | A phone will do. Used wherever a rate matters: fill times, run-down times, revolutions counted against seconds. |
| Infrared thermometer FRIDGE SOLAR NUKE FLUID PLASMA | 5 | 14 | — | A non-contact thermometer, about $20, and the fastest way to find where energy is going. Refrigeration and Fluid Power both live on it. |
| A pair of matched thermometers FRIDGE SOLAR NUKE | 3 | 19 | — | Two cheap thermometers that agree with each other matter more than one accurate one, because almost every measurement here is a difference. |
| Tachometer, or a phone camera in slow motion EMAG WIND NUKE | 3 | 8 | — | Revolutions per minute without buying anything, by filming a marked blade and counting frames. |
| Pressure gauge or manometer FRIDGE FLUID | 2 | 7 | — | A tyre gauge, a hose gauge, or a length of clear tube and a ruler. Fluid Power and Refrigeration both need one. |
| Clamp meter FRIDGE SOLAR | 2 | 5 | — | Reads current without breaking the circuit, which is the only practical way to measure what an appliance actually draws. |
| Oscilloscope or signal generator EMAG SOLAR | 2 | 5 | — | A combined USB unit is about $50 and it is the only way to see anything that happens faster than a meter can follow. |
| Kitchen or digital scales FLUID | 1 | 6 | — | Force, mass and flow by weighing. Turns a syringe into a dynamometer and a bucket into a flow meter. |
| Plug-in energy monitor EMAG | 1 | 2 | — | About $25, and it turns any appliance into an experiment by reading watts, power factor and kilowatt hours directly. |
Safety
| Item | Volumes | Experiments | Cost | What it is for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Safety glasses FRIDGE FLUID PLASMA | 3 | 3 | — | Clear polycarbonate, impact rated. Also the ultraviolet protection at the plasma bench, because polycarbonate stops everything below 380 nm. |
| Gloves FRIDGE FLUID | 2 | 3 | — | Nitrile for solvents and oils, leather for hot and sharp. Never near a rotating shaft. |
| Welding helmet LASER | 1 | 1 | — | If you own one, it is the right protection for any real ARC: carbon arc, plasma cutter, jacob's ladder. Match the shade to the current. It is NOT laser eye protection, for the reason in Lasers. |
Electrical
| Item | Volumes | Experiments | Cost | What it is for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Insulated hookup wire EMAG FRIDGE SOLAR WIND NUKE FLUID PLASMA | 7 | 29 | — | A couple of metres of ordinary insulated wire, which is the whole bill of materials for a surprising number of experiments. |
| Assorted resistors EMAG SOLAR WIND NUKE FLUID PLASMA | 6 | 34 | — | A handful of values from 100 ohms to 100 kilohms. The load in most circuits here and the shunt in most current measurements. |
| Bench power supply EMAG SOLAR WIND FLUID PLASMA | 5 | 6 | — | A variable supply, or a laptop brick and a resistor. Wanted once a measurement needs a known current held steady. |
| Enamelled copper wire EMAG SOLAR NUKE PLASMA | 4 | 12 | — | Magnet wire for coils. A 100 g reel winds every coil in the series. |
| Neodymium magnets EMAG NUKE PLASMA | 3 | 19 | — | Strong enough that the effects are visible rather than inferred. Handle as though they will find each other, because they will. |
| 9 V battery EMAG SOLAR PLASMA | 3 | 4 | — | The cheapest source of a real voltage. Enough to prove a flame conducts. |
| Small DC hobby motor EMAG WIND | 2 | 8 | — | Motor, generator and tachometer in one $3 part, depending which way you drive it. |
| LEDs EMAG SOLAR | 2 | 5 | — | Both a light source and, run backwards, a photovoltaic cell and a photo detector. Solar Power opens on exactly that. |
| AA or AAA cells EMAG SOLAR | 2 | 4 | — | A single cell is the right supply for anything where the point is that the effect is large and the energy is not. |
| Microcontroller board WIND | 1 | 1 | — | An Arduino or ESP class board, for the experiments that want logging rather than a reading. |
Air and fluid
| Item | Volumes | Experiments | Cost | What it is for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Silicone or aquarium tubing EMAG FRIDGE SOLAR NUKE FLUID PLASMA LASER | 7 | 21 | — | Soft tube that grips a syringe tip. Also the manometer. |
| Box fan EMAG FRIDGE WIND NUKE | 4 | 19 | — | The series wind tunnel. Stood on edge so it blows horizontally. |
| Bicycle pump FRIDGE FLUID PLASMA | 3 | 9 | — | A flow source you can feel, and the cheapest demonstration in the series: compress air and the barrel gets warm. |
| Syringes, 5 mL and 60 mL FRIDGE FLUID | 2 | 9 | — | A hydraulic press, a pneumatic spring and a compressibility rig, for about $4 the pair. No needles. |
| Bottle jack FLUID | 1 | 3 | — | Ten dollars of hydraulics you can hold, and the only place most people meet 5,000 psi. |
| Vacuum pump FRIDGE | 1 | 2 | — | A two-stage pump, or a modified fridge compressor. The gate into low pressure work. |
Shop
| Item | Volumes | Experiments | Cost | What it is for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Glass jar or plastic bottle FRIDGE SOLAR WIND NUKE FLUID PLASMA LASER | 7 | 25 | — | Vessel, cell, chamber and accumulator, depending which volume you are in. |
| Tape EMAG FRIDGE SOLAR WIND FLUID PLASMA LASER | 7 | 11 | — | Electrical tape, duct tape and masking tape between them hold most of this series together. |
| Steel nails, screws and paper clips EMAG FRIDGE SOLAR WIND FLUID PLASMA | 6 | 12 | — | Cores, armatures, electrodes and the cheapest ferromagnetic material there is. |
| Thin plywood or stiff card SOLAR WIND FLUID LASER | 4 | 11 | — | Blade stock, vane stock, and every flat thing that has to be cut to a shape. |
| Hot glue gun WIND PLASMA LASER | 3 | 3 | — | The series' universal fixing. Fast, reversible, and strong enough for anything that is not hot or loaded. |
| Paper cups or ping-pong balls WIND NUKE | 2 | 6 | — | Drag rotors, floats and scoops. |
| Aluminium foil EMAG NUKE | 2 | 4 | — | Electrode, shield, reflector, and the plate of most home-made capacitors. |
| Candles NUKE PLASMA | 2 | 4 | — | The cheapest plasma in the world, and Plasma opens on it. |
| Wine corks and wooden skewers WIND | 1 | 4 | — | Hubs and arms. A cork drilled radially is the cheapest rotor hub there is. |
| Thread, a paper cup and coins WIND | 1 | 3 | — | The dynamometer that costs nothing: wind thread on a shaft, hang the cup, add coins until it stalls, and you have measured torque. |
One thing worth knowing before you buy
A welding helmet is the right protection for an arc and is not laser eye protection. If you already own one, use it for anything in Plasma that strikes a real arc, matching the shade to the current as you would for welding. Do not use it for anything in Lasers. A welding filter is rated for the broadband glare of an arc and carries no stated attenuation at any single wavelength, while laser eyewear states an optical density at a stated wavelength, which is the only figure that means anything when all the energy is in one line. An auto-darkening helmet is worse here rather than better, because its shutter takes milliseconds and a Q-switched pulse is over in nanoseconds.
Bench Degree
Get the degree without the diploma.
Learn the material, not how to pass the exam.