Electronic tools that you need for building basic circuits

A digital clock; mosquito repellent machine; a timer to control your lights when left on in room where there is no one are simple circuits that can be designed easily at home. There are plenty of hobby electronic designers who love to create circuits for their domestic usage or for exploring their hobby. So what all one requires to create small and simple circuits. From resistors, capacitors to slightly advanced micro programmers and micro controllers till the latest generation Serial EEPROM's there are plenty of electronic tool bases which one can use in their circuits and create magnificent and energy efficient environment all over. Some of the easy to learn and use electronic circuit building tools are:

Starter kits
Starter kits are small Programmable control board which can be used for creating some wired or wireless applications. Most of the starter kits that are frequently used by hobbyists are ST7, AVR, PIC micro controller, Ethernet, CAN, PLD, DIL, FPGA starter kit etc. Along with these kits there are numerous accessories like joysticks, push button control etc available which will make the programming easy and simple.

Programmers
Programmers are plenty which includes universal, hand held, gang, ISP and Keyfob programmers with which one can easily program and re-program their EEPROMs. The latest addition to these devices are the gang programmers, In system programmers, device programmers etc which makes parallel programming easy for PC hosted, network and stand alone modes. Some programmers come with debuggers as well.

Chips, IC, Modules
Integrated circuits, chips and programming modules  like internet or Ethernet modules, PROM, EPROM, serial EEPROMs, USB modules etc are must for designing an simple circuit to explain students or for running a small automated gadget. These are available with different specification from various manufacturers at varied costs. One has to understand their requirement and choose the IC that is most suitable for their usage.

PC interfaces
For many FPGA kits programming requires PC interfaces. These PC interface can be in the form of terminal servers, CAN interfaces USB interface, blue tooth or wireless interface, Zig bee protocol based wireless networks etc. Generally to connect computers with PC networks you generally require RS232, RS422, RS485 cables along with these interfaces along with IO managers, leads and cards to complete the connection.
With these useful circuit building blocks, designing any circuit is easy and more convenient. Also there are plenty of variations available in these modules with respect to memory capacity, voltage requirements etc as each of them is designed by different manufacturer. Hence while designing your circuit at home, you have to be careful with technical specifications and buy these important ICs and modules. Also electronic goods do not come with any warranty. Hence to avoid them being damaged, one has to work carefully and design their circuit. Of course, the first or second attempt might fail you but ultimately with every turn you learn something new and better!