Hi Lisa,
- power supply
the power output of the variable power supply depends on your intentions. If you want to drive high current stepper motors the output should suffice for that purpose.
For "normal" electronics I suggest a dual power supply each 0 to 30V/2A with a built in fixed supply of +5V/5A.
These power supplies are manufactured with dual LC-Display and the switching capability for series and parallel connection.
Check out PEAKTECH and Mercator International for those. The one I described above was purchased at Mercator for 199€. (Korean brand)
- oscilloscope
check out OWON and RIGOL for those. OWON has the better displays (full colour 640X480pixels (VGA)) 7.8" RIGOL has 5.7" displays with 320X236pixels, but the electronics are better than OWON's.
For applications using MCUs a bandwith of 25MHz should be sufficient. For RF circuits choose a band width of at least 100MHz.
Purchase one each and use the OWON display with the RIGOL.
- frequency counter
also here check out PEAKTECH
- function generator
the PEAKTECH 4080 is a combined wobbel-generator with frequency counter
Useful tools: automatic temperature controlled programmable soldering/desoldering station (ERSA), soldering tin 0.3 to 0.5mm, plyers, cutters, tweezers, screwdrivers and last not least
- a 10 pounds hammer in case the circuit won't work
Regards
Hans