>
>1. The measured, sane, and slow way:  Whenever you do a project, buy about 10 times as many parts as you think you need, especially if they are really cheap. You can't buy one resistor, you can buy 10 for 10 cents each, or 200 for $2.00.   Soon, you will realize you have a great stock of parts that precisely fit the types of projects you are doing.  Organize these parts in the most organized way you can - so that you can always find them. 

An extremely good idea! 
I've done this in varying degrees over the years. 
The drawer cabinets you find in the hardware stores work pretty well, as long as you secure them to the wall. I had a bad incident once with 14,000 resistors, when a shelf on those common "shelf brackets" fell, because the bracket twisted.  I had to employ a couple of kids for a couple of days sorting resistors!


>2. The fun way:  Blow about $300 at Mouser on their engineer's kits for leaded ceramic capacitors, stock 1/8 watt leaded resistors, stock leaded radial electrylytic capacitors, and a half dozen PICs.  

Pricey, but makes sense at times.

I also pick up inductors when I can get them cheap.
The cores can be characterized by stripping the existing windings off the bobbins, and winding a 10 or 100 turn reference winding, then measuring the inductance. 
The bobbins and clips are easy to re-use, if you're careful.

For Rs and Cs, I go heavy on the binary values,  1k, 2.2k, 4.7, and stock a few of all 5%.  Radio shack has a large resistor kit that's a good start. I've used these in the field, when I'm away from my "wall-of-parts"

>Tools:
>A scope is required.  Any scope is better than no scope, and scopes expand to fill the budget available.  

:) Certainly true.  For slow signals (battery charging) there are meters with a PC interface that will plot graphs for you. Limited, but way better than nothing.
I'm very fond of the PMD-1208LS, a USB device that you can control from visual basic. analog inputs, analog outputs, digital inputs, and digital outputs.

>Decent soldering iron - skip Radio shack and plan to spend at least $50

Don't skimp here. A metcal SP-200 can be had on ebay for less than $200.
Amazingly good. Of course if you never have to use the junk, you won't appreciate how good the metcal is.


>A decent voltmeter.  Plan to spend at least $50.

Very handy to have capacitance, inductance, and temperature measurement. 

>A variable power supply.  I usually build my own, you can spend as little or as much as you like on this. 

Definitely.

_______________________________________________
http://www.piclist.com
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist