After a few years of building things around Banana Pi and other SBCs, I’ve ended up sourcing a lot of my bench gear and small parts second-hand from Japan instead of buying new. Posting my notes here in the DIY zone in case it’s useful to anyone else who solders their own add-on boards and wiring.
Why Japan for this stuff: the used-electronics resale culture here is huge, so working soldering stations, multimeters, bench PSUs, logic analyzers and even oscilloscopes turn up cheap and clean. The classic hunting ground is Hard Off (and its junk-corner “ジャンク” bins), plus the Akihabara parts shops.
Rough prices I’ve actually seen (used, working):
- Temperature-controlled soldering stations (Hakko/goot): ~¥1,000–3,000
- Digital multimeters / testers: ~¥300–1,500
- Bench power supplies: ~¥2,000–5,000
- Entry oscilloscopes & logic tools: ~¥3,000–10,000 for something perfectly fine for hobby signal work
- Hakko/goot tips, desoldering braid, flux, hook-up wire, GPIO jumpers, headers: cents on the dollar vs. imported
How I actually order it (no Japanese address needed):
- Search the Japanese marketplaces by the Japanese term — a soldering iron is はんだごて, a multimeter/tester is テスター, an oscilloscope is オシロスコープ. Japanese keywords surface 5–10x more listings than English ones.
- Most Japanese sellers won’t ship abroad, so I run it through a proxy/forwarder that buys the item on your behalf and consolidates everything into one box. I’ve been using OneMall for that. Here’s a live はんだごて (soldering-iron) search so you can see the kind of used listings and prices I mean.
- Consolidate several small parts into one shipment — that’s where the real savings are, since individual small-parcel post from Japan is what eats the savings otherwise.
Two caveats worth knowing: junk-bin items are sold as-is (ジャンク = untested/for-parts), so budget for the occasional dud, and check the plug/voltage — Japan is 100V, so a step-down or a wide-input supply matters for anything with a mains transformer. Bench PSUs and soldering stations are usually fine; anything with a heating element, double-check.
Curious what everyone else here uses for cheap bench gear and parts — is anyone else importing tools from Japan, or is it all AliExpress + local for you these days?