Electronic – a general set of components for a robotics hacker

I've got one of the square ones on my desk at work, and I can't get used to looking through the magnifier. For me, the magnification benefit is cancelled out by the distortion. Moving my head moves the view and focus far too much to be useful, and my hands aren't where I see them, and, because I can see my wrists, my arms get confused. Maybe I'm just dumb, but it doesn't work for me - Some of my coworkers do all of their work under one of those.The light, however, is very nice - The color doesn't make my eyes tired, and I always have it on when soldering. Sometimes, I tolerate the distortion because placing the light between me and the soldering iron redirects the fumes out of my face.

Since you asked, the best magnifier is a stereo boom microscope, and they're priced accordingly (Think $1000-2000 for an industry-grade model). Think of the question "What is the best power supply." The answer is the $1500 Agilent, but a modded computer PSU will also work. That's the contrast between the stereo scope and the boom light.. We have models like this in the labs at my school and work; if you need the best, and can afford it, this is what you want. Maybe you're starting a business or something, I don't know. It's got to be stereo, because that's what gives you depth perception. A ring light around the lens is also a necessity; at high zoom, the ratio of the lens to your pupil diameter divided by the magnification means that a lot less light is going to your eyes. Something in the range of 8-40x zoom is good for soldering, you won't need more unless you're a magician with your soldering iron. Most of the time, 8 to 10x is adequate, and I just zoom in for inspection.

Scienscope carries more reasonably priced ones than the name-brand Luxo (Reasonable being $600+light source), and other stereo boom scopes run for around $500 on eBay. You can also get the traditional microscope style instead of of the boom, like the National Optical 400TL that you used to look at frog livers in high school for as cheap as $175 new, or look on eBay.

I have seen some really interesting designs made from plastic cutting boards -- yes, cutting boards. They're tough, easy to cut/drill/shape and it's also pretty inexpensive. There is also polycaprolactone (goes by various names, but I got mine from a vendor selling it as ShapeLock) -- it's cheap, tough and drillable/fileable. It melts in boiling water and becomes tough when it cools, and has a similar feel to nylon. I'd be sure to keep anything that can get hot away from it though, or your 'bot will melt. :-)

(edit: I forgot to mention that you can make sheets of it pretty easily too: http://letsmakerobots.com/node/4070)

If you want metal, you'll probably want some angle iron of various gauges and sizes, at least for prototyping. I don't know if Meccano is still around, but I made some neat stuff out of that (and Lego too, of course). Aluminum flashing, a pop rivet gun, hacksaw and files. Try to score a small metal brake too for making nice straight folds, and maybe a sheet metal course at the community college to learn how to weld and grind correctly and safely. Try to make friends with the local panel shops, as they usually have enough scrap to keep a hobbyiest in excellent stock, as well as access to some of the bigger tools that you may want to use on occasion.

An assortment of bosses, nuts, bolts, washers, screws and taps is probably going to be high on the list as well, along with your normal assortment of tools for working with these things. A dremel is very handy, as are various pliers, tweezers and such.

Once you build a few prototypes you will know what you're after and can get plastic sheeting or metal stock laser-cut at various places online or if you're fortunate, locally. That really is the ultimate. Maybe take some time to learn how to build up pieces in Blender or a cheap/free 3D CAD package so you can just send the design files off and get back exactly what you're after.

I haven't got any advice on waterproofing. I imagine starting with an already waterproof container of some kind and creating sealed ports would be the quickest method. I'd take a look at electric boat hobbyiest websites and see how they manage.