I really like the 3rd edition of The Art of Electronics. The text is a fun read, and the student manual is a great extension of the main text, with a bunch of practical insight and discussion that puts it beyond mere exercises.
Caveat: I'm a software guy. I burn myself when I solder. I make smoke come out of components. I might not be the right person to listen to :-)
With the exception of an oscilloscope, you can put together a simple bench for a few hundred dollars. I've had mixed luck stocking components (for instanced, either my circuits are clueless crap, or the 10Mhz crystals I bought off of eBay are just empty cans -- in any event, a circuit that should oscillate just sits there). I found a used Tektronix scope and couldn't be happier, it really makes a difference when you're debugging something.
I'm a ham and built all my radio gear, it's perfectly normal to burn yourself when you learn soldering. It's really all a part of the learning curve. Though I still prefer an iron with a gun you're less likely to burn yourself.
I was maybe fifteen and had my dad help me as a third hand and I burned him. My late dad had the patience of Job. He didn't get angry or raise his voice.
He just told me that he'd never let me forget doing it. Sure enough for the rest of his life he'd tease me about the 'scar' I gave him.
On the topic of cheap oscilloscopes, I was looking for a cheap logic analyzer when I found the Saleae Logic. Not an oscilloscope, but if you put an input into analog mode you can visualize the waveform nicely. They have a discount for non-commercial use and startups.
I worked on small prototype electric formula cars for a while and occasionally had to fix something that would take ~6 hours to remove from a very tightly packed battery pack.
I’ve done this at least once .. soldered a 0805 resistor upside down through a 1-inch hole. It doesn’t wick like you’d expect! Quite hard to do
Oscillators are supposed to oscillate but when you want them to, they don’t resulting in debugging.
Amplifiers can have a big phase shift and gain which fulfills barkhausen criteria which is the fundamental requirement for something to oscillate. Oscillating amplifiers are usually a very bad problem because it trashes the signal you are amplifying and tends to suck up a lot of power.
Fuses take a glacial amount of time to blow compared to an integrated circuit. When something goes wrong the IC blows up way before the fuse goes.
Caveat: I'm a software guy. I burn myself when I solder. I make smoke come out of components. I might not be the right person to listen to :-)
With the exception of an oscilloscope, you can put together a simple bench for a few hundred dollars. I've had mixed luck stocking components (for instanced, either my circuits are clueless crap, or the 10Mhz crystals I bought off of eBay are just empty cans -- in any event, a circuit that should oscillate just sits there). I found a used Tektronix scope and couldn't be happier, it really makes a difference when you're debugging something.