I think englishal has pretty much summed up my feelings on minimum conditions for the flight. No IMC flight if there's any chance of icing. No IMC flight if there's any chance of thunderstorms. And no flight if the forecast weather at the destination is close to my own limits (which will depend on how current I am at instrument flying, but are generally much higher than the IMC recommendations because I don't fly IMC very often).
As for the equipment, I'm very lucky to be able to hire from a club which has two nearly brand new Cessna 172. Both are as fully equipped for IFR flight as a C172 can be. I did my IMC Rating training mostly in one of these, and it was fantastic. I didn't realise just how good it was until one lesson when the Cessna wasn't available, and I had to take a much older PA28. Trying to pick up a QDM to an NDB when the needle jumps 10 degrees at a time is not fun.
FFF
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