Learning The Art of Electronics - Parts BOM

[BobsURuncle]

If you purchased the hands on lab course Learning The Art of Electronics (pub 2016) and want to do all the labs, you will find a very time consuming and tedious task of ordering the parts as there are approximately 135 distinct part numbers (resistor set excluded) from 9 suppliers.

To save others from the tedium, I have attached here Excel files with all the parts organized by the suppliers identified in LTAOE.  For the 3 major distributors you can upload these files to populate your shopping cart ( in some cases you may need to manipulate the sheet a bit to conform to the distributors format).  The sheets have quantities of 1 pc per part so you need to review and adjust all the quantities as you see fit. Where available I will supply a "Cart Share" link where you can go directly to the distributor and have a cart already populated.  I also created a text file identifying some of the cost or availability isssues.

The total cost of these parts if you buy one of each and can find all the parts is around $570 USD.  I didn't research the text to see how many of each part were required, I just winged it: bought a few more if they seemed generally useful and were cheap and did not buy a few parts where the opposite was true.

I hope you find this useful.

Update: 8/12/16:  Digikey is offering a kit which they claim to be complete. But it does not include roughly 40 part numbers that I compiled from the LTAOE book. Still it might at least offer some savings. They also include suggested quantities of parts which I did not include.

[TheAmmoniacal]

Wow, much appreciated indeed 

[MarvinTheMartian]

Great!

Thanks for all your efforts BobsURuncle. 

I'm about to purchase my copy to go with my AoE reference. 

[MrSlack]

Just a note for those of you who may be finding a ca3096 hard to find or don't want to deal with the SOIC version, buy a cheap bag of 2n3904/3906 transistors and a $5 multimeter with hFe and just find a few close ones. It'll do the job

I'll post a list of cheap substitute parts as well when I get a few mins.

Also TIL311 displays, which are actually really nice are dirt cheap on eBay.

[BobsURuncle]

Thanks MrSlack,  I will try to capture these solutions in the Issues.txt as they become available.  CA3096E, substitute for the CA3096CM96, is available cheap on Ebay.

[MrSlack]

Quick rundown now I've got a few minutes. Most of it appears to be brand whoring and is *very* expensive.

page 1105

Any old push button/toggle switches will do. Solder some 1/0.6 wire to them and whack them straight in the breadboard.

TO-92 heatsink. Epoxy a small copper coin to the plastic case.

Transfomer: use a 6v/9v AC wall wart. Does the job, won't kill you.

page 1106

Trimmers: buy some cheap chinese bourns 3386 clone blue cermet finger trimmers as they don't knacker your breadboard. These ones:

Diodes: anything will do here really apart from the schottky. Sub 1n914 for 1n4148 for example. BZX series for 1N5232 if you're this side of the pond.

page 1107

Transistors: MJE2955/3055 - these are TO220 packaged 2n2955/3055 which are usually cheap as chips. Solder wires on them or they will kill your breadboard, same with TO220's! 2n3904/3906 can be subbed for bc327/337.

MOSFETs: these are fussy buggers so best to stick with the recommendations.

JFET current source: 1N5294 - these are impossible to get hold of in Europe: just use a JFET (J310) and a series resistor - same thing.

page 1108

Switching regulators: LT1073's are damn expensive. Learn about the On Semi MC34063A- dirt cheap and just as capable. Read the data sheet and application note for it. Anything Linear Technology (LT) is a mugging.

page 1109

Logic: all sensible ish. 74LS503 - WHYYYYYY it's dead.

...gap here as I haven't read the digital section further...

1111

Capacitors - ceramic: forget AVX CK05 - damn expensive. Grab some cheap blue MLCC's for 1n+ and use simple single layer ceramics discs for lower values, get NP0 ones if you can. Murata = win - quality and cheap.

Polyester: get polybox ones - dead cheap. Who cares where they are made. The cheapest no brand ones I've bought are as good as the top line AVX/Vishay ones.

Tantalum: don't buy these - they are damn dangerous to learn with. They blow up in your face if you look at them funny. Use cheap but branded electrolytic units i.e. Rubycon, Panasonic etc. They're good enough for this course.

1112

Resistors: grab a big bag of 5% 1/4W carbon film ones. Don't bother with the Allen Bradley or SEI branding. Probably about $5 from China.

Equipment

50MHz analogue scope. Tek 465 series fits the bill nicely. That's what I use anyway.

2MHz function generator, preferably with sweep. If you can't find one with sweep, w2aew has a video with notes here on how to build a suitable ramp/sweep generator. You can literally just whack this into the VCO/sweep input on a normal function generator and trigger your scope off the 555 output pin to do frequency sweeps for filters etc:



I just built the front end of this and tested it with my prototype FG and it works nicely although I only had TL072's around - still works fine.

Some other things not mentioned:

Buy lots of Pomona minigrabber to 4mm leads. At least 4. These things make life a million times easier instead of using meter probes etc as they stay put. Use a Pomona BNC socket to minigrabber on the end on an RG58 patch to inject your signals.

[MarvinTheMartian]

Quick rundown now I've got a few minutes. Most of it appears to be brand whoring and is *very* expensive.

Thanks MrSlack! 

Didn't fancy spending US$570 on the parts as listed. 

[MrSlack]

Yeah it's a bit much. I can't see any universities dragging this sort of money out into the lab or many home users footing the bill. I got a bollocking from my university for blowing up a CD4001BE which costs nothing in large quantities so they're definitely not going to like you popping a box of TIL311s a week (they don't like being overvolted).

[MarvinTheMartian]

Up a bit late (00:25) aren't you MrSlack?

[MrSlack]

I have young children. 22:00-02:00 is play time for me I.e. when they are asleep

[MarvinTheMartian]

I have young children. 22:00-02:00 is play time for me I.e. when they are asleep

Adult play time? 

My mistake - you have kids, so that wouldn't happen! 

[MrSlack]

Indeed

That's what 'city breaks' and paying the eldest to babysit were invented for

[MarvinTheMartian]

Indeed

That's what 'city breaks' and paying the eldest to babysit were invented for

Careful, that sort of break has been known to lead to unexpected complications   

[RLSprouse]

This is very helpful... Thank you very much!

I wonder if anyone has thought about conducting an online electronics course using these books. I would be interested in having guidance from some knowledgeable folks, and some place to ask questions. Maybe we could just devote a forum section to it?

[MrSlack]

Some people on reddit /r/electronics were talking about exactly that.

[stoica adrian]

What kind of program you are using to read the file? i have problem in opening?

[r4ptor]

*.xls files are files for microsoft office excel. You can open the files using Excel, libreoffice calc etc.

[BobsURuncle]

What kind of program you are using to read the file? i have problem in opening?

Excel for the .xls and and Notepad or most any word processing software for the .txt file.

Apparently, you can open XLS files without Microsoft Excel using Microsoft's free Excel Viewer, which supports opening and printing XLS files, as well as copying data out of them. Several free alternatives to Excel that can be used to both open and edit XLS files include Kingsoft Spreadsheets and OpenOffice Calc.  I have only used Excel. 

You can upload the Excel files into the distributors BOM or shopping cart without opening them, (part numbers start on row 2)  though you still need to view the Miscellaneous sheet to manually add to the shopping cart of the small distributors.  Anyone contemplating an electronics hobby should have a spreadsheet program of some sort as standard lab equipment and I assumed they would all import .xls files, but maybe not.

Would adding .csv files improve access or are the .xls files enough?

The Digikey spreadsheet has been download 271 times without complaint so far.  But I tried uploading it into a Digikey BOM and it was a bit messy.  So I have reformatted it to be more Digikey friendly and will substitute it for my original spreadsheet in my original post at the top of this thread.  Still the easiest way is to use the hyperlink in the spreadsheet to go to an already populated shopping cart - at least as long as Digikey keeps it there.

[rstofer]

Yeah it's a bit much. I can't see any universities dragging this sort of money out into the lab or many home users footing the bill. I got a bollocking from my university for blowing up a CD4001BE which costs nothing in large quantities so they're definitely not going to like you popping a box of TIL311s a week (they don't like being overvolted).

Releasing the magic smoke is all part of the learning process.  Among other things, the practitioner will learn to read the datasheets to keep it from happening again.  The amount of smoke is inversely proportional to the years of experience and directly proportional to the cost of the device.  It would be an interesting survey except for the fact that the very experienced folks aren't going to fess up to smoking a very expensive component.  There would be a bit of bias in the results.

[ade]

I can't see any universities dragging this sort of money out into the lab

Presumably the lab budget at Harvard is a little more generous than average 

[MrSlack]

Yeah it's a bit much. I can't see any universities dragging this sort of money out into the lab or many home users footing the bill. I got a bollocking from my university for blowing up a CD4001BE which costs nothing in large quantities so they're definitely not going to like you popping a box of TIL311s a week (they don't like being overvolted).

Releasing the magic smoke is all part of the learning process.  Among other things, the practitioner will learn to read the datasheets to keep it from happening again.  The amount of smoke is inversely proportional to the years of experience and directly proportional to the cost of the device.  It would be an interesting survey except for the fact that the very experienced folks aren't going to fess up to smoking a very expensive component.  There would be a bit of bias in the results.

If I blow up stuff, I tend to swap out the blown up thing and then see if it blows up again. You'd be surprised how many times it doesn't. Well didn't until I stopped recycling components and buying bags of surplus crap from radio fairs.

[BobsURuncle]

Digkey is now offering a kit for LTAOE.  They claim it is the complete kit, but they have roughly 40 fewer part numbers than what I compiled from the book.  Still it may offer some savings compared to buying piecemeal - with a promo code.


http://www.digikey.com/en/resources/edu/harvard-lab-kit

[rstofer]

Digkey is now offering a kit for LTAOE.  They claim it is the complete kit, but they have roughly 40 fewer part numbers than what I compiled from the book.  Still it may offer some savings compared to buying piecemeal - with a promo code.


http://www.digikey.com/en/resources/edu/harvard-lab-kit

I don't know which items are missing and two items are on backorder but $252 seems reasonable for a complete package.  If it turns out that a few things are missing, they can be ordered individually.

[rstofer]

Side issue:  I haven't read through the book but I was wondering what type of test equipment is required.  Scope, signal generator (30 MHz enough?), power supply but what else?
Yes, I know, RTFM...

I see around page 428 that they are working with a motorized potentiometer that doesn't seem to be included with the DigiKey list.  Sparkfun has a motorized slider that I think I'll order.  In fact, they have a cool PONG game using 4 of the sliders, a couple of Arduinos and two hand-held pots.  Insanely fast in 'demo' mode!

[rstofer]

I went hunting for the breadboard used in LTAOE as shown on page 26:

https://www.amazon.com/Global-Specialties-PB-503-Digital-Workstation/dp/B005S3SC0E/ref=pd_sim_sbs_328_6

At nearly $370, I'll put that on back burner...

Actually, if it was recommended for a degree program, I think the price would be workable.  Add in about $250 worth of components and it's less than $650.  The breadboard has a triple output power supply (which might save on the Rigol DP832 for a while) and a lot of other features so, really, it isn't a bad deal for an enthusiastic student.  This kind of cost is insignificant in the overall cost of a EE degree.  Books run between $100 and $250 EACH and there are a lot of them!