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#100 Reply
Posted by
ez24
on 03 Jul, 2016 23:02
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#101 Reply
Posted by
wraper
on 03 Jul, 2016 23:24
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FWIW: Ebay buying experience and ratings list by GreenPhotons keeps getting better:
http://www.sciencetronics.com/greenphotons/?page_id=855
It's a linked list of sellers. Think of it as "the good, the bad, and the ugly" list
That good list is not so good. I know for sure that gc_supermarket as example sells tons of counterfeits (personal experience). Also if you take some time searching what they are selling, easy to find very obvious fakes, especially opamps.
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#102 Reply
Posted by
TomS_
on 15 Jul, 2016 12:30
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Translation: Have extras on hand to replace the ones you fry during experimentation.
This ^^
I've been hitting RS and Digi-Key over the past month buying bits to put together a prototyping environment. Also my local "retail electronics" chain store, but trying to avoid then add they are much more expensive.
Already fried an LED and transistor.
Transistors I bought 20 of each NPN and PNP for pence a piece. Also a bunch of N and P channel logic level MOSFETs. The MOSFETs are all SMD but I found some little DIP adapter boards with Digi-Key, so that was a nice excuse to do some SMD soldering.
I like RS because they ship next day for free for almost everything (even if you only spend 20p!!!). If you can get enough parts together with Digi-Key they are generally a bit cheaper but only do free shipping over a certain cart value. Seems they originate everything from the US whereas RS has a warehouse in the UK.
Gotta love electronics, been having a lot of fun lately.
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#103 Reply
Posted by
JoeN
on 15 Jul, 2016 17:39
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Transistors I bought 20 of each NPN and PNP for pence a piece. Also a bunch of N and P channel logic level MOSFETs. The MOSFETs are all SMD but I found some little DIP adapter boards with Digi-Key, so that was a nice excuse to do some SMD soldering.
Every adapter board I have ever seen at a professional distributor like DigiKey has been hideously overpriced compared to what you can find from Chinese sellers on eBay. Prototype boards don't have to be military/space quality to work. The Chinese boards are all adequate quality from what I have seen and I have bought hundreds of them. Also, if you ever want to get into doing PCBs, designing your own adapters is a good place to start. Hopefully Britain has something like OSHPark. OSHPark is $5 per square inch for three, postage paid, within the US. For small parts it is very reasonable to make your own custom adapters.
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#104 Reply
Posted by
TomS_
on 16 Jul, 2016 13:27
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Yeah. TBH I did kind of use them to bulk up my cart a bit to qualify for free shipping, which otherwise would have cost £12. The adapters together were less than £12, so win win. Otherwise yes they are quite pricey on an individual basis.
I ordered some more adapters from ebay just the other day, they should arrive early next week and I may likely do that again in the future if they turn out to be decent enough quality.
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#105 Reply
Posted by
Trigger
on 19 Aug, 2016 14:23
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And I always purchase *a lot* more of the a bit more specialized parts (ICs, power fets) than I actually need, because If I need them today I most likely will use them again in the future.
Translation: Have extras on hand to replace the ones you fry during experimentation.
P.S. I think someone needs to create a "magic smoke" smiley.
A wizard tapping a chip with his wand and smoke popping out.
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#106 Reply
Posted by
jonovid
on 27 Aug, 2016 16:10
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#108 Reply
Posted by
jonovid
on 23 Sep, 2016 01:54
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Optical drives are common trash, but contain more re-usable parts per square inch than most finds
whole computers have more re-usable parts per square inch than most finds but are not as common in the trash nowadays
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#109 Reply
Posted by
ez24
on 17 Nov, 2016 17:49
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Another way to see a "list" of stuff is to look at Dave's meter and scroll down to
"Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought"
It seems like a reasonable list of things bought by people who bought his meter. It is a list of decent stockpile of parts and tools.
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#110 Reply
Posted by
TheDane
on 11 Dec, 2016 16:21
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AliExpress and Ebay is certainly an option if you want to keep the stockpile yourself
.
Ham fests/auctions, or joining local electronic oriented clubs can be an interesting option as well, if you 'only' need a single (+ a few to blow up) item, for your prototype needs.
Beware that most of the stuff out there are mostly second hand, through hole and 'old tech' (No 0402 smd, fast flash micros, huge eeproms, etc).
Ham operators gone 'silent key' (dead&burried) can also be a good source, and huge caches of components can be had for no price for just carrying it all away, to relatives wanting outrageous prices - depending on relations, etc. Be aware
Polyfuses are extremly usefull and recommended, when you start working on stuff and find that not everything wants to play as you want
Getting a decent workshop takes a LONG time - and a
lot of work. Happy hunting - sometimes gold awaits around the corner (and yeah - it's literally gold plated
) you just have to find it.
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#111 Reply
Posted by
cdev
on 31 Dec, 2016 16:22
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What are the best "Grab bags" or assortments out there?
Ive bought several of these in the past, and although they are not good if you want a specific part they are good for when you need something, don't have it somewhere else, often you can find something that will work in your junkbox, the bigger it is the better for that..
and also for serendipity, you might get a random part that leads you into learning something new that you would not have ever considered were you not presented with it.
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#112 Reply
Posted by
jazer
on 15 Jan, 2017 07:46
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Old/broken electronics for donor parts are better than grab bags, which seem like floor sweepings more than anything else. You get random parts and they generally don't cost anything. Keeping stockpiles of broken electronic stuff has its downsides of course.
Depending on what you do, you'll find that you tend to go back to the same well over and over. For example, there are hundreds of resistor values available, but (especially if you mostly design your own stuff) you end up using the same half dozen or so for most things. Once you figure out which are you go to items, buying a bunch from ebay and the like is cheapest.
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#113 Reply
Posted by
jazer
on 15 Jan, 2017 19:25
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#114 Reply
Posted by
eugenenine
on 16 Jan, 2017 15:46
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I gave most of my grab bag and pulls from old stuff to my kids. I had so much odd value, odd size stuff that it wasn't worth the time and space. When I'm working on something I order extras.
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#115 Reply
Posted by
ez24
on 18 Jan, 2017 23:09
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#116 Reply
Posted by
james_s
on 22 Jan, 2017 22:14
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I keep a stock of resistors, capacitors, IC sockets, LEDs, connectors and other bits that I use in lots of projects on hand but other stuff I usually buy as needed. The most challenging for me was actually connectors, there is an overwhelming variety of them available so what I've tended to do is find a series I like and then buy a selection of the most commonly used sizes along with the crimper or punchdown tool for them.
For random parts I also regularly pick through the E-waste bin at work and drag home various discarded equipment to tear down and harvest interesting bits from. That's a handy way to get stuff like crystal oscillators, inductors, relays, buttons/switches and heatsinks. You do need to be careful though, for reasons I don't understand, some companies frown upon salvaging junk. Drives me nuts because I despise waste and firmly believe that the most efficient form of recycling by far is re-use.
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#117 Reply
Posted by
jazer
on 23 Jan, 2017 07:46
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Dave did a video showing the guts of stuff from the white van speaker scam that showed what looked like recycled parts inside some dubious quality audio components.
I've never seen something like that in person, but I suppose there might be a thriving Chinese component recycling market to do that on any large scale.
I agree that re-using components is the best form of recycling, rather than a land fill, or indiscriminately melting down piles of e-junk and using mercury for gold extraction, poisoning whole towns.
Semiconductors are probably OK since most have very long useful lives, but recycling electrolytic caps is bad news; they barely last in new stuff.
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#118 Reply
Posted by
Skyfox
on 23 Jan, 2017 16:00
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For my stockpile I've been collecting junk circuit boards since I was a kid and desoldering parts from them. Only within the past year have I finally started trying to organize by labeling a couple of storage trays for 24-series resistors and capacitors, and getting other drawer units to start decluttering and unpacking my original overloaded storage things. Also within the past year I've started looking up datasheets on parts so I have some information on what they are. Oh, and wire...I've been collecting scrap wire since I was a kid whether it's multi-stranded stuff or solid core phone/data wire.
In recent years I started actually spending a little money on cheap parts from Tayda Electronics and Digikey, when I needed things I simply didn't have and didn't want to rig up something out of what I did have. The EEVblog videos have helped greatly in understanding this stuff, even though I'm still at a very beginner level of knowledge.
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#119 Reply
Posted by
james_s
on 23 Jan, 2017 16:57
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I don't generally salvage electrolytic capacitors but there are exceptions based on where it's used in the circuit. It's been my experience that larger, higher value capacitors used in low frequency applications are usually in good shape. Output filter capacitors in switchmode regulators take a beating. Other types of caps are generally fine to salvage.
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#120 Reply
Posted by
jazer
on 28 Jan, 2017 03:55
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This has been touched on before here but in ancient threads, and it's tangentially apropos for this discussion:
What's the prevailing wisdom for flux when soldering:
paste, liquid rosin, no-clean, flux-pen, harvested from your backyard pine tree, hope and prayer?
Any good sources? Name brand stuff vs. Chinese/ebay witches' brew?
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#121 Reply
Posted by
james_s
on 28 Jan, 2017 08:43
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I normally just use the flux that's in the core of the solder. Sometimes I use a bit of additional liquid rosin flux for heavily oxidized connections.
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#122 Reply
Posted by
JoeN
on 28 Jan, 2017 08:51
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I normally just use the flux that's in the core of the solder. Sometimes I use a bit of additional liquid rosin flux for heavily oxidized connections.
That works great for through-hole soldering. For drag-soldering on SMT parts I tend to flux the heck out of the parts and board that then put the solder on with a chisel tip. That works the best for me on SMT parts, especially when you are talking about QFP-100, QFP-144 type parts.
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#123 Reply
Posted by
james_s
on 28 Jan, 2017 09:10
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Yeah I was assuming through-hole. I do the same thing when I hand solder SMT parts, dab on a bit of liquid flux with a Q-tip and stroke a small blob of solder along the pins.
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#124 Reply
Posted by
jackzzj
on 12 Feb, 2017 07:23
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I just bought some kits from ebay... have to wait for a long time