Author Topic: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?  (Read 682466 times)

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Offline VEGETA

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #125 on: February 14, 2017, 04:20:25 pm »
how do you organize these parts? I mean in a cheap way that anyone can buy

Offline eugenenine

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #126 on: February 14, 2017, 08:46:44 pm »
how do you organize these parts? I mean in a cheap way that anyone can buy

I use stuff like this
http://www.cabelas.com/catalog/browse/tackle-storage/_/N-1100377

 

Offline VEGETA

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #127 on: February 14, 2017, 11:45:52 pm »
I meant something like dividing and sorting resistors and capacitors. Other chips as well.

Offline eugenenine

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #128 on: February 15, 2017, 02:55:37 am »
The plastic divided boxes, one holds resistors, one capacitors, etc.  Then they are divided out in each box with the separators.
 

Offline mdijkens

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #129 on: February 16, 2017, 01:10:59 pm »
For components with lots of values like resistors and capacitors I use these small plastic bags sorted  in small cardboard boxes my mobile(s) came in. Cheap, doesn't take much space and easy to find right values.
 

Offline RCHRDM

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #130 on: February 19, 2017, 04:20:23 pm »
There are some good basic capacitor, resistor, diode, and transistor kits on Amazon.com by Elenco.

Mouser is a good place to buy too.  You can buy a small quantity (10 or so) of parts like resistors and op amps.  The have a $4.99 USPS shipping option, which is very reasonable.  The advantage over eBay is that you can buy exactly what you need from one vendor, rather than searching all over eBay for your parts.
 

Offline VEGETA

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #131 on: February 20, 2017, 04:18:39 pm »
There are some good basic capacitor, resistor, diode, and transistor kits on Amazon.com by Elenco.

Mouser is a good place to buy too.  You can buy a small quantity (10 or so) of parts like resistors and op amps.  The have a $4.99 USPS shipping option, which is very reasonable.  The advantage over eBay is that you can buy exactly what you need from one vendor, rather than searching all over eBay for your parts.

Good for you in USA xD. However, me in Jordan I can't get anything from Digikey or Mouser but to pay 75$ shipping for it. I discovered a solution for that which involves another storage company.

Offline gowithyourself

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #132 on: February 20, 2017, 11:00:22 pm »
Don't get caught up in parts, equipment and setup. At the end of the day it's learning and making things that counts. A lack of parts or equipment usually isn't the problem, it's a lack of time or direction.
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #133 on: February 21, 2017, 02:34:05 am »
That depends. When I was a teenager I had lots of time but very little money with which to obtain parts of equipment, I had to scavenge most of my parts from discarded electronics and build my own equipment like power supplies, logic probe, signal generator, etc.

Now that I'm older I'm most limited by time.
 

Offline gowithyourself

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #134 on: February 21, 2017, 12:21:40 pm »
Sure, but I don't think that has so much to do with age as the time one lives in. There used to be limited ways to learn something. You either learned by yourself with what you had available or you went to school. Since we entered the information age, and with the rise of globalization, the things available to us have increased by many orders of magnitude. While this has made it easier to learn things, it has also made it harder to learn the right things.

I think there's a number of other reasons why not to build a stockpile as a beginner. Like that you don't know which parts to get, you'll progress to other parts quickly, it will be a mess to keep track of everything, you still have to order things you won't have etc. But hey, everyone learns differently.

It's also sort of ironic that that the same factors that makes it easy to build a stockpile has made the stockpile itself redundant. But it's the same with many things, like music.
 
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Offline JenniferG

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #135 on: February 26, 2017, 09:51:32 am »
Look up 500pcs 50 values resistors on ebay.  I think it was like $1.50.  Also 170pcs 17 values transistors for $3.00.
Test Equip: GDM-8251a, UT61E, Probemaster, Tektronix 2225
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Offline Cliff Matthews

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #136 on: February 26, 2017, 03:45:11 pm »
Thanks, finding good key word sequences really makes short work. I don't mind paying a bit more, giving preference to a seller some reputation to guard (better chances of getting something, which is better than nothing..)

I also tried "120 value 50v electrolytic capacitor" or just "value 50v electrolytic capacitor"
 

Offline JenniferG

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #137 on: February 26, 2017, 05:09:04 pm »
Thanks, finding good key word sequences really makes short work. I don't mind paying a bit more, giving preference to a seller some reputation to guard (better chances of getting something, which is better than nothing..)

I also tried "120 value 50v electrolytic capacitor" or just "value 50v electrolytic capacitor"

Yeah I generally try to buy the one that is most affordable, which a lot of other people buy from as well (shows # sold), and I take a look at the seller feedback as well.  With any luck I'll have decent components :)
Test Equip: GDM-8251a, UT61E, Probemaster, Tektronix 2225
Power Supplies: GPD-3303S (w/o overshoot problem)
Soldering Station:  Hakko 926
 

Offline SingedFingers

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #138 on: February 26, 2017, 06:06:01 pm »
I just buy what I need for a project/experiment. You eventually end up with a good stock of parts.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #139 on: February 26, 2017, 06:12:33 pm »
It's really handy to have a good stock of resistors and capacitors though. I really hate sitting down to build something and then finding I forgot to order one particular value resistor, or accidentally got 470K instead of 470 Ohm and then having to spend a half our rifling through boxes looking for that one 2 cent part. Now I have a notebook full of SMD resistors and capacitors and a bag of through hole resistors for just such an occasion.
 

Offline SingedFingers

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #140 on: February 26, 2017, 06:19:51 pm »
You can actually make do with a very limited selection of parts. 10, 22, 47 from each decade is enough for most things. Series and parallel combinations allow all intermediate values to within 5% or so which is plenty accurate enough.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #141 on: February 26, 2017, 07:43:06 pm »
I don't want to series/parallel resistors and capacitors, especially with SMT stuff that just gets messy. It's one thing to do a temporary hack to test out something I'm repairing but I like to do clean, professional work.
 

Offline SingedFingers

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #142 on: February 26, 2017, 08:13:56 pm »
For repair and production yes but do you give up designing something because you don't have an E96 value in stock?
 
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Offline boffin

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #143 on: March 07, 2017, 08:55:33 am »
You can actually make do with a very limited selection of parts. 10, 22, 47 from each decade is enough for most things. Series and parallel combinations allow all intermediate values to within 5% or so which is plenty accurate enough.

When I built my basic stocks,
a resistor assortment (10ea everything from 1Ohm to 10M) - overkill, ideally 30ea of the 1 / 2.2 / 4.7s would have been more use
an electrolytic assortment (0.1 -> 1000uF)
a ceramic assortment (22 pf-> 1uF)
a semi assortment (with a ton of things I never touch), and I still split this 50/50 with a friend.

If I were building a kit for beginners from scratch, it would have
  • resistors (10/ea)  1, 4R7, 10, 22, 47, 1M, 2M2, 4M7
  • resistors (25/ea) 100, 220, 470, 1k, 2k2, 4k7, 10k, 22k, 47k, 100k, 220k, 470k
  • caps (ceramic, 5/ea) 22p / 47p / 100p / 220p / 470p / 2n2 / 4n7 / 22n / 47n
  • caps (ceramic, 20/ea) 1n, 10n, 100n
  • caps (electrolytic, 16-25v, 5/ea) / 0.47 / 1u / 2u2 / 4u7 / 10u / 22u / 47u / 100u / 220u / 470u / 1000u (maybe a 10/ea of the 10, 100uF)
  • diodes (15/ea)  1N4004, 1N4148
  • transistors/fets (10/ea) 2N4401, 2N4403, 2N7000 (maybe more 01s fewer 03s)
  • power fet (5/ea) IRLB8721

It's been a while since I've used something other than one of these basic jelly-bean parts  in a tinkering project.

Anybody else have go-to parts they can't live without ?

 
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Offline SingedFingers

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #144 on: March 07, 2017, 09:23:48 am »
That's a pretty good list to be honest.

I'd add a few cheap cermet or carbon trimpots (2 each 100R, 2k, 5k, 10k, 50k, 100k) as well which are rather handy to have floating around. I tend to use them to measure impedances on the breadboard.
 

Offline TheAmmoniacal

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #145 on: March 07, 2017, 09:31:23 am »
In The Netherlands, farnell will sell to private people but only for orders of 50 euro or more and then you get free shipping.

The free shipping part is not the big problem. It's access to components that is, beeing able to order from them.
Farnell have a Norwegian department and norwegian prices, so one doesn't get extra taxes as you get with Mouser, Digikey, RS etc.. (And the extra fee from the company collecting the tax.. )

How are you able to order parts from Farnell in Norway? Whenever I try to register on the site to order something, they want a company registration number. The only parts vendor I'm able to use here is Digikey! Even with the VAT it's usually the cheapest. But for test gear I don't have any options really.
 

Offline neslekkim

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #146 on: March 07, 2017, 10:02:47 am »
In The Netherlands, farnell will sell to private people but only for orders of 50 euro or more and then you get free shipping.

The free shipping part is not the big problem. It's access to components that is, beeing able to order from them.
Farnell have a Norwegian department and norwegian prices, so one doesn't get extra taxes as you get with Mouser, Digikey, RS etc.. (And the extra fee from the company collecting the tax.. )

How are you able to order parts from Farnell in Norway? Whenever I try to register on the site to order something, they want a company registration number. The only parts vendor I'm able to use here is Digikey! Even with the VAT it's usually the cheapest. But for test gear I don't have any options really.

I have registered with my firends regnumber, after registering on farnell, putting items in the basket many times and not buying, they actually called me, and I told them my problem.. And gave me the idea to use my friends regnumber, and it works fine.
Elfa is another option that works fine for all.

How is digikey working?, can you order and pay norwegian vat directly, or are you billed from the courier?
 

Offline TheAmmoniacal

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #147 on: March 07, 2017, 10:13:21 am »
In The Netherlands, farnell will sell to private people but only for orders of 50 euro or more and then you get free shipping.

The free shipping part is not the big problem. It's access to components that is, beeing able to order from them.
Farnell have a Norwegian department and norwegian prices, so one doesn't get extra taxes as you get with Mouser, Digikey, RS etc.. (And the extra fee from the company collecting the tax.. )

How are you able to order parts from Farnell in Norway? Whenever I try to register on the site to order something, they want a company registration number. The only parts vendor I'm able to use here is Digikey! Even with the VAT it's usually the cheapest. But for test gear I don't have any options really.

I have registered with my firends regnumber, after registering on farnell, putting items in the basket many times and not buying, they actually called me, and I told them my problem.. And gave me the idea to use my friends regnumber, and it works fine.
Elfa is another option that works fine for all.

How is digikey working?, can you order and pay norwegian vat directly, or are you billed from the courier?

I just get an invoice/bill from the courier 2-3 days after delivery. Has always been VAT only, no other nonsense.

Elfa is crazy expensive, especially on parts (2.25 NOK per resistor, 30 NOK for a single linreg etc. Basically 3-30 NOK a piece for jellybean stuff). And thoses prices are excluding VAT!
 
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Offline neslekkim

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #148 on: March 07, 2017, 01:35:28 pm »
I just get an invoice/bill from the courier 2-3 days after delivery. Has always been VAT only, no other nonsense.
Hm, Elfa bills me directly, courier not involved at all, so you say the courier only bills you the invoice/vat?, no extras?, very strange..  Need to try that.

Elfa is crazy expensive, especially on parts (2.25 NOK per resistor, 30 NOK for a single linreg etc. Basically 3-30 NOK a piece for jellybean stuff). And thoses prices are excluding VAT!
Nah, not that bad:
https://www.elfadistrelec.no/no/motstand-30-ohm-ohm-rm0207sfcn30r1t52/p/16070536

I bought my 34461A for 6494 eks vat when it came, about 2k lower than the "official" supplier..

 

Offline JossDalVera

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Re: From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?
« Reply #149 on: March 22, 2017, 07:53:46 pm »
I have seen on ebay at times big boxes just full of "mixed components" which pretty much are just random. they are cheap however you have to sort them out :-//
 


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