Electronics > Beginners

What logic and digital chips to get ?

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KL27x:
Keep in mind, most modern electronic components have very little inherent value. The reason the large distributors can sell the parts for what pittance they do is because they have and can deliver ALL of them on demand. They have a web store what lets you find them and also show you lead times, number in inventory.

Buying parts you don't need is entropy. You are destroying value. You're letting the air out of the tank. You're taking these parts from a distributor who has everything sorted and stored and ready to go in a way that gives it value to other people and companies. And you're putting them into a home lab. Why? Perhaps because you learned one way to skin one particular cat, and now you're stocking up on stuff with some vague idea that you will encounter a lot of these specific cats what need skinning, that you will actually be interested in skinning them, but that you need the ability to skin them TODAY without waiting a few days.

That super low per that Digikey sells the part for at 10,000+ units? That includes some margin for them. Remove that margin. When the parts are sitting in your house, they are worth less than that. A lot less. You're paying Digikey for the value the company adds through their own effort and payroll and infrastructure. And they do that more efficiently than you ever will.

You're never gonna have enough of everything. You can't reach a cricital mass where you never have to order a random part. Well, not until you run your own component store complete with several employees or you are a hoarder getting eviction notices. In either case, you won't have time to use your components.

typematrix:
Re hoarding or bulk buying

There is great temptation to buy in bulk and  buy kits and things,
eg "When it is one buck for one piece or 2 bucks  for  5 pieces"
and as   a result we end up with too many components.
I usually gather the excess once a year and sell it off as a batch/kit on local ebay. Its very difficult to sell small individual second parts
, and time consuming and annoying unless its something like an arduino or module.
Once you buy something,  thats it, make something out of it or its going in rubbish bin or rotting in a parts locker.
You can sell it again but not for much

I was thinking that a website that allows electronic hobbyist to buy and sell and swap parts with each other
would be a real cool idea like bricklink for lego enthusiasts.
https://www.bricklink.com/catalogTree.asp?itemType=P&itemBrand=1000


wilfred:

--- Quote from: KL27x on June 14, 2019, 07:57:06 pm --- Perhaps because you learned one way to skin one particular cat, and now you're stocking up on stuff with some vague idea that you will encounter a lot of these specific cats what need skinning, that you will actually be interested in skinning them, but that you need the ability to skin them TODAY without waiting a few days.


--- End quote ---

A very clinical analysis. But I specifically want to comment on "vague idea". That's what I refer to a "dreams". We all have them and we all need them. The key is to arrive at a point of balance where you stoke your dreams but let go of the vague ideas.

Thats not at all easy to do which is why so many of us (me included) accumulate parts. It is something different to order 5 of a part you are using because you might get a dud or zap one or whatever.

I can't resist "free shipping".

james_s:
It really depends on the part. If it's something like a microcontroller, IC socket, trimpot, LED, that sort of thing then buying extra often makes sense. The same part is likely to find use in any number of projects, some items like LEDs and voltage regulators will be used in almost every project. Common resistor values like 1k, 4.7k, 10k, etc are handy to have on hand, likewise some common values of electrolytic capacitors.

Doesn't make sense to buy a lot of excess parts of more esoteric nature but quite often I'm able to put something together using only parts I have on hand, if not the final project then at least a prototype or proof of concept. I find it invaluable to have a stock of parts, but that doesn't mean amassing a huge hoard is a good idea.

Doctorandus_P:
Simple logic chips are indeed hardly worth hoarding.
About 30 years ago I desoldered several thousand of them, and nicely sorted them and put them in drawers.
They're still there.
I may have used a handfull of them over those years.

Nowaday's you're much better off with getting a few nice microcontrollers or maybe even FPGA's.

uC's are so much rmore versatile.

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