SMD Component kits

[Freighternut]

I am in the process of setting myself up for SMD prototyping and am looking for a good source of SMD passive component kits.

Has anybody found a good source of these kits that doesn't break the bank. I have found some good kits at Digi-Key, but these are rather expensive.

For ease of hand soldering I am mostly looking for 0805 series components.

 I am not interested in cheap kits of dubious quality, I would preffer known brand stuff.

[Psi]

yeah, the digikey kits are pretty ridiculous price-wise.

It's actually works out quite cheap to just find the cheapest digikey resistor/cap/inductor brand and buy all 50 of each value separately. (Let digikey do the running around finding and packaging 200 different items )
Then just buy something to store them in.

What i found quite good, is to get them in cut tape form and then cut a small whole in a corner of the bag so the tape end can come out.
It will nicely unravel as you pull more tape out the hole.
That way the original digikey bag becomes your storage with value and part number already printed on it.
Then you only need to buy a storage tub for each type, resistor,cap,inductor etc.
Though i guess you still have to 'find' the right bag, but i'm sure there's a way to group the bags.

Here is an example of one of the digikey cut tape bags that i mean.

[robrenz]

Jameco electronics has a large variety of kits http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StoreCatalogDisplay?storeId=10001&catalogId=10001&langId=-1&rfr=1

[amspire]

Probably not the cheapest, but these kits from SMTZone come in a great case:

http://smtzone.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=store01&Category_Code=102010302

http://www.analogtechnologies.com/resistorkits.htm

This is the 1% 805 resistor kits, but they have a full range of kits.

You can also buy empty cases separately for about $25.

Richard.

[Neganur]

There are some really cheap SMD resistor / capacitor sets on ebay (try searching for "(SMD 0805) 50 Value Resistor + 32 Value Capacitor Kit"). Most of the capacitors are claimed to be X7R and even NPO. I guess they're fine for some easy projects etc.

I prefer buying cut tape components from Digi-Key for RF circuits, they're usually quite affordable in quantities of 100. Keep them in the bag they come with and put them in one of those big plastic storage boxes or something. You end up spending too much time sorting components when it comes to those small compartment boxes.

[shadewind]

I usually sort components by project when I get them and keep them in the original bags. When the project is no longer active, I just throw all resistor bags in the resistor box, all caps in the cap box, all discretes in the discrete box and so on.

[ToBeFrank]

Probably not the cheapest, but these kits from SMTZone come in a great case:

http://smtzone.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=store01&Category_Code=102010302

I liked their case so I tried to order some. Their ordering system has a bug where it is adding the price of each case twice. I figure I'll email them and tell them about it and ask how I can order some cases. I get an email from cindy.liu@analogti.com telling me to email sales@analogtechnologies.com for my orders. I do so and get a reply from cindy.liu@analogti.com telling me I can order from one of their three online sites, which all eventually end up back at smtzone.com. Morons.