Recomendation for "starter" electronics parts kit...

[Justin Richeson]

I don't typically like to buy things I don't know I'm going to use, but it's come to a point that I've realized that if I want to build a circuit I either need to have components on hand or I'm going to be stuck waiting for weeks to get a few bits from China.

As such I'm looking for a good set of things to buy to help stock up on some basics.  Specifically various values of caps/resistors.  To get even more specific, right now I'm looking to fulfill the BOM on this page: http://blog.nextthing.co/turn-your-pringles-can-into-an-amazon-echo-with-c-h-i-p/ except the speaker/mic/button....  Or, if anyone has any better designs for the speaker/mic amp circuit I'm listening....

I was hoping to buy from Amazon as I'm already working up an order there for other things and I have 2 day shipping, but some of the assorted packs I'm seeing have horrible reviews and don't fit the values I need.  Either that or I'm looking in the wrong place.  Along with that I'm never quite sure what kind of caps I need to be buying so if anyone can point me to a good resource there I'd appreciate it.  I was thinking though it might be good to know and recommend some decent "starter" setups for new people coming in from the soldering class or for parents with kids getting involved with STEM.

[Benjamin Miller]

Unless you are building tuned analog circuits, the values of your caps are not all that important.

You want some 1, 10pf range caps for "i just need a tiny bit", some 1nf and 10nf for "i need to decouple a microcontroller", and some 1uf, 10uf, 100uf, and 1mf for "i need to stabilize my power rail".

You also don't need to buy your bread and butter components from China.  You can buy an entire reel of SMD resistors from digikey for about $5.

- Benjamin Miller <b...@benjamintmiller.com>
________________________________________
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
    - Antoine de Saint-Exup'ery, In Design

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[Benjamin Miller]

I would say that 90% of your circuits would work fine if you bought these four caps:

1nf and 10nf ceramic (for small signals and microcontroller decoupling)

10uf and 100uf electrolytic (for bulk capacitance, i.e. "i want the 5V rail to stay at 5V even when a motor turns on")

- Benjamin Miller <b...@benjamintmiller.com>
________________________________________
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
    - Antoine de Saint-Exup'ery, In Design

[Jeffrey Ollie]

SparkFun has resistor and capacitor kits that will get you started with a some of the more common values for a fairly reasonable price. Of course, no matter how many components you stock up on, the next project always seems to need something that you don't have :).  As far as Amazon goes, I've not had a problem so far with the components that I've bought through them. I tend to stick with stuff that the positive reviews outweighs the negative reviews though.

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13698
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10969

On Wed, Jan 11, 2017 at 2:30 PM, Justin Richeson <neoma...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Dave Weis]

I just order the packs of 300+ various resistors and capacitors from China and wait for them to arrive. Even if you don't have the exact value there's generally something close enough in what you have. Aside from the variety packs I've also ordered bags of 10 uf capacitors as I go through them faster than other capacitors.

I've probably got 95% of what you need in the basement if you would like the discrete components. 

[David Champion]

What are you doing, running an iPhone sweatshop in your basement?

-dc

[Dave Weis]

I prefer telling the kids it is craft time. 

[Justin Richeson]

Well, in this case it is an analog (audio) circuit though I don't know how tuned it needs to be.  This is probably why I shouldn't have dropped my electronics course in college, but I got a paid internship...and I had bills :s.  Generally I'm pretty much  "I can follow the recipe" more than "I'm going to design my own circuit."  I'm not quite ready to get into SMD yet but I do know that's probably an easier kit to deal with eventually.  

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[Justin Richeson]

Also, the more I stare at this and look online I think it looks like the PAM8403 boards that are available online essentially implement the circuit posted anyway.  I *think* I could just buy one of those as a module and implement directly for an initial test.  Maybe next round I could look into PCB/SMD :)  Need to look at the mics I ordered from Banggood and see if they already have the circuit attached there as well...pics look like they have a board hidden under heatshrink.

[Bailey Steinfadt]

I just bought Forrest Mims Engineer's Notebook. Has a bunch of standard circuits and explanations of what they do. Kind of like a software cookbook, but for basic circuit functions. Might be a good addition to your beginner kit. I found it was cheaper at B&N than Amazon.

On Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 17:10 Justin Richeson <neoma...@gmail.com> wrote:

Also, the more I stare at this and look online I think it looks like the PAM8403 boards that are available online essentially implement the circuit posted anyway.  I *think* I could just buy one of those as a module and implement directly for an initial test.  Maybe next round I could look into PCB/SMD :)  Need to look at the mics I ordered from Banggood and see if they already have the circuit attached there as well...pics look like they have a board hidden under heatshrink.

--

[Dave Weis]

If anyone is curious, these are the stores I use most often on aliexpress:

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/1683098

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/1089303

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/506373

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/1911309

On Wed, Jan 11, 2017 at 5:10 PM, Justin Richeson <neoma...@gmail.com> wrote:

Also, the more I stare at this and look online I think it looks like the PAM8403 boards that are available online essentially implement the circuit posted anyway.  I *think* I could just buy one of those as a module and implement directly for an initial test.  Maybe next round I could look into PCB/SMD :)  Need to look at the mics I ordered from Banggood and see if they already have the circuit attached there as well...pics look like they have a board hidden under heatshrink.

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[Justin Richeson]

Ok, I'm looking at a couple of these suppliers and I'm probably going to put in an order for a number of the 100pk xW yOhm resistor packs and a number of cap packs...any recommendations of "these are the common resistor/cap values you'll need for most projects"?

Also, I think I'm going to order an SMD kit and try my hand at that...if I can find a small(er) tip for my iron and I think I need some decent solder paste?  Can you clea/reuse the solder paste applicators?  When I looked at BG a while ago it seemed like they sold them with a bunch of extra needles....

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[Benjamin Miller]

I replied above:

1pf, 10pf, 1nf, 10nf, 1uf, 10uf, 100uf, 1mf for caps

330, 1k, 3.3k, 10k, 100k, 1M for resistors

This will do 90% of what you need to do.  Keep in mind you can combine caps and resistors to make different equivalent values if you really need to.

- Benjamin Miller <b...@benjamintmiller.com>
________________________________________
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
    - Antoine de Saint-Exup'ery, In Design

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[Ray Scheufler]

My common resistors to keep around: 1K, 10K for switch pullup.  330 for LED.  Caps: .1uF 10uF 100uF for power supply decoupling, small pF caps for crystal loading (less used since I generally grab processor modules with clocks already built in)

I only bother to get large assortments in through hole.  I bought a reel of 1K 0805 resistors because it was pretty cheap.  I need to find a reel of 1uF and 10uF SMD caps to keep on hand.  The only time I do SMD is when I am ordering a board so I can also order any special resistors or caps when I place the board order.

Ray Scheufler

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[Benjamin Miller]

You can probably drop the 1pf and 10pf caps from my list -- you'll know when you need them, and as Ray said, most micros these days have a crystal built in.

For digital electronics, here are common answers:

330 ohms - will light most LEDs properly on both 3.3 and 5V

1k and 3.3k - used a lot for random voltage dividers

10k - a good value for pull up or pull down

100k and 1M - you need a lot of resistance somewhere or need a very tiny voltage from a voltage divider

For caps:

1uf - decoupling for microcontroller (high frequency, > 10Mhz)

10uf - decoupling for microcontroller (low frequency, < 10Mhz)

100uf - bulk capacitance (board level)

1mf - very bulk capacitance (board level), because you're switching motors or something large

- Benjamin Miller <b...@benjamintmiller.com>
________________________________________
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
    - Antoine de Saint-Exup'ery, In Design