From no parts to decent stockpile, best approach?

[VEGETA]

how do you organize these parts? I mean in a cheap way that anyone can buy

[eugenenine]

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

[VEGETA]

I meant something like dividing and sorting resistors and capacitors. Other chips as well.

[eugenenine]

The plastic divided boxes, one holds resistors, one capacitors, etc.  Then they are divided out in each box with the separators.

[mdijkens]

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.

[RCHRDM]

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.

[VEGETA]

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.

[gowithyourself]

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.

[james_s]

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.

[gowithyourself]

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.

[JenniferG]

Look up 500pcs 50 values resistors on ebay.  I think it was like $1.50.  Also 170pcs 17 values transistors for $3.00.

[Cliff Matthews]

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"

[JenniferG]

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

[SingedFingers]

I just buy what I need for a project/experiment. You eventually end up with a good stock of parts.

[james_s]

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.

[SingedFingers]

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.

[james_s]

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.

[SingedFingers]

For repair and production yes but do you give up designing something because you don't have an E96 value in stock?

[boffin]

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 ?

[SingedFingers]

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.

[TheAmmoniacal]

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.

[neslekkim]

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?

[TheAmmoniacal]

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!

[neslekkim]

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..

[JossDalVera]

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