SMD Parts

[paul30003]

I want to get into surface mount electronics, but I am struggling to find a good source of parts.  I would like to stock up on a good range of resistors, capacitors and a few types of commonly used transistors and diodes.  I've searched a few UK suppliers, but I can't find a balance between quantity and price.  It seems I can only buy in large quantity's or single outrageously prices parts.

Some sort of starter kit would be perfect, if there is such a thing.

I would appreciate any advice, sources to UK suppliers, or even ebay sources.

Thanks in advance.

Paul.

[Mr.B]

Search fleaybay for "SMD Solder Practice Kit".
There are plenty of them.
Usually non functioning circuits, but very good for practising your technique.

EG: http://www.ebay.com/itm/SMD-Components-Solder-Practice-Plate-for-Training-DIY-Module-Electronic-Kit-/301846791564?hash=item464778858c:g:LrgAAOSwoydWlh3e

As for stocking up on parts, I only buy from Mouser or Digikey.
I usually buy 0804 and 0603 passives by the reel.

[tggzzz]

I want to get into surface mount electronics, but I am struggling to find a good source of parts.  I would like to stock up on a good range of resistors, capacitors and a few types of commonly used transistors and diodes.  I've searched a few UK suppliers, but I can't find a balance between quantity and price.  It seems I can only buy in large quantity's or single outrageously prices parts.

Some sort of starter kit would be perfect, if there is such a thing.

I would appreciate any advice, sources to UK suppliers, or even ebay sources.

Thanks in advance.

Paul.

It makes sense to buy a complete range of SMD resistors and capacitors, and maybe a few choice generic components.  Use ebay; the last time I looked there were some Polish suppliers such as tyr_elektronik.

Otherwise I would just buy whatever is needed when it is needed from RS. Keep a look out for where it is sensible to order more than necessary - and allow for component breakage and flying across the room.

[ade]

If you search "SMD assortment" or "SMD kit" on eBay you can find many sample books / boxes of various quality.

[Andreas]

Hello,

for resistors I can recommend the "family packs" of CSD.
http://www.csd-electronics.de/

Capacitors are also mostly 0.01 EUR / piece if you buy 100 pcs.
For the beginning you will only need some values like 22pF, 1nF, 10nF and many 100nF.

With best regards

Andreas

[KL27x]

"insane amount of parts" is relative.

For resistors or small caps, it is often economical to buy an entire reel for as little as $10.00 retail. Or even cheaper if buying partially used lots. Sprinkle them out like salt when using, and sweep any excess into the trash. Or if using a pickup tool to populate a board, you can cut the tape and pick them out one at a time.

I keep the IC's and SOT parts on the reel, to preserve the orientation when populating the board. But for the small and inexpensive passives, I typically dump the entire reel and put it into a small test tube, keeping these parts on a rack.

[ion]

For an assortment of  resistors and capacitors I'd suggest a kit from ebay, maybe something like this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/350855175041

Personally, I only do that with cheap passives though - I'd stick with large distributors for transistors and such.  Sometimes you don't need to order too many to hit a price break and I'd always be a bit concerned with the quality of ebay parts.

[rob77]

buying resistor in 100 quantities is a good balance - in terms of price per resistor. for the most common values  buy 1000 or whole reel (reel is usually 5000) for 0805 size 5% resistors the whole reel is 6-7 eur on average.
for diodes a and commonly used transistors - again buy 100+ or more otherwise the price is stupidly high.
for more expensive parts feel free to go for single piece quantities - there is not too much saving when buying high amounts (and it's a dead investment if you don't need them)
definitely browse the major distributor's web shops for sale items - it really pays off.

[alanb]

I've used CPC (cpc.farnell.com) for passives in small quantities. It's worth having a look at their website.

[lpaseen]

I normally buy kits from ebay but last time I ordered from newark (needed some parts faster than china can provide) I looked for sales and found 1% smd resistors, 100 for 10 cents so I ended up buying a stock of  in various values (and in the end everything arrived except what I was really after which arrived a few weeks later).

[Pack34]

I would suggest making your own. To find a good starting point for the components, just search for "0402 Resistor Kit" or "0402 Capacitor Kit". This will give you a good idea for the range.

Then pick up some check 3-ring binders off of Amazon and a stack of business card sleeves, then buy 100-counts of resistors and capacitors off of digikey. Resistors will typically be 10 cents in eaches but 1.1 cents in a 100-count.

The advantage of rolling your own kit is that overall it can be cheaper than buying a kit and you can cheap out at the begining and only buy a small assortment. Then when you do more work you can build up your supply.

http://www.amazon.com/Avery-Economy-Binder-Round-Black/dp/B000GATUT6/ref=sr_1_2?s=office-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1455641655&sr=1-2&keywords=3+ring+binder&refinements=p_n_feature_keywords_two_browse-bin%3A7103303011

http://www.amazon.com/Avery-Business-Card-Pages-76009/dp/B00006IC8I/ref=sr_1_1?s=office-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1455641725&sr=1-1&keywords=business+card+3-ring

[rob77]

Ijust search for "0402 Resistor Kit" or "0402 Capacitor Kit".

0402 for a beginner ? seriously ? that's a size for a work under microscope. i would suggest 1206, 0805 and 0603 as the smallest one for a beginner.

[Pack34]

Ijust search for "0402 Resistor Kit" or "0402 Capacitor Kit".

0402 for a beginner ? seriously ? that's a size for a work under microscope. i would suggest 1206, 0805 and 0603 as the smallest one for a beginner.

Young eyes should be better than ours .  I think 0805 might be okay for initial practice but for stocking up on projects I would still suggest 0603 or 0402.

[KL27x]

The biggest problem for me with 0402's is not visual. Even before I had a microscope, it was easy enough to figure out which was the shiny end. But they're so small that if you pick them up wrong, initially, you may have some extra fuss letting go of the part. After using them much, 0603's feel like paper weights and 0805's feel as stable as boat anchors. I suppose with the right vacuum pickup needle you can get them straight out of the tape onto the pcb. I am partial to 0603's, myself, but I prefer to avoid fussing with cut tape unless necessary for high volume work, which is not usually the case for prototyping.

For prototyping, it might also be nice to have markings on the resistor. It seems like all 0805's are labeled with their value, as are many/most 0603's.

It seems I can only buy in large quantity's or single outrageously prices parts.

Well, first off, try looking for alternative parts. Just because a part is historically common doesn't make it better than other modern parts. Also, most major distributors offer several significant price breaks, starting as low as 10 or 25 parts. So I'm curious where you are looking.

[Jeroen3]

I've bought a load of those small wentai boxes you can clip together, the cheapest seller per box I could find on eBay.
It has the main advantage of one uniform size for the several stackable layers of component categories. Instead of a combersome smd sample books.
Then ordered some 0805 resistors and capacitors assortments from ebay, just in strips. Bought a labelsheet for inktjet, print out E12 range and the cap values.
Took an hour to put the tapes in the boxes, but boxes are such a pleasure.

Refills I get from smdshop.nl, which is a guy doing a small smd webshop next to his job. Much faster, and more trustworthy than your average ebay seller in that has the alleged 1% resistors from who-knows-where.

I settled on 0805 since 1206 is huge, and 0603 is already annoyingly small for me.
Here is an image of my random tray (ic's, diodes, fets).

[mstoer]

I've bought a load of those small wentai boxes you can clip together, the cheapest seller per box I could find on eBay.
[...snip]

Those boxes look like what I might need. I like the array you have set up in the photo. I can't find them on ebay though under that name though. Is there some other name for them or do you have a link?

[Jeroen3]

Search for: smd box 100pcs or Laboratory Storage Boxes.

[awallin]

Those boxes look like what I might need. I like the array you have set up in the photo. I can't find them on ebay though under that name though. Is there some other name for them or do you have a link?

For hobby use I got boxes from here: http://www.shenzhen2u.com/
Quite slow shipping IIRC but decent quality and good price.

At work I have a set of LICEFA boxes from Farnell. They are better quality but more expensive (and in Finland you can't order from Farnell as a private person...)

[mstoer]

Thank you Jeroen and awallin.  Those would work great.   My ebay purchases from overseas have taken up to 56 days to arrive, so I've gotten used to the long shipping times.

[meerweten]

For resistors and  capasitors i bought kits on ebay when i started out with smd components.
but the rest i always tried to get from local suppliers like farnell, mouser, ....

if you are doing a lot of smd work you usualy use a lot of 100n caps and 10k and 4k7 resistors, so it might be cheaper to get them on a reel of 4000 in the long run.
it all depends how much stuff you gonne build, and how manny of each board you gonne make.

[Cerebus]

As for stocking up on parts, I only buy from Mouser or Digikey.
I usually buy 0804 and 0603 passives by the reel.

Only buy 0603 components by the reel if you are under 30 and either expect to use up the whole reel by the time you are 40 or expect by then to be able to afford a Mantis microscope or similar. 

[Mr.B]

As for stocking up on parts, I only buy from Mouser or Digikey.
I usually buy 0804 and 0603 passives by the reel.

Only buy 0603 components by the reel if you are under 30 and either expect to use up the whole reel by the time you are 40 or expect by then to be able to afford a Mantis microscope or similar. 

I am well over 40 and don't own a Mantis...

I do however have a basic stereo microscope.   

[tggzzz]

Only buy 0603 components by the reel if you are under 30 and either expect to use up the whole reel by the time you are 40 or expect by then to be able to afford a Mantis microscope or similar. 

I'm too far past 40 to think about it, and as my doctor put it, I started needing reading glasses "right on schedule".

My personal preference is the cheap head-mounted visors, since they are always exactly where I need them and at the right angle. Very useful when fiddling with scopes HV sections!

I don't get on well with stereo microscopes, despite having taken stereo photos for over 30 years. (A few antique commercial  stereo photos can be seen here https://vintagestereoscopicglassslides.wordpress.com/ )

[biffster]

Hi Paul,

I'm in the same boat as you - I've used THT components for a while and I want to transition to SMD. I've recently got a small number of 0805 resistors and ceramic caps to see how easy they are to solder and have used these guys:

http://www.topqualitytools.co.uk/

They do SMD passives in 1, 10 or 1000 part quantities and I've found them to be cheaper than Farnell and RS generally. They charge £2 per delivery and the search function is rubbish but otherwise I've found them good. They do passive kits as well I think.

[Fred27]

I bought some of those cheap 0805 packs from eBay, but with free delivery from Farnell and no minimum order I now try to dismiss the urge to have a load of stock in hand. I have loads of stuff I've bought because thought I needed it as never did.

When you order a board just order the parts you need (with a few spares of course). Unless you do loads of boards, that should do fine.