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  • Author Author: baldengineer
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What are the most important parts to have in your electronics kit?

baldengineer

This weekend I went to build a circuit for use in an upcoming video. There were two components I was confident that were in my parts kit: a 555 timer and a counter. Now, I did not know which counter I had, but I assumed I must have at least one decade counter in my pile of ICs. Imagine my surprise when I realized that I had no 555 timers and only a single type of counter. And that counter was a johnson-counter designed to drive common cathode 7-segment displays. To make things worse, the only 7-segment displays I have were common anode!image

 

Thinking about all the various types of components, I started to wonder, what else should I check to see if I have in stock? Passives like capacitors or resistors seem like an easy one. But what values? Are inductors critical? If so, what kind? And then when it comes to ICs, what are ones people are still commonly using?

 

So, two questions for the community:

What are the top 5-10 parts you keep your electronics kit?

 

Related to that idea, what about consumables such as solder, cotton swabs, and tape?

What electronics consumables do you keep on-hand?

  • in reply to genebren

    Please. Send me a link.

     

    1.14 for each or is it 1.14 for 100??????

     

    This is a deal I need to see.

  • That's sad. Would you like a free 555 IC with free shipping to anywhere in the United States?

     

    Anyways.

     

    I need lots of jumper wires. They tend to get lost easily. Should invest in some 22AWG wire.

     

    Microcontrollers. The heart and soul. SBCs too.

     

    Soldering iron and accessories.

     

    Breadboards. These aren't all that useful but ok

     

    LCDs and other displays. Any display. I like making portable stuff that don't ever leave the house.

     

    Batteries. I have some lithium batteries I never use.

  • in reply to rsc

    Scott,

     

    I remember when I started working for GEC Telecommunications Ltd UK that the factories I trained in would have huge stores of virtually every component that had ever been used in any product past or present. Over the years that gradually streamlined and become more just-in-time (using simple product replacement rather than repair), even at the University I worked at. It was decreed that the University would not have any storage at all, so in the electronics lab we always bought in new components whenever a new piece of kit was needed, or a class set of bits, there was no storage and any excess was disposed of. They didn't even store furniture. We used to have really sturdy solid, quite good quality office furniture and it was all dumped. Then whenever anyone new joined and needed office furniture they just bought cheaper shoddier stuff from a catalogue which often fell to pieces. When you left they disposed of anything the new person didn't want and bought new again. I remember having one of the new bookcases that I loaded up  that one day just collapsed and dumped most of the books into my lap!

     

    Dubbie

  • Electronics "Kit", ha

    Come back when you want to know how many rooms full of electronics "Bins/boxes/crates" are required to do a job.

    image

  • For prototyping and breadboarding, it is different than making pcbs. So through hole is more important to me than smt variants. It is hard to argue in my opinion against an array of Arduinos/ esp8266 and Raspberry Pi. I had something two weeks ago and I was able to pull a Pi out of “inventory” to flash a special program on. The arduino makes it so dead simple to talk to sensors for experimenting; and there are 5v and 3.3v variants. I get the appeal of using 555 timers but running “blink” on arduino is faster and gives you more options for hooking up sensors and getting feedback from the serial port.

    Double sided perfboard is a must for moving beyond the breadboard.

     

    Buffers, transistors, and Optoisolators are a must for dealing with different voltage levels. I also keep relays in stock for simple projects.

    I would also add that just being a general hoarder and not too proud to pull stuff from the dumpster is a great way to build up inventory, and also a great way to trace circuits and look up data sheets to learn about components. I’m still using stuff I pulled from E-waste 10-15 years ago on new projects.

     

    I just ordered “all” the jumper wires from AliExpress. 10,20,30 cm with m/m, m/f, and f/f.