7 ms·

The advice I wish I knew is to not buy an inventory of parts. I bought a bunch of resistors, capacitors, LEDs, etc., with no specific plan. Most of it sits unus

by blt 4y ago

The advice I wish I knew is to not buy an inventory of parts. I bought a bunch of resistors, capacitors, LEDs, etc., with no specific plan. Most of it sits unused. There's no point in keeping an inventory because almost every project will require a parts order anyway. Just order what you need per-project.

etrautmann 4y ago
mostly true, but always infuriating when you need a specific resistor value and don't have it. I like having a resistor kit around, but it doesn't need to be a big sorted set of drawers, can be a box of bags from digikey
- buescher 4y ago
  Yeah, resistor kits. Supplement them with an ample supply of 1K and 10K resistors.
- OJFord 4y ago
  Ehh, if you're not doing analogue stuff how specific do you really need? And even if you do you can combine a few to get closer to what you need. Like if you have 220/390R & 1k & 10k & 1M on hand, are you really ever going to be that annoyed for breadboarding purposes that you don't have 680R or whatever?
  - naasking 4y ago
    Or a set of good pots?
  - eternityforest 4y ago
    I think that I could go for an entire decade not needing any passives other than powers of ten except for power supply work when you need an exact ratio for feedback. But analog tinkerers do things that are very different from what I do!
- dvh 4y ago
  E12 resistor kit (86 values * 10pcs) is $6 on AliExpress.
  - unxdfa 4y ago
    Don’t buy resistors on aliexpress. They tend to be steel legged and go rusty invisibly leading to all sorts of weird problems. Also some of the tend to be mislabelled. Spend on some decent ones. Tayda sell decent quality Royal Ohm ones for not much money. Better to just DIY an E6 kit on there.
buescher 4y ago
Especially don't buy: old-school digital IC assortments (if they still market those) and electrolytic capacitors. If you are using substantial discrete digital logic in 2023, we can be friends if we're not already, but you shouldn't be giving people advice on stocking their workshop. Electrolytic capacitors have a shelf life, and you'd be amazed how time flies. I've thrown out old electrolytics (>10 years) at more than one employer now.
m463 4y ago
I kind of like assortments of pre-cut wires for breadboarding. Sort of like buying complete cat5 cables instead of adding the connectors yourself from bulk cat5 - bumps your thoughts up an iso layer or two.
- squarefoot 4y ago
  Cat5 (6,7,etc) cuts make for some very good breadboard cables; they're just the right size, colored, stiff, and much much better quality than the specific ones sold online. Unless one needs more colors or different sizes, they're just perfect. The ready made ones aren't single core and not ideal for breadboarding, still they're handy for other uses; A while ago I was about to throw away a long (15 meters or so) cat5 one that I swapped after it had been chewed by a dog, but rather cut the damaged part, stripped away the external insulation and saved each wire, and man, they're really good, from the copper used to the consistency of their insulation.
mindcrime 4y ago
There's no point in keeping an inventory because almost every project will require a parts order anyway. Just order what you need per-project. That assumes that everything one does is a "project". I don't know about anybody else, but sometimes I just sit down at my lab bench intent to tinker or experiment, or do some ad-hoc repair on something from around the house. And I've found having a modest stash of components on hand is very useful for those activities. It's a balancing act, of course. There's a limit to how much one would want/need to spend on stocking components, but I posit that the limit should probably be "greater than 0". I can't tell you what the upper limit is though. My component stockpile has been building for many years, and there's no way I could even tell anyone how much is invested in it. All of that said the one other thing I've often heard quoted, and tend to agree with, is this sentiment: "When you order components for a project, always order more than you need, and put the unused ones in your stash". The thinking being, something along the lines of "If you needed this component once, you'll probably wind up using it again." Of course it is, again, a judgment call. Order a few extra $0.50 comparators? Sure. Ordering a few extra of some multi hundred dollar FPGA or ADC or something? Yeah, no so much. :-)
- blt 4y ago
  Yeah, I didn't really mean "there's no point in keeping an inventory". I totally agree about buying extras and building inventory over time. But that's all you need to do, IMO. For the beginner you can apply this principle to your first few breadboard projects and you're off to the races with some power-of-10 resistors, one color of LED, a few tactile switches, etc. The main point is that you shouldn't try to anticipate what parts you will need more than a couple weeks into the future.
  - mindcrime 4y ago
    The main point is that you shouldn't try to anticipate what parts you will need more than a couple weeks into the future. No doubt. You could easily wind up spending a TON of money if you do that! Not to say that I've never bought something on totally speculative basis, of course... :-)
conductr 4y ago
I try to solder as little as possible and I find having a large selection of task specific breakout boards, power management, motor controllers, etc. and various wires and connectors to be essential. It's much easier to experiment if I can do it adhoc when inspiration hits and then put in a parts order when I know what the missing pieces are.
tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
This depends - my projects are usually small and spontaneous, my attention span is short, and not having parts to at least start means the project is dead right there. I do most of my stuff on microcontroller boards though, and I keep a small stock (maybe $30 worth of ESP32, ESP8266, and something-that-can-pretend-to-be-a-USB-keyboard dev boards).
barnabee 4y ago
There's some truth to this, but on the other hand I find it cost effective and useful in the long run to build up inventory by cheap kits. For example, if I need specific resistor (and don't have any high precision/tolerance/current requirements — i.e. 90% of hobby projects) I could buy online: - 10 of them for maybe £3 - 100 of them for around £6 - a kit containing 1000 resistors of 25 different values for <£12 Not only is the last option exponentially better value, but it means that I almost certainly don't need to buy anything the next 10 or more times I need a resistor. There are a good number common components, fittings, etc. that I've found this works for. If you're doing specific high frequency, RF, hifi, etc. stuff, this approach might not work so well, but for other hobby electronics, messing around with microcontrollers and the like it's served me well.
wkat4242 4y ago
I often grab stuff from my stock. It's really annoying to have to wait a month from AliExpress or pay shipping locally to get something. And really a nice stock of components doesn't cost a fortune.

by blt 4y ago

etrautmann 4y ago

mostly true, but always infuriating when you need a specific resistor value and don't have it. I like having a resistor kit around, but it doesn't need to be a big sorted set of drawers, can be a box of bags from digikey

buescher 4y ago
Yeah, resistor kits. Supplement them with an ample supply of 1K and 10K resistors.
OJFord 4y ago
Ehh, if you're not doing analogue stuff how specific do you really need? And even if you do you can combine a few to get closer to what you need. Like if you have 220/390R & 1k & 10k & 1M on hand, are you really ever going to be that annoyed for breadboarding purposes that you don't have 680R or whatever?
- naasking 4y ago
  Or a set of good pots?
- eternityforest 4y ago
  I think that I could go for an entire decade not needing any passives other than powers of ten except for power supply work when you need an exact ratio for feedback. But analog tinkerers do things that are very different from what I do!
dvh 4y ago
E12 resistor kit (86 values * 10pcs) is $6 on AliExpress.
- unxdfa 4y ago
  Don’t buy resistors on aliexpress. They tend to be steel legged and go rusty invisibly leading to all sorts of weird problems. Also some of the tend to be mislabelled. Spend on some decent ones. Tayda sell decent quality Royal Ohm ones for not much money. Better to just DIY an E6 kit on there.

buescher 4y ago

Especially don't buy: old-school digital IC assortments (if they still market those) and electrolytic capacitors. If you are using substantial discrete digital logic in 2023, we can be friends if we're not already, but you shouldn't be giving people advice on stocking their workshop. Electrolytic capacitors have a shelf life, and you'd be amazed how time flies. I've thrown out old electrolytics (>10 years) at more than one employer now.

m463 4y ago

I kind of like assortments of pre-cut wires for breadboarding. Sort of like buying complete cat5 cables instead of adding the connectors yourself from bulk cat5 - bumps your thoughts up an iso layer or two.

squarefoot 4y ago
Cat5 (6,7,etc) cuts make for some very good breadboard cables; they're just the right size, colored, stiff, and much much better quality than the specific ones sold online. Unless one needs more colors or different sizes, they're just perfect. The ready made ones aren't single core and not ideal for breadboarding, still they're handy for other uses; A while ago I was about to throw away a long (15 meters or so) cat5 one that I swapped after it had been chewed by a dog, but rather cut the damaged part, stripped away the external insulation and saved each wire, and man, they're really good, from the copper used to the consistency of their insulation.

mindcrime 4y ago

There's no point in keeping an inventory because almost every project will require a parts order anyway. Just order what you need per-project. That assumes that everything one does is a "project". I don't know about anybody else, but sometimes I just sit down at my lab bench intent to tinker or experiment, or do some ad-hoc repair on something from around the house. And I've found having a modest stash of components on hand is very useful for those activities. It's a balancing act, of course. There's a limit to how much one would want/need to spend on stocking components, but I posit that the limit should probably be "greater than 0". I can't tell you what the upper limit is though. My component stockpile has been building for many years, and there's no way I could even tell anyone how much is invested in it. All of that said the one other thing I've often heard quoted, and tend to agree with, is this sentiment: "When you order components for a project, always order more than you need, and put the unused ones in your stash". The thinking being, something along the lines of "If you needed this component once, you'll probably wind up using it again." Of course it is, again, a judgment call. Order a few extra $0.50 comparators? Sure. Ordering a few extra of some multi hundred dollar FPGA or ADC or something? Yeah, no so much. :-)

blt 4y ago
Yeah, I didn't really mean "there's no point in keeping an inventory". I totally agree about buying extras and building inventory over time. But that's all you need to do, IMO. For the beginner you can apply this principle to your first few breadboard projects and you're off to the races with some power-of-10 resistors, one color of LED, a few tactile switches, etc. The main point is that you shouldn't try to anticipate what parts you will need more than a couple weeks into the future.
- mindcrime 4y ago
  The main point is that you shouldn't try to anticipate what parts you will need more than a couple weeks into the future. No doubt. You could easily wind up spending a TON of money if you do that! Not to say that I've never bought something on totally speculative basis, of course... :-)

conductr 4y ago

I try to solder as little as possible and I find having a large selection of task specific breakout boards, power management, motor controllers, etc. and various wires and connectors to be essential. It's much easier to experiment if I can do it adhoc when inspiration hits and then put in a parts order when I know what the missing pieces are.

tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago

This depends - my projects are usually small and spontaneous, my attention span is short, and not having parts to at least start means the project is dead right there. I do most of my stuff on microcontroller boards though, and I keep a small stock (maybe $30 worth of ESP32, ESP8266, and something-that-can-pretend-to-be-a-USB-keyboard dev boards).

barnabee 4y ago

There's some truth to this, but on the other hand I find it cost effective and useful in the long run to build up inventory by cheap kits. For example, if I need specific resistor (and don't have any high precision/tolerance/current requirements — i.e. 90% of hobby projects) I could buy online: - 10 of them for maybe £3 - 100 of them for around £6 - a kit containing 1000 resistors of 25 different values for <£12 Not only is the last option exponentially better value, but it means that I almost certainly don't need to buy anything the next 10 or more times I need a resistor. There are a good number common components, fittings, etc. that I've found this works for. If you're doing specific high frequency, RF, hifi, etc. stuff, this approach might not work so well, but for other hobby electronics, messing around with microcontrollers and the like it's served me well.

wkat4242 4y ago

I often grab stuff from my stock. It's really annoying to have to wait a month from AliExpress or pay shipping locally to get something. And really a nice stock of components doesn't cost a fortune.