Tell me your most commonly used parts!

[rockgardenlove]

It's way cheaper to buy in bulk off mouser, so I was wondering if you more experienced builders could post the most commonly used parts so I could start a little part collection.  Like just list off the most common resistor and capacitor values when it comes to building effects.  Also a little list of some good diodes and transistors to have handy would be nice.  I'd like to buy in larger quantaties becaue its cheaper, but I havn't built enough stuff to know what I want yet exactly.

Thanks!

[R.G.]

Here's an easier way.

If you buy from Mouser, just buy 200 resistors at a time instead of one or two. For your first project, the resistors will be quite expensive - about $2.00 per value. For your second project, ony the odd values will need to be bought; on your third and succeeding projects, very few values will need to be bought. Your projects will determine the values you need.
Get a shoe box and some coin envelopes at an office supply house. Put the resistors in the coin envelopes with the value written on the envelope, and stack the envelopes on edge in the shoe box. You can then riffle through the envelopes to find the value you need very easily. My shoe box has all the standard values in it now, and I only buy resistors when an envelope goes empty.

For transistors, buy 100 2N3904s, 100 2N3906's and 100 2N5088's.

For caps, I just buy what I need for each project, since Mouser ships promptly and since the variety in caps is much larger.

If you insist on buying caps in volume, get 0.001, 0.01, 0.1uF mylar, and 1uF, 10uF, 100uF electros. If you're really into stocking, get 0.01 and 0.1uF monolithic ceramics as bypass caps. Then buy whatever odd values you need.

[mojotron]

What I would do is to order 5 times what you would need for resistors, transistors, caps, pots, jacks the first few projects. Once you get past your third project, start buying 10 times what you previously ordered; plus 5 times what you plan to use for the next 2-3 projects; plus 10 of parts like cd4049 ICs, 1n34, 1n4001, 4558 opamps, and a couple of 4007 and ca3080 IC's. 

As Mark points out - you can never have enough of:
100kB and 100kA pots
2n5088 or 2n5089 (one of either)
1n914
J201
1k, 100k, 1M resistors
1uF (non-polarized) and 10uF, 47uF, 100uF electro caps

I would add:
Input Jacks (2 contact)
power jacks
knobs (I really only like the Fulltone-like ones from Smallbear)
solder braid, solder
#60 drill bits

and, get one of:
Bottle of contact cleaner - I use Iso Alcohol, and a bottle of Acetone
a small file
a small wire brush
a small Exacto knife

Also, if you think you are going to get into designing your own stuff once you get past like your 5-6th project, you're going to want stuff to make the circuit boards too - laser printer, PNP... or the stuff to go the photo-develop method.

At times, I have built an average of 1 new pedal for myself a week - ontop of pedals I build for friends and customers. So one thing I do is I try to find inexpensive substitutes for the expensive stuff on all of the pedals I am building to prototype or to "try something new" for myself. For instance, I use electrical boxes for enclosures and I only use DPDT switches on all of the stuff I build for myself.

Hope this helps.

[MartyMart]

I can tell you what I "run out of" first :

1k -1k8 - 22k - 47k - 100k - 470k - 1M resistors

10n - 47n - 100n and 22uf - 47uf caps

220pf and 500pf mica caps

J201's 2n5088's 2n5089's

Jack sockets and 9v battery clips  !!!

MM.

[rockgardenlove]

Hmm ok, I guess I'll order my fuzzface parts from mouser then in bulk.  Will that give me a nice range of parts for later projects?

[Sam]

- 100k pots
- 1k, 10k, 100k, 220k, 330k, 470k resistors
- 1, 0.1, 0.01, 0.0033 caps
- 2N5088, 2N3904, BC108, BC517 trannies
- TL072 opamps

[mojotron]

Hmm ok, I guess I'll order my fuzzface parts from mouser then in bulk.  Will that give me a nice range of parts for later projects?

Depends, for the fuzzface I use carbon-comp resistors - but for everything else I use metal film resistors. Also, for Ge based fuzzfaces you would have a set of expensive transistors that could not be used for a lot of other things. What you might want to do is to plan out what else you're going to build next and get 5x of those parts too.