The Best Place to Buy stuff

[steinbeck-il]

hey i'm sort of a newbie and have built a lil more then 10 pedals and now i'm trying my luck with a few amp design.
what i am wondering is where do you get your stuff from.

I want to get  more serious with this hobbie so i'm looking for the best places and ways to order materials online some of them in bulks.
i apologize in advance for my spelling and grammar mistakes, English is not my native tongue.
to be more specific:

if i want capacitors should i buy them in kit or should i buy each value separately  ?
is this a good deal ? i have bought a couple of these.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/281019303325?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

can anyone refer me to where can i buy tantalum capacitors assorted kits ?

where do you purchase high quality jacks ?
how can i tell the difference between high quality and cheap chines crap ?

what kind of colored wires do you use ?
where are you buying them from ?

are there boxes other then the 1590 series i should know about for building stomp boxes ?

where can i find rev log pots ?

what should i look out for in regards to low quality materials?

what handy transistors and ics should i look for ?

are there any common tubes in use of guitar projects other then 8 and 9 pins ?
what are high quality ones and what should i stay away from ?
i have seen that there are some made of a polymer some from ceramic some have golden tips ? whats the best for our use (pedals and amps) ?
for what sort of projects should i use pcb mounted sockets and for what should i use panel mounted sockets

where can i buy fiberglass boards and turrets to mount on them for building amps ?

where can i find bare transformers ?

i really like buying from tayda2009, they are not cheap in comparison to chines sellers but there shipping is considerably faster.

there are allot of questions here and i really hope this is the place to ask them
i would greatly appreciate any help i could get

[pappasmurfsharem]

Well for one.

Tayda has an actual webstore outside of ebay and I love it.

http://www.taydaelectronics.com/

[davent]

Hello, To make recommendations that are going to be useful for you we need to know where in the world you live.

dave

[steinbeck-il]

I live in Israel.

[mremic01]

I would recommend against buying resistor kits and the like. I did that when I was first starting out and I've never even used many of the values that came in the kit. Even though you're paying less per resistor, is it really worth it if you're not using most of them? Still, here and there having some of those values has come in handy.

Instead, you can build up your stock of parts by selecting 3 or 4 projects that you'd like to do and ordering extras of the values you actually need. After a few builds, you'll get to know what values you use up quicker than others.

Tayda is cheap, but a lot of their stuff is chinsy. Their resistors have flimsy leads, and their caps often have very poor printing on their labels. The caps almost always measure in correctly though, and the resistors work fine in any build. I get my caps from Tayda, but get Xicon resistors from Mouser. Tayda's switches and enclosure are pretty good. Their wire is ok, but I prefer to get the prebond stuff from Small Bear. Tayda's tantulum caps are solid. I get mine from them.

Mouser is confusing at first, but after some experience you'll get used to finding items with their search interface. I like to get my resistors from them in bags of 200. It comes out to about 2 cents per resistors, which is actually kind of expensive as far as resistors go, but the Xicons are much nicer than the no-name budgets stuff you get from Tayda. Thicker leads, sit on the board better.

As far as jacks go, you can get Neutriks and Switchcrafts (the good jacks) from Mouser or Small Bear or Pedal Parts Plus or Bitches Love My Switches. I usually throw them in with other stuff, so I don't order them from any one place. Tayda's jacks work, but some people hate them. I've made plenty of builds with them though, still working fine after two or three years.

Stranded wire is more reliable then solid, but harder to work with. A great compromise is stranded wire that comes pre-tinned. You can get sampler packs of it from Small Bear. It has the best qualities of either kind.

1590whatevers are pretty popular for enclosures and can be had at most online places that cater to pedal stuff. 125B is the only 1590B alternative that I see very often. Check out Bitches Love My Switches and see what they offer.

TL072s are great ICs to have on hand. As for transistors, a lot of through-hole jfets are out of producation and becoming more expensive and harder to find. See what you need for your next few builds. You should be able to get most of what you need from Small Bear, but it's worth looking into SMD parts for the stuff that's out of production as through-hole.

Reverse log pots should be available from Small Bear, but I've been able to find the ones I need at Tayda.

In general, you probably won't be able to hear a difference between low quality parts and the nicer stuff, but you'll be able to tell by how you work with them. You can make a great sounding build with cheap crap. And if you're a good builder, you can even make it robust enough to be gig-worthy. The high quality stuff is more forgiving of poor building practices. Beyond that, a lot of it is preference and your own judgement about how much abuse a part can take. The Tayda resistors have thin leads, but they're just as reliable once soldered to the board provided you did a decent job laying them flat and haven't strained the leads. Xicons can take more abuse, but I don't really feel that they're any better once they're soldered in place. Tayda used to sell switches that could barely stand up to soldering without having their lugs come out of place. They would work just fine, but you had to be very careful to get in and out with your iron. Their current offerings are better, but you can still mess them up with too much heat.

[duck_arse]

pick a dozen or so threads here, read through them, note what parts the people here use in their circuit designs. we mostly use the most common available, it won't be a very big list. some parts where you are will be plenty, others hen's teeth. use wot you got.

junk. great place for wire is old-style printer cables. thin, coloured, and plenty of. old pc's provide lots of flat steel, make your own cases, panels, brackets. the plastic fronts of pc's is also good for odd build needs. old amps or washing machines or radios for knobs and pots and transformers and stuff. old plug paks/wall warts for transformers.

always buy more of a part than you need. after some many years, you'll always have the common parts, and may by then know how to work-around the difficult parts. only use sockets if you have them, or you plan to do swappings/listenings, or the socketed part costs MUCH more than the socket. they can cause more trouble than they are worth.

buy as cheap as you can find. if it's not up to your standard, don't buy there again (I won't mention any names). look around for "clearance" suppliers, with "300 for 5$" parts, odd values, specials. and always make your order costs much much more than the post/pack charges.

spellink and grammer never bothers anyone around here.

[mth5044]

Don't forget about our great forum store!

[acehobojoe]

forum store?

[deadastronaut]

look at the top...

[davent]

I have to go back a number of menus before the Store shows (as a forum) so might not be evident to everyone.

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=29808.0

[deadastronaut]

weird, i see everything up top on every page..regardless

[davent]

There's different page views available in the profile settings and i think the one i'm using is a pretty out dated anomaly that i've been using forever.

I think the various views are refered to as  Themes, Girlyman was/(is) the way to go.

[deadastronaut]

girlyman..ha ha i just tried it...no way..i'll stick to the top one..

would be nice to just be able to change the colour from blue though...custom theme etc..

[Ice-9]

Wow the girlyman theme is just not heavy metal at all is it  We need a black Metal mayhem theme please.

As for parts sourcing for Israel, I think your best bet would be ebay and China suppliers. I recently had a person from Israel ask me if I could send a few Jfets to him which I would have sent free if he wanted a few but he asked for 30 so I had to give him a price. the price was less than half price of what then can be found  at but because the exchange rate from Israel to UK was bad he couldn't afford them, this is why I suggest ebay and china as they usually ship free and are also reasonably cheap.

[Beo]

My go-to places, not in any particular order. Some sites I use for specific items only.

http://www.futurlec.com/
http://www.taydaelectronics.com/
http://www.mammothelectronics.com/
http://www.apexjr.com/
http://www.bitcheslovemyswitches.com/
http://www.pedalpartsplus.com/
https://www.smallbearelec.com/home.html
http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/
http://www.mouser.com/
http://www.digikey.com/
https://www.sparkfun.com/
http://www.pololu.com/

[deadastronaut]

'' We need a black Metal mayhem theme please.''

indeed..

[davent]

'' We need a black Metal mayhem theme please.''

indeed..

Madbean uses Simple Machines for his forum with a 'Black' Theme that's quite sharp looking... no metal mayhem but still cool.
http://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/

[deadastronaut]

its certainly easier on the eyes..

[duck_arse]

if we are naming favourites, here in australia:

https://www.rockby.com.au/

for my older, more easily glared eyes, I hacked to bits, what a mess wrote my own theme, nice not white (or death) contrastings, larger type posts, smaller type sigs, etc. being hacked into my over-riding opera site.css, there are some nooks and crannies I can't straighten or shift, but it works for me.

[Haze13]

Well as it was already mentioned before, Tayda2009 on ePay is a very good place. Smallbearelectronic is a good Store too, but the shipping to Israel is very expansive. If you are planning to buy very large Packs of components so in Raanana at Industrial Zone (אזור תעשייה)  there is a "Mouser".  Forget about Tel-Aviv electronic stores near New Central Bus Station... I've been there so many times and I couldn't find anything!