Beginner Parts Bin

[mattwells]

So as a follow-up to my "Beginner Tools" post, I've been poking around the Beavis Audio archive.org (sad that it is down) and came across the "Beavis Board."  Seems like a cool idea.  Small Bear has a similar "Idea Board" thing up.  (I think I'll make up an Beavis-Idea Board as it looks incredibly useful for visualizing circuits and testing things out.)  But back when you could order it from Beavis it came with a huge assortment of parts to mess around with.

I can't find a list of those parts that Beavis included, but get a big grab bag of commonly used parts is something that is really appealing.  Are there any other sellers doing this type of "grab bag parts for people who have nothing"?  Or maybe a list of common parts that I can then go make a cart of at Tayda/Small Bear/etc.?

Thanks guys.

[PRR]

There's grab-bags which are just the odd parts a vendor has too many of. I've bought a few of these and rarely used enough from them to justify the cost.

Small Bear likely has a well-considered parts-set suitable for stomps.

Not terribly cheap, but you can buy a full set of 5% resistors in strips of 20 from a known-honest vendor for like $10. Works out to a half-penny a resistor, well below the per-each price. In fact you will never use half of those values or a quarter of the resistors (unless you go crazy building). But it IS nice when you suddenly need 8.2K which you never expected to want.

Full-sets of caps are available but usually cost more or don't cover most requirements.

Transistors: 2N5088 will cover 90% of needs, and its PNP complement will cover half of the rest. JFETs and MOSFETs can sometimes be covered with jellybeans and sometimes you need THE specific part. If you insist on "transistor voodoo", then you have to buy your odd parts for the specific project.

[mattwells]

Thanks - I just found the "Parts Kits" section of Small Bear as well - looks like kinda what I was envisioning, but just isn't in an all in one package.

I'm goofing around with this (I mainly play bass and rarely use pedals), so no transistor voodoo from me.  Well, not yet at least.

[Blitz Krieg]

[mattwells]

From the Tonefiend site I stumbled on the "Futurlec Value Packs" - these seem like the ticket to get some parts cheaply although switches, plugs, and enclosures look like they might need to be sourced elsewhere.  I'll likely order a bunch from there and in the meantime (since slow shipping seems to be the downside) pick up parts for a couple of projects I need from here in the US.

[stringsthings]

The Futurelec value packs are not a bad way to start.  I would get the resistor pack, the film cap pack, and the ceramic cap pack.

It's not a bad idea to get some Electrolytic caps ( common values: 1uf, 4.7uf, **10 uf, **100uf ).

The disadvantage of Futurlec is the shipping time.  They're pretty slow.  Expect at least 3 weeks.

[mattwells]

I was going to follow Tonfiend's recommendation and get everything except the Voltage Regulator, 1/2-watt resistors, IDCC Connector, and IC Socket Packs.  They are relatively cheap and since shipping is the biggest hindrance...might as well get them all together.

We are moving right now, so slow shipping isn't an issue - I'm just going to drop in our next address and it should arrive a week or two after we do.

[mattwells]

Just about to order, but what are some good generic pots to order?

10k, 50k, 100k, 1M Log and Linear?