In the US: Digi-Key, Mouser, Newark, Amazon, eBay - Where do you buy components?

[Dolmetscher007]

Ok, time to breathe.

Your frustrations are all valid.
Luckily, we can help you work through them if you are willing to be helped.   

Let's not try to handle everything all at once though.

I'll try to find a post I wrote about buying caps from Mouser. 

A quick simplification first, though.  Anything you buy from smallbear will work fine, regardless of whether it is red or green, boxy or dipped, expensive or cheap.  Steve has filtered out all of the stuff that won't work for pedal building and focused on the stuff that will work.  Somewhere I think he has premade shopping lists for specific pedals, but I'm not sure how to find them on his site.

I'm cool. :-) I'm not about to throw my soldering station out the window. But yeah man, if you have tips... I'm all ears.

[bluebunny]

Your #1 is incompatible with #3, IMO.  And given that many of your pedals will be various flavours of distortion, you won't hear the $8 difference.  There's lots of good advice given in the posts before me.  If I were in the US, I'd buy at Smallbear, and bulk up at Tayda when I could afford to and when there's a discount coupon.

[jubal81]

Sourcing the right parts is one of the big hurdles starting out. I'd say the top priority is you don't want to get defective or fake semiconductors because that is hard to troubleshoot for even experienced builders. Like others have said, don't buy those from eBay and I don't buy those from Tayda.

Buying the wrong parts, like hugely oversized capacitors, can be a money and time sink. I'd recommend sticking with Smallbear until you start to get acquainted with what parts are what and what matters. You're guaranteed to get the right size part and that it will work.

[italianguy63]

Sourcing the right parts is one of the big hurdles starting out. I'd say the top priority is you don't want to get defective or fake semiconductors because that is hard to troubleshoot for even experienced builders. Like others have said, don't buy those from eBay and I don't buy those from Tayda.

Buying the wrong parts, like hugely oversized capacitors, can be a money and time sink. I'd recommend sticking with Smallbear until you start to get acquainted with what parts are what and what matters. You're guaranteed to get the right size part and that it will work.

I learned a lot about component "footprint" sizes when I started using Eagle and designing my own PCB's.  Yes, I was guilty of buying many capacitors that were too large for the task intended. 

In short, experience adds to your knowledge.  It takes practice.

MC

[davent]

Ah man... guys... my head is going to explode! Literally... just burst off my shoulders like a watermelon with an M-80 crammed in.

I bought two pedal "kits"; PCB only.
This one: http://permanentelectronics.com/ and This one: https://www.synthrotek.com/products/effect-pedal-circuits/rat-clone/.

I bought the PCB only versions so that I could "learn" all about caps, resistors, diodes, and how/where to order them. I had read a great deal about, and knew going in that electronics components have a lot of values, characteristics, materials, packages, etc. but HOLY S**T!!! I spent at least 8 hours yesterday, sat at my desk at home, filtering on Digi-Key's website, flipping through Small Bear, googling for datasheets, and now, all that I am is confused.

I have a baller Google Sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1to6Ch09S8c4djscaEmSqYLVj6R5yO8R8n78-_AtMdVE/edit?usp=sharing... that has every component I need to buy and it's value etc. but I cannot tell if it is better to buy a .012µF film cap in a Box made by Topmay or a 12 nF Panasonic in a Polyester radial package. Or a ceramic... or... or... or...

Digi-Keys website is like cracking the Rosetta Stone it has so many things to consider. Small Bear seems to have too little information. For example.. who in the f*** manufactures "Greenies" and how do I find out what their "spacing" is? Small Bear doesn't say, and no Google search is turning up a data sheet. If the PCB's BOM specifies 5mm under "spacing" that does mean "lead spacing" right? What if you buy a 5.08mm cap, or if you need a 3mm spacing cap, and you buy a 2.5mm cap... can you just bend the leads and make it work, or is that not okay?

Also it seems like 90% of Digikey's components have 0 in stock, or you need a decoder ring to figure out how you are buying them. Tape, Box, Tape in box, Bulk...

Are there no retail electronics stores anymore? Did Radio Shack die and that was it? Frustrated only scratches the surface. Ha ha ha. I am going to go try and find my happy place. lol!

I alway found Digikey far easier to find specific items then at Mouser as Digikey offers more filter options to zero in on exactly what you want. I'd find a manufacturer's part number at Digikey then usr that to find the item at Mouser for the times i was ordering from Digikey.

If i were searching for a film cap at Digikey first step is a search for 'capacitor' which returns a list the different types offered and 962,793 different caps offered.

Click on 'Film Capacitors' - 63,580 offered
Check the 'In Stock' box -  9,701 Remaining, still some sorting to do
I want 100nF/.1µF - drop down filter box for 'Capacitance', click on .1µF - 676 remaining
If i working with a PCB the next most important consideration is lead spacing, often 5mm, 'More Filters' brings up the 'Lead Spacing' filter, click 5mm and your down to 67 caps, some of that is bulk prices for the ame cap
Not going to need much in the way of voltage, 63v will be a small package and  a few options - 22.

The product chart has colour pictures, what color do you want, size, manufacturer? Also the columns have up/down arrows to sort those, price low to high etc.

Ultimately for a film cap in a 9v pedal, value and lead spacing of the pcb footprint, body size maybe.
dave

[duck_arse]

years ago, we had to struggle with greencaps, it's all we had. and the sizes are different every single time, there is no standard. then box caps came along, and we never had to worry again. they are pretty much the greencaps, which have always been good enough built into standardised sizes, so we knew/know 5mm spacing would/will always fit/fit. now they are good enough, and fit!

resistors - get 1/4W.

electros - get radials, whatever value, 35V. for smaller capacitances, the lowest voltage rating might be 100V - if the diameter is 5mm, they are the ones to get.