stocking your bench

[JIG]

Would like to know what you guys like to keep on hand for building and tweaking. Jacks, pots, type of caps and resistors and values. Wire types and guages. Board materails. I hate to order cheap stuff and pay gobs in shipping. Would like to do a bulk kind of order in order to keep shipping down.

Have all the tools I will need. I am going to start by doing some mods to some of my production pedals to get a feel for how certian changes affect the sound. Will probably build the beginner project after that to get my feet wet in a from scratch build.

Does any body sell a cap/resistor assortment geared to us FX tweakers?

Thanks,

JIG

[ErikMiller]

If you spend about $20 on this page:

http://www.futurlec.com/ValuePacks.shtml

....you'll be good to go for a while.

Get the 1/4W resistor assortment, the three different capacitor packs, the diode pack, the transistor pack, and the linear IC pack, and you'll be able to keep busy for a while.

[petemoore]

I haven't tried any, but recommend Veroboard...I'm getting some next time I buy board material.
 24 guage wire, stranded, small bear has the best I've used, it's tinned and the insulation is EZ peel...
 Solid core wire, [quality stuff that takes solder EZ...] about the same guage as the 1/4w resistors is good.
 A slough of resistors...
 1k, 5k, 10k, 50k, 100k, 500k, 1meg pots...
 Caps...I gennly use anything except carbon comps, AVX Boxed metal Films are nice to work with.
 Battery clips...etc stuff....
 pick some circuits, and add up the parts...if you're really buying bulk, you'll find that for instance gain stages will have a minimum of: Input and output caps, and a few resistors...multiply these components 'till your wallet get dry...lol. count the 'small' rolloff caps...you'll probably be re-supplimenting your component supplies toward the end of this purchases 'run' at populating boards.
 Really depends on what you want to build...
 I never have drilled, prepared, painted boxes ready for completed circuits in time...paint takes time to dry...
 I've been using the 3PDT Blue switches Aron offers... ...
 Varibit...I don't have one...much easier...I step up the drill bits by
diameter by re-chucking...

[onboard]

I step up the drill bits by
diameter by re-chucking...

Here's a quick rundown of bit diameters for some common parts:

T1-3/4 LED bezel, mini toggles - 1/4" (6mm)
T1-3/4 LED without bezel - 3/16"(5mm)
16mm pot - 9/32" (7mm)
24mm pot - 5/16" (8mm)
audio jacks - 3/8" (10mm)
footswitches - 15/32" (12mm) for a perfect fit w/o washers,
1/2" is fine if you use the white plastic washer included with 3PDT's, Carlings don't include washers.

I started out getting parts at the local Radio Shack per build and it went from there. Since their resistors are in 10 pks. and caps are usually sold in pairs, I had stuff left over and it accumulated. Some sort of upright storage bin with parts drawers is a real time saver if it all starts to add up.

Aron's Purchasing Parts FAQ is where to look for suppliers and their catalog part numbers. Small Bear has come leaps and bounds in being the place to get almost everything you could need.

After putting together my last couple of multi-project orders from various sources, I feel like I went through training for a company position as a purchasing agent. :wink:

[lethargytartare]

What works for me is to pick two or three projects I want to build, put their parts lists together, and then pad each line item if it's economical.  So, for example, I order from mouser, so I get 10 of every resistor value, and then for caps that are under $.20 or so, I double the quantity, and for more expensive ones I add on one or two.  If I get near a price break, I bump up to it.  Jacks and sockets really add up quickly, and before long I have a nice sized order and the shipping is still only gonna be $6.  Ordering that way, I've managed to keep busy, and have ended up with a nice collection of extra parts, and recently was able to build two or three more projects out of those extra parts.

I also recommend building a prototyping unit of some sort.  Some people use breadboard and go all-out.  Personally, I'm still enjoying the building phase, so I don't mind making the boards and finding out I don't like the sound.  But what I did is make a small pedal that has a stomp, in and out jacks, and a small breadboard strip on it where I can plug in the off-board wires from a finished board -- then I can test it there quickly and know if I like it, or rapidly test it and tweak problems.    My beastie is here:

http://www.lethargytartare.com/caves/gerbcave/diystory/pics/P1010022.jpg
http://www.lethargytartare.com/caves/gerbcave/diystory/pics/P1010023.jpg

Oh, and the BEST investment I've made to date is my unibit/varibit.  Holy cow!  I made my first few boxes with normal bits, and the unibit made the whole box-building process SO much more tolerable.  I cranked out a box for my ugly face (steel stud material) and a quick-n-dirty junction box one for a 2 knob pedal Friday night in about half an hour.  The unibit rips through metal and the way its built you get a little "thunk" at each stage change, so you can quickly repeatedly get consistently sized holes.  I think I paid $20 for it (was in too much of a rush to shop around), and it's been a live-saver!

Good luck!

ltt

[onboard]

ltt, that has got be the jerry riggin'est proto box I've seen.
I LOVE it!!!!!!!!!!

DIY, it's a frame of mind.

[lethargytartare]

  Why, thank you very much!

[petemoore]

Sockets...you'll be needing these...so you don't burn up your OA's and Q's, also so you can swap out 'certain' components.
 I use 8 pin IC sockets, and break 'em in half for fewer pin socketting, preferring to keep 4 pins in a row minimum for physical stability
 Small Bear sells the breakaway line sockets...these are more sturdy and I only use as many pins 'per socket as is needed for the connections.
 J201's [or other...nTE458's !! ..$'ey tho] Ge transistors, 4458's and high performance/low noise opamps are nice to have in certain builds [Orange squeezer and phasers as two of many examples] all to taste of course...2n5089's seem to find sockets on my boards and stay there quite often...generally work great for specs of 'any NPN, Or high gain low noise...BCxxx have a character to them...
 If you want an Si FF, I can recommend that and to get some 2n2369ers for the Q1 position 'interviews'....2n4401's and 2n2222 [not the RS ones, the ones with metal hats] also NTE123's may suit your FF Q2 fancy.

[scottosan]

Fortunately, I work for a "Large Popular Electronics Distributor".  I get all of my parts at cost and next day. My usual project costs about $20 -25 including the enclosure. The expensive items for me are the etchant materials, 3pdt switches, and the enclosures.

[JIG]

:shock:    That is an unbelieveable amount of goodies for the price! How is the quality? IC pack carry any 4558's and tl072's? How is the quality? Why not buy the LED pack as well?

JIG

If you spend about $20 on this page:

http://www.futurlec.com/ValuePacks.shtml

....you'll be good to go for a while.

Get the 1/4W resistor assortment, the three different capacitor packs, the diode pack, the transistor pack, and the linear IC pack, and you'll be able to keep busy for a while.

[blandoon]

Jameco (http://www.jameco.com/) has grab bags of a variety of stuff; that's how I wound up with a lot of the parts I've been using. The diode grab bag, for instance, even turned out to include about 10 or 15 1N60 germanium diodes.

Their web page catalog is kind of a pain, because the "grab bag" items aren't all in the same place. But they've got one that includes most of the different types of parts you'd need to start out with:

http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10001&catalogId=10001&productId=122598

[lethargytartare]

And check out their shipping!  If you bought one of each of those assortments, shipping would be $3!!  Time to go stock up...

If you spend about $20 on this page:

http://www.futurlec.com/ValuePacks.shtml

....you'll be good to go for a while.

Get the 1/4W resistor assortment, the three different capacitor packs, the diode pack, the transistor pack, and the linear IC pack, and you'll be able to keep busy for a while.

[Hal]

the LED pack isn't worth it.  There are only 10 bright ones, and a bunch of rectangles - you can get  better deals on LEDs.  For a while they had a pack of 50 blues or something for like $5, but I cant find it anymore.  

I need to make another order from them :-D.  Verobaord and Pots :-D.

[dosmun]

Circuit Specialists has great deals on LED's and Resistors in bulk.

[JIG]

What is in the IC pack? Are there any SIP's. Dual op amps? Looking for the ones most often used in effects,JRC4558, TL072, NE5532, LF353 etc.?

And how about the IC sockets? Can you split the 16 pinner into a long 8 pinner for an SIP? Same goes for transistor sockets.

I just don't want to spend money for stuff I won't find a use for. :roll:

JIG

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

A couple of times, I've bought the contents of home workshops where someone has died or given up DIY electronics. Sure, I have got a lot of unwanted crap that way, but also lots of oddments that make it possible to do wild experimenting that I probably wouldn't do if I had to order the parts. Keep an eye out on the Recycler or Trading Post or whatever your local paper is. And ham swap meets, if there are any near you.

[ErikMiller]

What is in the IC pack? Are there any SIP's. Dual op amps? Looking for the ones most often used in effects,JRC4558, TL072, NE5532, LF353 etc.?

I just don't want to spend money for stuff I won't find a use for. :roll:

JIG

The thing is, you'll surely get $6 worth of chips, even if only 20% of the assortment is stuff you can use right away.

And one of the things that I use to create inspiration is to try to find projects that will use what I have on hand. This is a time-honored tradition even for production stuff; Leo Fender and Mike Matthews are two notables who had access to good surplus dealers (Leo was in post-war Los Angeles surrounded by aerospace companies) and what they could get for cheap surely influenced what they made.

Even if you wind up not having any use for half of the pile, you can trade/sell it to another DIY'er for something you do want or just to help a fellow hobbyist.

I guess you could send Futurlec email and ask them to be more specific about what's in the assortment, but why not just go for it?

[dosmun]

It would be cool if Small Bear would have some IC, Cap, Resistor packs with things that are more geared toward the DIY FX thang.  Hint Hint

[Ben N]

A lot of useful information here.

[rubberlips]

Well I stocked up years ago, and have just about every resistor and cap I would need to make about 100 projects, except for IC's and jacks and switches. But I generally buy these in 10's or 100's whatever gets me the best price.If I run out of resistors I just buy another 10, same with caps.
I tallied up all the stuff I'd need to make the projects I wanted and then just picked up the resistors and most caps. I figured I wouldn't like all the projects so I only spend on IC's and caps when I'm out.
IC sockets are good to stockup on - 8 and 14 pin
And PCB pins, and pots and ......

Pete