Resistor/Cap packs?

[aziltz]

do any of the regular stores (aron/smallbear/mouser...) carry an assortment pack of resistors and capactitors with values good for pedals?  i'll be leaving school soon and i won't have access to the electronics lab here.

-Austin

[PenPen]

I don't think so, I've never seen any in either Aron's or Smallbear. I got mine from Futurlec, but their site seems to be down at the moment. I got a few assortment packs from Radio Shack when I was first starting out, its a tad pricey but overall a decent deal.

[aziltz]

with that advice, it hink i might try some of the byoc projects for the summer.

[Sir H C]

Radio Shack has resistor packs.  Think they have random cap packs too (though with the shake-up at their stores I am not sure how current this is).

[alteredsounds]

Banzai have good packs and so do Futurlec (at good prices too).  Also, you see packs of both on ebay often.  A good purchase I think, cost effective and you can never have too many 'spares'!

[petemoore]

 You could google for 'Velleman Resistor Pack' [or Vellman], I used to get 'em cheep, before they restocked and the price nearly doubled on them @a local store.
 IIRC They have 500pc. packs, then I buy 'supplemental' values I run out of like 100k, 47k 10k, 1m etc.
 The price nearly doubled and the lead length got cut by about 1/3.
  I use the leetle ones [with a brown or black] multiplier...just for the solid core leads...and the 'insulator' [resistor body]...and use them for bottom of board wiring...I bought a buncha Vellemann packs and used most of the 'good' values..lol..with most of the low ohmage ones still looking like a train track [not used].

[aron]

I've always thought of this, but what values??? It always seems like there is some value you need but can't get.

I will do some research on this. A pack is the only way I could consider doing this... I don't know how Small Bear handles one resistor at a time.

[slacker]

I got a big resistor pack off a company called fast components who trade on eBay. They do various capacitor packs as well.

[aziltz]

Thanks, i appreciate the interest.

when i posted first it was more of a, "is it already out there?" b.c it would be convienient.  i'm movin soon at home and i can't set up shop there and at school i dont need that kinda of thing. but it just occured to me, ex, 10k's are used alof to bias/voltage divider type. and 1M are used on the input to stop pops.  jw if there was a pack of common values like that.

But thanks for input and advice.

[alteredsounds]

I got a big resistor pack off a company called fast components who trade on eBay. They do various capacitor packs as well.

Yep, had a couple and some diodes, good price and nice and quick.

[PenPen]

The problem with packs of common values is that there are MANY times you'll need just one of some odd value, bringing your project to a halt. I'm in this boat now, I need 390k for the final gain stage in a pedal and I don't have it. I'm stuck with either going with 470k or hitting Radio Shack to pay one dollar for a pack of 5 resistors. I have the value pack from Futurlec but it doesn't have this value, just the common ones.

[alteredsounds]

The Fast components one have all the values in, some real odd ones.  Check if theyre on ebay.

[ezanker]

I've had good luck with these: http://www.futurlec.com/ValuePacks.shtml

However do a search for Futurlec on this forum before deciding to order.
Erik

[aziltz]

how could a common value pack have a problem? its supposed to get you the common values for cheap.  would you rather pay radioshack prices for every value needed?

[Sir H C]

The guy who did PAIA made a good point about there being no magical resistor values, it is pretty much a ratio thing, so if you don't have an exact value you can play with the other numbers to get it all to sync up right.

[PenPen]

The guy who did PAIA made a good point about there being no magical resistor values, it is pretty much a ratio thing, so if you don't have an exact value you can play with the other numbers to get it all to sync up right.

Agreed. I'm just too much of a newb to be able to work around it I think. Out of all things in this field, bipolar biasing to achieve a certain gain is one thing I haven't been able to wrap my head around. Opamps, tone circuits, jfets, all easy to follow. Transistor biasing, its like they're speaking japanese(greek) to me.

[petemoore]

  Yupp...I've been hooking up Ge Boosters, and 680k/43k...these are wierd values...so...I just bumped up to using '750k' [two 1.5megs parallel] and a 47k, bias comes up just fine and a small upping of the imputance resistors will have such a small overall impact [probly nothing detectable] increasing high end...lol...
  @@ny R@te...having a much better time getting a TB MkII's first transistor to bias using a V-/V+ string...I guess one needs a leakage of certain amount to bias that transistor...or 'creative biasing'... ...I suppose it's a departure from actual TBQ1 circuit...but if it sounds good use it as they sezz.

[Sir H C]

The guy who did PAIA made a good point about there being no magical resistor values, it is pretty much a ratio thing, so if you don't have an exact value you can play with the other numbers to get it all to sync up right.

Agreed. I'm just too much of a newb to be able to work around it I think. Out of all things in this field, bipolar biasing to achieve a certain gain is one thing I haven't been able to wrap my head around. Opamps, tone circuits, jfets, all easy to follow. Transistor biasing, its like they're speaking japanese(greek) to me.

Simple is without an emitter resistor bypass cap.  There you can look at it as the same current goes through the emitter resistor as the collector resistor, the base is pretty much a fixed voltage away from the emitter, therefore you get a gain of collector resistor over emitter resistor.  With an emitter bypass capacitor, the internal resistance of the transistor comes into play and so you use that value of Re = 25 ohms / Ie in milliamps.  This last bit is from memory so I could be off.  So use Re in place of the emitter resistor in the previous equation.

[syndromet]

I ordered the futurlec packs. Loved all packs except the resistor pack. Almost all the values are below 1k, but the rest is good.

[mdh]

I ordered the futurlec packs. Loved all packs except the resistor pack. Almost all the values are below 1k, but the rest is good.

That's my experience as well. I actually ordered two resistor packs from Futurlec, thinking that they might be semi-random assortments. They're not. Both packs were identical, and though I don't remember the values off the top of my head, there were a lot of low resistance values that I almost never see in schematics. Very few between 10k and 100k,and almost none above 100k.

The mylar cap pack was pretty good, but they are larger than the "greenies" that I get from Mouser, and the electrolytic pack was good as well.