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Good Start Up Electronics Kit

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Tom McCurdy

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It's comming up on my birthday... actually 4 minutes until my birthday. Anyway I will be getting a little money for it and Christmas and I was wondering what would be a good starter package of stuff to buy for messing around with electronics.

So far I have decided
Breadboards
resistors
capacitors
transistors
potentiometer
wire
IC's (555's 7490's 7448's etc)
LED's
seven segment displays

I am not sure which IC's I will be getting, I figure I will get a bunch of the 7400 series since there is less chance of me blowing them all up compared to say cmos chips.
I was also considering purchasing a basic stamp
I also need to purchase a power supply.
I was trying to stay around 100 dollars maximum but if its really cool (such as basic stamp) I realize I will have to go over. Lets say super cap of 350 dollars.
 
Atmel STK500. Comes with several microcontrollers and is a whole development kit for AVRs. Has 8 LED's and 8 switches, and can accomodate the majority of the Atmel AVR microcontrollers. A great forum is available at www.avrfreaks.net and free C tools for programming are available. JTAG clones to emulate the hardware are available for $40, and software to simulate the AVR is available free. The STK500 is $79 from www.digikey.com

For an additional $79 you can get the STK501 (which adds support for to of the larger chips) or an STK502 to gain access to the ATMega169 which has a built in LCD controller (note that these require the STK500 to operate).

With the STK500 you can learn sooooo much about programming microcontrollers. And because of the headers, you can get 10 pin ribbon cables and connect them up to breadboards so you can do things such as interface to IR sensors, or read voltages with an ADC, program flash devices.... There are free plans on the avrfreaks site for building MP3 players, interfacing with MMC cards, hard drives, recording and playing back speech.....

Or, if you actually might be interested in this but don't want to spend the money.... look into an AVR Butterfly. For about $20 you get the previously mentioned ATMega169 and an LCD, and I don't know what else cause I don't have one. But it worth more in parts than it is to buy it :)
 
I'd suggest using a PIC for your first micro for a couple of reasons:
1. Easier to program/code
2. Pics are used by alot more people, therefore alot more code is available
3. Many of the users on this board are knowledged in pic's so they can help you out.
4. These knowledged people are glad to help, whereas (in my experience) the people over at AVRFreaks.net arent nearly as friendly or helpful.


I also suggest some transistor arrays (ULN2803), these are great for driving high current loads from logic gates.
 
if you are planing on using TTL, just make sure to have good 5V power supply. old PC power supply will do but some of them might require 'convincing' to start (for example they expect to see load).
i used one for years but switched recently to more compact version which
is not nearly as powerfull but it's only 1/4 of the size and costed whooping $2.
About 2-3 Amps will do for most prototype kind of work while any decent 5V PSU will easily provide 10-30Amp. For small things you can use wall plug type PSU with 7805 regulator (get the TO220 style).
I don't like wall plugs because they cover three outlets on my power bar.
 
I'd put a cheap analog oscilloscope on your wishlist too. A scope is by far the most useful peice of test equipment you can buy.

something like this: https://www.testequipmentdepot.com/instek/oscilloscopes/gos-310.htm is worth a look. Ebay also has tons of quality used scopes for cheap.

On the issue of micorcontrollers: the AVR suggested by Noggin has a free C compiler. Personaly I hate coding in assembly. If you have any high level programming experience you are probably better off with C. But when it comes down to it all microcontrollers are basicly the same, but with various different speeds and peripherals. I do recommend getting a kit for your controller though - it'll make your life much easier.

For ICs, companies like Allelectronics.com and Jameco.com sell grabbags of ICs, and resistors. Sparkfun.com also has lots of cool stuff, including AVR kits, for good prices.
 
To add to BMCCULLA's good tips, I would also recommend a Digital multimeter of some kind.

Lot of decent low cost ones available today


for any kind of half-serious work:

Minimum:
4000 counts
AC/DC V & I & OHMS

Nice to have:
Diode test
Measure C or L or both
Transistor Hfe test
Continuity
Frequency
 
Also, you need soldering equipment if you are going to hardwire anything together. If you end up enjoying electronics, you will eventually need soldering equipment as some thing just should not be built with solderless breadboard.

Also for components and parts on a low budget:
Mail order mail order mail order!

Radio shack = good if and only IF you need a grubby part within the hour. as in gotta have it NOW! :lol:

If you can wait a few days, go online and get samples (usually free!) or try digikey.com, mouser.com. If you buy quantities, you get better price/part costs. Most companies offer samples either free or just shipping cost. And as already suggested, ebay is good too.

I have some doubts about how good of an o-scope you can get on ebay for a cost around $100. If you strike out there, PM me, I have some you might be interested in that I'm not trying to recover any money on.
 
I am just starting too and have been picking up some stuff. Check out Jameco.com, look at the component grab bags. Or Futurlec.com and there value packs. I got all the value packs from Futurlec and most every thing will be useable, not old stuff you'll never use. Other than the breadboard and wire, everything can be had in a grab bag.

Get a few breadboards, and don't go for the cheap ones like I did, it will cause much grief.
I am going to learn the basics before going to PIC’s or AVR’s, so can’t help there.
Keep in mind that even though things like IC’s only cost .20-.50 cent the orders add up quick when you get a few of these and a few of those.

If you need a DMM look here https://www.web-tronics.com/index.html they have a deal for a free meter with a $50 order, and there prices look good too.

Todd
 
We should just create a microcontroller FAQ. It seems there's a battle over the best starter microcontroller at least once a month.
 
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