what components to buy?

[Mark S.]

Hi,

Really pleased when i found this board and i am sure it will be of great benefit to me. I have just got into electronics recently and have been working through a book called starting electronics by Keith Brindly.

So far i have been doing little experiments such as measuring resistance, current and voltage , drawing exponential curve graphs and have made a couple of circuts using an NE555 timer.

I have bought the following stuff from Maplin.

multimeter , breadboard, resistor pack, electrolytic capaciter pack,LED pack random transistor and diode pack, cable and a couple of on off switches.

couple of questions.

1. I live in England . Is Maplin the best place to order components from. What are the alternatives.

2. I feel limited by what i can do with the above list. I want to spend around £50 on components for as wide a range of projects as possible. All projects will be performed on a breadboard. Can you good people give recommendations of what components i should buy which would be used time and time again for simple circuits i can make in the coming months.

For example specific diodes, transitors, ic's etc.

Thanks Mark S.

 

[Dr.EM]

In the UK, I reccomend https://www.rapidonline.com/ much cheaper and more selection than Maplin. Fast delivery too as the name suggests

These parts should be useful:
op-amps TL071/081/741 (741 for low bandwidth only, can be simpler as it doesn't oscillate easily)
2N3904 NPN signal transistors
2N3906 PNP signal transistors
2N2222 NPN
Logic gates - I like the 4000 series, NAND, AND, OR, NOR, INVERTORS etc
Voltage regulators, 7805, LM317
1N4148 signal diodes
1N4002 rectifier diodes

 

[ClydeCrashKop]

It depends on whether you want to go analog or digital. For me digital IC chips are easy to work with because that’s the way I think. The 74LSxx series operate at 5v and the 40xx series are good for 14v. An IC cookbook will explain what they all do. Other books have a variety of little circuits that you can add together and build anything your imagination can come up with. Any Engineer’s Notebooks by Forrest M Mimms are great. Electronic hobby magazines are good for explaining how & why things work. Any ideas you have for project, you can find on the internet and add them together or modify them to do what you want. You can learn a lot from kits.
78xx voltage regulators come in handy.
MOSFET transistors will turn on a heavy load on the ground side.
I seem to use LM339 comparators a lot to see if a voltage is above or below your set point.
I would just buy components as needed. Electronics is an inexpensive way to be creative. If you let the magic smoke out of a 50 cent IC chip, so what.
Until you get into microcontrollers, most chips are like that 555, they take input, do their job to it and send output.
Don’t take it too serious, be creative and HAVE FUN

 

[StopGo]

A Good book: The Art of Electronics by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill
ISBN 0-521-37095-7

Other places to order components..
http://rswww.com
http://uk.farnell.com

 

[Hero999]

If analogue is your choice you'll need lots of resistors, I'd buy 10 of each of the E12 series plus another 10 of the E6 series, from 10R to 1M, all 1% tollerance metal film type.

You also need a range of capacitors, get the E6 series from 4.2pF to 4,700uF 10 of each plus another 10 of 1nF, 100nF, 1uF and 10uF.

https://www.logwell.com/tech/components/resistor_values.html

Some LEDs are also very handy, also some 8ohm speakers, go to your local tip an salvage thm from old TVs and radios.

 

[Dr.EM]

Yep, you might also want electret capsules and piezos for audio work etc. If you are into doing audio, you might want some mylar capacitors too, they are also fairly accurate for 555 timers etc, much more so than electrolytic. If you use Rapid, these packs are convenient. My resistor pack has proved very useful, though often now I buy packs of 100 metal film 1% for audio work at a pound or so a go

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Also if you get 8ohm speakers, you should buy some LM386 mini power amplifiers for them. They are useful, especially without an oscilloscope.