Buying Kits

Hi,

If you are a hobbyist (just starting), and going to be doing breadboard projects, and learning Arduino, and just tinkering, what would be the best resisters and capacitors to buy?

I am looking to by 100 through hole resisters, 10 of each value.

For example:

220, 1K, 560E, etc... Which values would be the most useful? Someone told me buy everything from 10-1M, but I don't know what that includes.

Also,

What value capacitors would you buy?

My goal is to get 100 resisters and some capacitors to start with, so I can start doing projects, and have enough different values to tinker with.

Lastly, would you buy 1/4W or 1/8W resistors, and 10% TOL?

Any other components that I should add to my kit?

SO BASICALLY, if you were going to buy a kit, what would be the best components to have in it?

Thanks.

50
100
220
270
330
1K
2.2K
3.3K
4.7
10K

The rest will not be used for digital electronics

Same with caps
22pF 50V
100nF/0.1uF 50V
1uF 50V
3.3uF 50V
10uF 50V
47uF 50V

resistors, 1/4W good for most everything

Thanks, that helps a lot.

  1. Should I use 10% or 5% resistors?

  2. Should I use non-polarized capacitors? It's less worry when connecting them, but I don't know if they are suitable for these types of projects.

  3. Can you recommend any other components that are common and I should buy? Anything else that I might find myself needing... I am just doing some basic breadboard projects, learning components, and I have a few Arduino books.

I have been looking at several Web sites, but they all have different answers, and I'm not sure if those sites are trustworthily.

I usually see 5% resistors. I rarely see 10%.

The larger value capacitors will be polarized. 10uF, 47uF

I like playing with lights, so LEDs are fun.

pushbuttons ?

Take a look through your books and see which projects interest you. It is usually cheaper to buy everything at once.

I'm looking at some sample projects. I'm trying to get a few things at once. Just looking for extra ideas from people who know more about it.

Should I use carbon film, or metal film resistors? I don't know which ones are better for these types of projects.

Thanks!

For most stuff we play with, the cheap ones are just fine. Get a bunch of the 0,1uf ceramic caps - use them close to any chips you are using between the power and ground pins to bypass noise. A couple of places I often get "neat stuff" from are Digikey.com, Mouser.com and Jameco.com The selection Crossroads lists is a good list of R and C values - the lower R values are for things like current limiting on LED's etc. and the higher values (2.2k, 4.7k etc.) are used for pull-up or pull-down on switches etc. I would also consider buying a couple of the 5v switchmode supplies with the 2.1mm connector on them rated at an amp or two since you will quickly find the regulator on the Arduino is under powered when you start trying to drive other shields etc (and the USB current is typically quite limited if you are running off a usb cable). Jameco and others have the switchmode (a switching supply that is more efficient, smaller and less heat than a linear one) supplies for a reasonable ($10-$15) price.

  1. Can you recommend any other components that are common and I should buy? Anything else that I might find myself needing... I am just doing some basic breadboard projects, learning components, and I have a few Arduino books.

You need to stand in front of a mirror, look yourself straight in the eye , and ask yourself:

"Am I SERIOUS about this hobby ? Or is this just a flash in the pan that will be gone in a few weeks ?"

If the answer is "YES" (assuming you wouldn't lie to yourself), then you should invest in a multimeter, commonly referred to on the forum as a DMM (Digital Multi Meter). Anyone fooling around with electronics for more than a few weeks should own one. You really can't get very far without it. (you COULD , if you were really smart, but if you were THAT smart, you would buy the meter FIRST, and the resistors second,
but that's just me.

Hi,

I already have a multimeter and it does pretty much everything, even checking capacitors, and transistors with special plugs.

My degree is in computer science so I have played with this stuff before, but these types of electronics weren't a huge part of my degree so I didn't get a lot of experience with them. We just learned some of the very basics, most of which I have forgot.

I bought the Arduino Starter Kit a couple years ago and I have been playing with it on and off since. I was in school a lot so I haven't had time to do anything in a few months, but I am done now so I want to start doing these again.

I have like 20 kits from Elenco which are projects I can build, but I don't want to do soldering right now. I just want to start with the breadboards and once I figure out what I am doing, I can try to assemble the Elenco kits.

I did 9 years in computer science, and this stuff interests me more than most of the other things I learned. This type of stuff went more with the engineering degree, so I only got a little time with it.

I can see why you feel that way about soldering but I think you are really missing the boat. If you get a good Weller 35W iron (not a temp controlled unit , just an iron) and some good 60/40 rosen core solder,
and practice soldering, every day, within a week you will be good enough that you can build any circuit on a proto board using point to point soldering. You design the layout (I like to mimic the schematic layout) , you install the components, then you use whatever guage wire you need to make the connections. Most of them can be done using 30 gauge wire wrap wire. The current carrying wires can be 22 guage solid copper.
(I buy the three roll pack from RadioShack of 22 guage red,black and green insulated solid copper wire. I built about 50 circuits that way when I was cross-training myself from full time restaurant cook.
Check out the breadboarded lighting controller I built in 1982 (my 3rd yr in electronics)

(that's a Heathkit meter on the lower right, and a heineken bottle on the left of the controller (upper right of photo))

What's my point ? In order to build any contollers or circuits or boxes with things in them , you need to be able to solder. You don't learn to solder by avoiding it. You learn to solder by doing it. Your first attempt may look like crap but eventually you'll get good at it and then you can literally build anything.
Why always be on this side of the river looking at what's happening on the other side ? Why not just jump in and swim across the river ?

@raschemmel

Will you please show us the Frizing drawing for that . . .

adele:
I have like 20 kits from Elenco which are projects I can build, but I don't want to do soldering right now. I just want to start with the breadboards and once I figure out what I am doing, I can try to assemble the Elenco kits.

It is much quicker to put together a circuit by breadboarding. If you do something wrong, it is much easier to fix.

I know. I do the point-to-point soldering, and to me, it is a major pain the butt.

I didn't know Elenco was still around.

LarryD:
@raschemmel

Will you please show us the Frizing drawing for that . . .

I had to zoom in on that one. I thought it was a small hairy dog standing next to the controller. Yes, the fritzing diagram would be good to see, so I can know how to wire it up.

I'm not really trying to avoid soldering, but I just don't have the ability to do it right now. I live in a very tiny 1 room place. I don't have any safe place to setup a hot iron, and I have no place to vent any fumes. I tried soldering a couple years ago when I bought the starter kit, and it got really bad in here quickly. The fumes started to give me a headache.

I need to wait until I get into a bigger place so I can do it correctly, and vent the fumes.

@raschemmel

Will you please show us the Frizing drawing for that . . .

ha ha . yeah, I lost the schematic about 20 years ago. I think it was about 30 pages but I can tell you is was all LM555 one shots and astables with CD4016 analog switches.
It was for Tribute 82 (The Los Angeles Museum of Fine Arts Contemporary Art Council Awards Banquet, in Paramount Studios Sound Stage 13 (where the first Star Trek Movie was filmed) Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner were the guest speakers.
Sound Stage 13 is a 200 foot long sound stage with a very high ceiling.
There were 6 metal rings welded out of metal tubes , each with 16 segments of neon in them , wired in groups of 4, and sequenced 1,2,3,4 creating a POV illiusion of rotation. It was all conceived and buillt by Sam Salde (my boss) who a lighting designer hired by all the movie stars and VIPs in those days. My job was the design , construction and operation of the lighting controller, to create the illusion of flying saucer landing and taking off. This sounds difficult at first but when I explain how it was done, you will probably just say, "I could have thought of that !".
There are 6 rings, the smallest is 3 feet in diameter. All of the rings are metal frames suspended by chains from the ceiling of the sound stage. The largest is 30 FEET in diameter and the other 4 rings were increasing sizes (3',6',12', 15', 20',30').
Each ring had a "rotation speed" pot (channel sequence speed ).
The smallest was set to the fastest speed.
Each larger ring was set to a slower speed.
There was an astable controlling the ring sequence speed which was the speed of the sequencing of the lights from one ring to the next. This was done by multiplexing the enable of the analog switches which connected the output of the ring rotation channels to the power transistor base resistors. Everything was 12V CMOS. By gating the analog switches , I could control whether a ring was on or off. If it was on, it was sequencing at the preset speed. In order to create the illusion of a flying saucer, the rings had to sequence from the distance to the forefront, so the rings were suspended at varying angles to make it look like the saucer was tipped at an angle in the distance and leveling off as it prepared to land.
There was two sets of signals for each ring. One was ALL channels ON. The other was all channels sequenced (1,2,3,4). By using an OR circuit controlled by a toggle switch, I could sequence the rings so that ALL 16 neon lights were sequencing OR all 16 neon lights were ALL ON. This was done by selecting one group of 4016 analog switches or the OTHER group (one controlled sequenced channels while the other group controlled channels ALL on. I also had controls to reverse the sequence direction to make the saucer take off. There were other controls to make all the lights in a ring pulse on and off before take off.
(the 30 foot ring is where the saucer landed and where it took off from). The fact that it took months to design and 27 hours straight to build, the most notable thing is that it worked on perfectly on the first test which was the ONLY test, which was performed for the FIRE MARSHAL. Large parties like that in Hollywood typically had a rule that the operation test was performed EXACTLY at NOON on the day of the party. If if FAILED . You (and ALL YOUR EQUPMENT) were promptly evicted from the premises, so it was literally a DROP DEAD DEADLINE. I plugged in the last wire at 11:45 am and told my boss I was ready.
He looked at his watch and just said "cutting it kind of close, aren't you Bob ?"

Look at the attached photo.
(the lights are on slow sequence mode because the guests are dancing to live Waltz music)

TRIBUTE 82-A.pdf (463 KB)

TRIBUTE 82-B.pdf (487 KB)

I had to zoom in on that one.

If you zoomed in on it, you saw the labels on each of the white wires. I might add, for those of you who can't wait to build one, that the trick to this setup is that the breadboard wires are 22 guage SOLID, soldered to flexible 22 guage stranded. As I am sure you can image, that many 22 guage solid wires together would never work, which is why they are stranded, but stranded won't plug into the breadboard, which explains the blue solid wires. I don't think I'm going to be able to do the Fritzing for that. sorry .
I will mention that I tested every one of the circuits on the breadboard after building them, so when I did the final test, it was actually not necessary (for me anyway) because I never built the next circuit until the previous one has passed the function test. In all there were about 30 separate circuits (at least) and all of them were built, one by one and tested one by one. That is the only way a complex circuit like that can be breadboarded. You start with one circuit and get that working and then move on the next. You can't pay attention to all the circuits as they pile up because it is like looking down when you are walking a tightrope.
You have to focus on the next circuit and then the next circuit and keep doing that for 27 hours straight and hope that if you fall asleep in the middle of the night,the tip of the soldering iron will fall in the palm of your hand and wake you up immediately (that actually happened by the way).

adele:
I'm not really trying to avoid soldering, but I just don't have the ability to do it right now. I live in a very tiny 1 room place. I don't have any safe place to setup a hot iron, and I have no place to vent any fumes. I tried soldering a couple years ago when I bought the starter kit, and it got really bad in here quickly. The fumes started to give me a headache.

I need to wait until I get into a bigger place so I can do it correctly, and vent the fumes.

You'll probably need to do a small amount of soldering, for example soldering headers on a Pro Mini or other various modules, so they are ready to plug into a breadboard. For that, perhaps you can find an outdoor area such as a picnic area or pavilion that happens to have some electric outlets. Patio. Starbucks, maybe. :slight_smile:

Check out some of the soldering videos on Youtube. There are some tricks to it like make sure the connection is clean, use rosin core flux (never acid core) and don't overheat the connection or the iron. A bit of practice and watching a few examples and you will do just fine. Heat the joint and feed the solder in, do not heat the solder and drop it on the joint. We will pass on the fine pitch SMD stuff for the first lessons :slight_smile: One important trick learned over the years (the hard way I might add ... ) - if you drop the hot iron when you are working, do NOT grab for it - you are sure to grab the hot end - never fails :o

Unless you're falling asleep..

raschemmel:
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Wow - Richard Diebenkorn! I would have loved to have met him. Posters of his paintings are all over my house.](Buying Kits - General Electronics - Arduino Forum)