Hi guys
I would like to make some simple circuits, but i would like to make them very small. I can't seem to find anywhere online that sells very small components such as the leds and resistors on the arduino board itself, and on the breakout boards from sparkfun. Is it possible to buy these components?
many thanks
lookup smd components.
digikey and mouser for sure sell them, and im pretty sure i've seen them at fry's if you have a local one.
ah brilliant! thank you very much 
just had no idea where to look!
Could you help me with another question? I've taken apart a few toys recently with tiny pcb's that must have an IC or two in the circuit to create a few flashing led sequences depending on how many times you press a button, something like a 555 timer and counter etc. But where i'm guessing these IC's were was instead a hard black shiny blob attached to the circuit that you couldn't see through and i didn't really want to start cutting into it to find out what was under it.
So my question is, is that what is inside the black blobs, and is it possible to acquire such tiny pre-assembled timer/sequencers?
So my question is, is that what is inside the black blobs, and is it possible to acquire such tiny pre-assembled timer/sequencers?
Under the black blob is the silicon wafer that would normally be found inside an IC chip. The manufacturer finds it cheaper to buy the wafers instead of a finished chip and then mount that directly to the PCB. The black blob is a plastic/glue to protect the wafer. There's nothing you can do to reuse it, it's much too fragile.
If you look on the datasheet for the ATmega168 on the ordering information page, it will say something like "in wafer form please contact your local Atmel sales office for detailed ordering information." You could actually buy this chip as a bare wafer as well.
As far as the post about SMD. Make sure you don't get anything smaller than a 1206 part (it means 12 mil by 6 mil (mil = 0.001 inches). Even those are very hard to hand solder but smaller is even harder.
wow, that's pretty amazing. how would you go about programming an ATmega168 or other chip in wafer form. can you put it into housing to program it before taking it out and using in a circuit?
thank you so much guys! you're awesome