I just bought LTAoE in order to study circuit design, but the BOM on eevblog is way too expensive. Are there cheaper replacements for the parts required to complete all of the labs?

Thanks

 

What's the parts list?

 

Dont know about EEVBlog or the needed parts but personally there are two way of going about this:

Ebay - Dead cheap parts from china
Online distributor (such as rapid or farnell) - More expensive but better when bought in bulk

 

What's the parts list?

The parts list is here but the total comes up to around 500$ http://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/learning-the-art-of-electronics-parts-bom/

 

the BOM on eevblog is way too expensive.

for the most part, generic parts are sufficient.

if you list the parts you want, others may be able to help you better.

 

@rohkes
The sections of the book that focus on "low noise" gets quite expensive. The parts from Linear Technologies can be eliminated or replaced with non-low noise parts. Save that section until you understand the basics. Also true for many of the logic chips. (Low noise circuits only work as low noise when mounted on PCBs so it is not worth the price to spend on a low noise chip if you are plugging it into a breadboard with jumper wires everywhere.

The potentiometers from Bourns can be replaced with generic potentiometers.

You can cut more than half of the price of the bill of materials by making these changes. Some of the chips from Linear and Maxim are more than $15 and that adds up quickly.

 

@rohkes
Low noise circuits only work as low noise when mounted on PCBs so it is not worth the price to spend on a low noise chip if you are plugging it into a breadboard with jumper wires everywhere.

And just because they are mounted to a PCB does not mean you will take advantage of the low noise components. A keen understanding of PCB design would be needed.

 

out of the total $200 cost, $70 are in some flash chips -> a total rip-off I would say.

And many of the parts can be replaced with generic parts, costing far less.

The issue, however, is a chicken-and-egg one: as you are learning, you may not have the knowledge to know which ones can be replaced with what else.

The author could have done a far better job at gearing the parts for lower cost.

 

Keeping aside the possibility of burning some of them (count on it!), I believe that most of what you could build would be a temporary implementation so much of the parts could be reused.

Now that I think of it, if I add the cost of all I bought in my life as a hobbyist, sums pretty much those 500 multiplied by a huge factor. As in many things in life, perspective matters.

 

Now that I think of it, if I add the cost of all I bought in my life as a hobbyist, sums pretty much those 500 multiplied by a huge factor. As in many things in life, perspective matters.

Which begs the question, how much did you profit from that investment?

 

I have always had a project and the next project in mind. Ordered extra parts for both. Eventually you will build such supply of parts you won't know what to do with them.

1k, 10K resistors and appropriate values for LED current limiting resistors is nice to have as supply handy as well as caps for decoupling.

If you pick an area of interest, that will help to determine the parts you have on hand. Mine is MCUs so I have a supply of parts on hand that can at least get me started in a project.

 

Which begs the question, how much did you profit from that investment?

The things he learned through that investment has resulted in his interesting and active membership in AAC that is priceless.

 

The things he learned through that investment has resulted in his interesting and active membership in AAC that is priceless.

Which begs: How much did AAC pay you for that statement?

 

Which begs: How much did AAC pay you for that statement?

A non-disclosure agreement prevents me from talking in specific numbers but I can say that they double my pay each time each time I say something nice about the site.

 

A non-disclosure agreement prevents me from talking in specific numbers but I can say that they double my pay each time each time I say something nice about the site.

​

 

The things he learned through that investment has resulted in his interesting and active membership in AAC that is priceless.

I was thinking to reply in line with that motto ending "For everything else, there's Mastercard" but
yes, it was worth the expense and the effort to collect the necessary money in the first years.

 

Digikey offers a combined (analog and digital) kit which includes 91 items from the LTAOE BOM for $265. If you buy the analog and digital kits separatly there are 114 items in the shopping lists. I don't know why the combined kit would have fewer items than the sum of the analog and digital kits; maybe there is a duplication of parts - parts which are used in both sections of the book. In any case, contrary to Digikey's claim, the kits do not include all the parts itemized in the book but does cover most of them.

http://www.digikey.com/en/resources/edu/harvard-lab-kit