You know it's all about ME, right...?
Seriously.....Im looking to get an assortment of components to practice with....
I have a breadboard, hook up wire and a VOM.
My power supply is 0 to 30 VDC....and 0-3 Amps....
Would some of you guys come up with a list of components that you would recommend to have on hand to practice with..?
I have about $40.00 in my budget for components..
No microcontroller chips yet....
switches
pots
resistors
caps
leds
buzzers
temp sensor
And any other thing you might recommed
Id rather get help from you guys than the helper at my Radio Shack store......
I'll buy on line....
thanks
D.

 

If you can, resist the temptation to stock up with stuff at this stage.
You are not (yet) at the stage of making good buying decisions.

I suggest you find a few simple projects that attract you to build and obtain the relevent parts for these.

Say perhaps

a CMOS oscillator (flasher).

A simple voltage regulator (you will need plenty of these in projects)

Some potatoes, lemons, and other veg. Bio-electronics can be great fun, and very cheap.

Is you multimeter digital or analog and what is its lowest voltage range?

If you own a watch you could consider some timing circuits with a '555' chip.

But try to find some area to concentrate on to start with don't try to cover it all at once. You will learn more with each project and have fun along the way.
The advantage of following a structured route, such as I posted in your other thread, is that some expert has already charted a route to cover most of the important things with tried and tested experiments.

Electronics hobby mags and some internet sites (plenty of references at AAC) run such structured courses.

 

you've got 40 bucks , so just get a few pots , resistors , caps ,inductors, mini speaker ,ldr, switches , a few PNP and NPN transistors , a few 555 timer chips etc and just play around with them . Will cost you less than 10 bucks .

 

Drive down to Radio Shack and get the biggest "X Experiments in a Box" or learning lab kit you can afford. They happen to have one for $39.97 which may fit your exact budget.

Give em a look see, you may see one that looks more interesting then the others. Learning the basics is a lot of dog work, but it's more interesting if it is part of something you are interested in.

I agree with not talking to the guy behind the counter, except for a few pleasantries as you pay for the stuff. I always feel I have to run interference to get past the guys to the parts drawers in the back.

 

I would buy...

- resistor assortment pack (e12 series for about $12 on eBay)
- capacitor assortment pack (you won't need anything above 1000 uF of below 1nF if just starting out)

- few rail-to-rail single supply op Amps

- 2 to 4 pieces of 555 timers or 556 timers
- LED assortment (so you can see something flash/respond)

- get a strip of 2n3904 and 2n3906 transistors (25 to 100 each - about $0.02 each at some sites). (100 mA)
- BC337 and BC327 transistor (500 to 800 mA power)

That should cover a lot of the basics. Look at ordering everything separately on eBay. Or look at bundling the parts and ordering from a site like taydaelectronics.com. I think this site charges based on number of parts for freight. Digikey gets expensive for the resistors and caps. They are very reasonable for chips and non-standard parts.



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You can stop by some estate sale/ garage sale or goodwill to pick up some old clock radios, boom boxes and/or low power stereo receivers. Take them apart and strip out the transformers, inductors, switches, pots, speakers, large power supply filter caps and anything else that looks interesting. You can pick up clock radios for $1 (or maybe you already have one). 1970s and 1980s era is the best. Just use these for experimenting. Don't rely n them for projects - (old caps may be weak and pots may have some dead spots on them).

Don't bother with laptops or other devices that are unexpectedly small for their capabilities (the parts are too small to bother extracting).