Starting with nothing, where to buy and what to get?

[WonderAliceLand]

I am having to divorce my wife due to continued abuse. I am on disability so I have all the time in the world to learn and I am intellectual enough to follow instructions (especially video instructions). I am thrilled to see all of the information and tutorials as well as the friendly help on this forum!

One thing I haven't been able to locate is a good list of trusted sources to buy from when it comes to individual pieces. I have been looking at aliexpress and there are a lot of sellers that seem to have great deals (556 chip for 20 cents) but I don't know if this price is good, if these are real, or if aliexpress should even be used.

I plan on this to be a personal modular setup as well as other devices. I don't know if I should be going for package deals or if I should just try to source parts from the cheapest places online.

All help is appreciated, thank you so much in advance!

[extralifedisco]

Sorry to hear about your divorce, but welcome to the DIY forum!

I would suggest starting with some complete kits for your first modules - traditionally one starts with an oscillator so you have something to hear when you finish it. Or you could start with building a case and power supply if you are handy. Kits are good because they give you a feel for the size and parts and assembly methods involved. And if (when) they don't work, you're not scratching your head wondering if it's your mistake or some bum part from across the ocean, since you can trust the components.

There are lots of good synth-specific sites to buy kits, like synthcube, modular-addict, and the like. For electronic components, the big names are Mouser and Digikey. If you're lucky, there's a distributor nearer to you where you can get faster shipping (I buy from Jameco here in the bay when they have the part I need).

Aliexpress and ebay parts are *usually* fine, especially for bulk stuff like resistors, diodes, capacitors, etc. In fact I'd suggest getting a "resistor kit" from there, as well as starter kits of diodes, transistors, capacitors (electrolytic and ceramic) for your parts bin. The quality is usually good enough (though not for demanding pieces like power supplies). For more specialized parts like ICs (opamps, microcontrollers) you're taking a gamble with import parts. 555s would probably be fine but with newer designs or out-of-manufacture parts, they're often fakes. Plus it's way easier to put together a full bill of materials (BOM) with mouser or digikey and verify you've got everything you need.

The price savings are seldom worth the wait and doubt unless you're buying a ton of parts (e.g. for manufacture), so get those bulk parts from importers in advance and you'll have them around when you need them.

[Rex Coil 7]

Member *WonderAliceLand and Member *extralifedisco ....

Welcome Home.

[Rex Coil 7]

Top Drawer component vendors:

Mouser - LINK = https://www.mouser.com/?utm_source=bing ... d%20Mouser

Digikey - LINK = https://www.digikey.com/


Discount parts vendors (you need to be aware that alot of what places like these offer are "b stock" or really cheapo second rate parts ... sometimes it doesn't matter but other times it really matters a lot):

allelectronics - LINK = https://www.allelectronics.com/

MPJA - LINK = https://www.mpja.com/


Switches, pots, knobs, resistors, capacitors, transistors, opamps, knobs, enclosures, stomp-box type parts houses;

Bitches Love My Switches - LINK = https://lovemyswitches.com/

Pedal Parts Plus - LINK = https://www.pedalpartsplus.com/

Small Bear Electronics - LINK = http://smallbear-electronics.mybigcommerce.com/


Hardware (screws, nuts, bolts, washers) ... I only use this one vendor .. over years of building stuff these people have really proven themselves to be pretty much the best place going:

Fastener Express - LINK = https://www.fastener-express.com/


MilSpec Aircraft Grade wire (suppliers of "Tefzel" Teflon insulated 19 strand MilSpec wire that I use in all of my projects):

Sky Geek - LINK = https://www.skygeek.com/military-specif ... -wire.html


Raw Metals, cut to rough length .. aluminum, stainless steel, and so on:

Online Metals - LINK = https://www.onlinemetals.com/?msclkid=8 ... r%20Intent


Front Panel Manufacturers .... makers of modular synth front panels ... you use their proprietary design program to design your modular synth front panel, send them the design file and usually inside of a few days it arrives on your doorstep. Well known among nearly all DIY synth hobbyists within our membership for doing outstanding work very reasonably priced:

Front Panel Express - LINK = https://www.frontpanelexpress.com/


If you have any questions please feel free to send me a PM, I'll be more than happy to help.

[nurbivore]

I think it's worth adding one store to Rex's list - Tayda Electronics. I wouldn't quite call them "top shelf", but they are certainly reputable enough. Their prices are way better than Mouser/Digikey on a lot of things, just with a somewhat smaller selection and longer ship times. Quality is totally fine for DIY, but I wouldn't use them as a supplier for production runs or anything.

Kits are good, start with those.

And since this seems to come up a lot, no, Mouser and Digikey don't carry the potentiometers, knobs, or 3.5mm jacks that you probably want. You're probably going to have to go with a smaller, hobbyist-focused shop (Tayda, Modular Addict, etc).

[mskala]

I don't think trying to bulk buy makes sense as a way to save money unless you are willing and able to modify circuit designs to take advantage of the parts you have on hand. If you're building existing designs from others, then every project is going to require at least a few unique parts not used in anything else, and (importantly) those are the expensive parts that cost most of the money. So getting a good deal on commonly-used parts you think are in everything, doesn't really save much of the overall cost of building. You might save 50% on resistors, for a project containing $1 of resistors and a $50 panel. Unless you can save real money on the $50 part, even getting the resistors for free would not make a practical difference. I've written about this in more detail in my Web log.

Another issue is that "common" parts may not really be so common after all. Many are subject to fiddly details like circuit-board footprint (the pattern of holes on the board into which the component leads fit). These things are not universally standardized. It's really disappointing to invest in a bulk stock of something expensive like multiturn trimmers, then want to use them on a given board and find they don't fit there and you still need to buy more, just for the one project. I've written about this as well.

I was looking at it primarily from the point of view of saving money, which is how people usually formulate the question, but it's also relevant to issues like "are the parts genuine?". Should you wish to buy resistors at cut price from AliExpress, okay, you won't really save much money because resistors don't cost much to begin with, but at least they'll probably work. But if you're trying to save money on expensive ICs - especially, as others mentioned, if they're out of production - then you're presenting a much bigger target for the scammers. After all, with a chip that was only made in the USA in the 1980s, how does someone in China in 2018 get them to sell at all? At best, by pulling them out of old equipment. At worst, by sanding off the part number on something else and re-marking it. There are semiconductor factories in China to be sure but they aren't producing brand-new clones of decades-old analog ICs.

The important qualification is that that's all relevant if you are building from existing designs. If you are in a position to do your own designs, or to make meaningful changes to existing designs, then there's a better case to be made for buying parts in bulk and keeping an inventory, because you can suit your projects to your stock and at least save effort, maybe a little money too.

[chloeprice]

Hello,
I have been DIYing for about a year now and I think that I know quite some "common" parts that I wish I had known that they are common before. (I started out too buying components from aliexpress, and since shipping times tend to be long, ordering everything just when I need it was a pain in the b)

I would defenitely reccomend assorted kits for Resistors, Caps and Elkos. Buying boxes of things tend to be a bit more expensive than buying them loosely (resealable bags), but manually labelling everything, putting stuff in boxes and then having to search when you need something is not fun. So here is what I personally would tell myself to buy:

• ICs:
  TL074 Quad Opamps (very common)
  TL072 Dual Opamps
  (of course you could also buy LM358/324 ones, but I have never needed them)
  LM13700 OTAs (while relatively expensive, also extremely versatile. For Filters, VCAs, variable resistors, waveshaping...)
  CD4069 Inverters (check out the Logic Noise series on Hackaday or the 4069 VCO)
  
  Caps:
  10uf Elkos (Almost always between +-12v and GND for decoupling)
  100nf (One for each opamp supply, also the most common value I use)
  An "assorted capacitor kit" (thats how they are called on ali)
  
  Resistors:
  100k
  An "assorted capacitor kit".
  
  Potentiometers:
  1M, 500k, 250k, 100k, 50k, 10k (you can get 10 pots them for around 2€)
  
  
  Other:
  General purpose NPN/PNP transistors. (e.g BC547 and BC557)
  99% of the time, you can use these as a drop-in replacement for any other transistor youll come across.
  1N4148 Diodes
  Some 3MM leds, because leds are cool

[J3RK]

Rex has you covered for most things. Nice list!

For actual kits, panels, PCBs, etc. I would also recommend:

Synthcube
Modular Addict
Thonk

Those shops are run by people that frequent (or have frequented) this site, and have pretty decent prices, selections, and good service. If they've got something you need, I wouldn't hesitate to get it from there.

For more common components, I pretty much only use Mouser these days. (or Digikey for things that Mouser doesn't stock for whatever reason)

Side Note: Blacet kits are a great way to learn synth DIY. There is the whole format thing that goes with that (Frac is a slower moving format) but the documentation is really quite extraordinary.

[gigasturtz]

I don't think I've seen anyone mention it yet but to me there is one thing that is more important than absolutely anything else: buy a GOOD soldering iron.

I use one of these but there are plenty of other good options. The kind that is just the handle that plugs directly into the wall that one might also use for decorative wood burning will lead to frustration, tears, burnt parts, and a seething hatred for soldering.

[Jaytee]

I think it's worth adding one store to Rex's list - Tayda Electronics. I wouldn't quite call them "top shelf", but they are certainly reputable enough. Their prices are way better than Mouser/Digikey on a lot of things, just with a somewhat smaller selection and longer ship times. Quality is totally fine for DIY, but I wouldn't use them as a supplier for production runs or anything.

I would place Tayda more on the discount/b-quality products side of the spectrum. Quality is usually acceptable, especially for stuff like resistors/caps/pots, but not always. Quite a few reports of bad/out of spec ICs coming from Tayda, and I can speak personally to the fact that their IC sockets are hot garbage with pins so loose they fall out if you look at them wrong.

Don’t get me wrong, I still order a *lot* of stuff from tayda. They’re typically my first stop anytime I’m starting in on a BOM. They post a 15% or better discount code on Facebook every two weeks or so, which is makes them even more worthwhile. Just fair warning that some of their active or mechanical components may not always be up to snuff, so keep an eye open for such things if you find your build isn’t working.

I’ve also really been digging Arrow lately. They don’t have a huge selection compared to Mouser, but they have most common items. They are usually able to undercut Mouser’s prices by a little bit, and they have free shipping no matter what size the order, which makes them especially good for when you forget that one $2 part that would cost $8 to ship from Mouser.

eBay. Be particularly careful buying ICs or anything rare/out of production on eBay, as there are lots of fakes/counterfeits floating around...but on the other hand, sometimes you get lucky and find a good dealer with legit parts. Also good for very small orders, or mechanical/structural parts like screws, standoffs, etc. Ordering from Chinese sellers takes a long time for shipping, but you can get stuff ordered for just a buck or two.

Amazon doesn’t have much for electronic components, but they do have some tools and materials. Flush cutters, hook-up wire, etc. Never hurts to do a quick check, especially if you have Prime.

[Rex Coil 7]

Rex has you covered for most things. Nice list!

Thank you. I like helping the humans.

For actual kits, panels, PCBs, etc. I would also recommend:

Synthcube
Modular Addict
Thonk

Those shops are run by people that frequent (or have frequented) this site, and have pretty decent prices, selections, and good service. If they've got something you need, I wouldn't hesitate to get it from there.

I would add Oakley to that list as well. Very high quality boards, excellent pre and post sale customer service (Tony is a very helpful person), great pricing, and a shot ton of member support here within the forum.

I think it's worth adding one store to Rex's list - Tayda Electronics. I wouldn't quite call them "top shelf", but they are certainly reputable enough. Their prices are way better than Mouser/Digikey on a lot of things, just with a somewhat smaller selection and longer ship times. Quality is totally fine for DIY, but I wouldn't use them as a supplier for production runs or anything.

I would place Tayda more on the discount/b-quality products side of the spectrum.

Absolutely. I didn't list Tayda purposely. Components can be really hit-and-miss bought from Tayda. Often times you're talking about saving a few pennies when buying there. If a person is only building gear for their own use, it makes far better sense (to me) to use higher quality components. I've always bought all of my resistors, capacitors, ICs, LEDs, IC sockets, and so on at Mouser. I have been known to obtain Jfets and opamps from specialty houses since cloned crap of those items is such a common thing from less reputable vendors. To me it's not worth saving a few cents on something when I may have to spend an hour (or two, or four) troubleshooting/replacing some fuddup $0.32 cent part when I could have bought the same thing for $0.41 cents and not had to deal with spending hours to chase down a failure due to having used a crap-ass part.

Recently I bought the entire BOM for a Dual VCA board. The parts "project" I made up on Mouser ended up costing $41.00 per completed board. The same BOM purchased at Tayda would have been $38.00. So three bucks saved. I'm confident the in the quality of the components purchased at Mouser. It wasn't worth saving three lousy bucks on parts for what will be a $200.00 Dual VCA module when completed. It will be installed in a modular synth project that is configured in such a manner that does not allow easy access to individual modules should one take a shit on me. Rear access is difficult, and the module will only be able to be removed for service if I have access to the back of the synth ... which requires "moving Heaven and Earth" to get done. I want as much peace of mind as practical. That peace of mind is worth three stinkin' bucks to me!

Quality is usually acceptable, especially for stuff like resistors/caps/pots, but not always. Quite a few reports of bad/out of spec ICs coming from Tayda, and I can speak personally to the fact that their IC sockets are hot garbage with pins so loose they fall out if you look at them wrong. ..... Just fair warning that some of their active or mechanical components may not always be up to snuff, so keep an eye open for such things if you find your build isn’t working.

Good advice.

I’ve also really been digging Arrow lately. They don’t have a huge selection compared to Mouser, but they have most common items. They are usually able to undercut Mouser’s prices by a little bit, and they have free shipping no matter what size the order, which makes them especially good for when you forget that one $2 part that would cost $8 to ship from Mouser.

This can be a hassle, so you've made a great point! Agree!

eBay. Be particularly careful buying ICs or anything rare/out of production on eBay, as there are lots of fakes/counterfeits floating around...

Again, agreed!

....but on the other hand, sometimes you get lucky and find a good dealer with legit parts. Also good for very small orders, or mechanical/structural parts like screws, standoffs, etc. Ordering from Chinese sellers takes a long time for shipping, but you can get stuff ordered for just a buck or two.

I just took delivery of four joysticks from a Chinese vendor. Took about two weeks from hitting ~buy~ to arrival at my front door. At $12.50 per joystick (and free shipping!) it was a well spent $50.00 bucks.

Amazon doesn’t have much for electronic components, but they do have some tools and materials. Flush cutters, hook-up wire, etc. Never hurts to do a quick check, especially if you have Prime.

I would rather suggest one of the "discount houses" I listed in my "list posting" above for tools, consumables (solder, flux, desoldering braid, and so on). Certain tools are well bought at those places at times as well. But as far as hook-up wire goes, I always buy the best wire I can find. Good wire can make all the difference between a solid (and easy/fun) build and a pain in the ass, crappy looking build. I'm highly partial to using Tefzel insulated wire with high strand count and pre-tinned. Once you've tried using really nice wire you're spoiled forever and crap ass wire will never do after that. It solders far easier, it bends nicely, strips nicely, and makes your work look more professional with a higher degree of attention to detail more apparent.

[fuzzbass]

Thonk in UK is a great source for pots, knobs, jacks and kits. Shipping to the US is not cheap, but they take a lot of the headache out of "does this pot work with this PCB and knob"?

Get a good temperature controlled soldering system, either Hakko or Weller, should find it on ebay or amazon for a little north of $100. I use Weller WESD51. You will need a basic DMM, and some decent flush cutters.

IMO buying kits of resistors, caps or transistors, is at this point, not such a good investment. DIY projects coming out are pretty much equally mixed between through hole, SMD 0805 and SMD 0603. Figure out what types of modules you want to build and what form factor of parts go in, before you buy selections of parts.

If you are going for Euro format, I recommend you buy a basic powered case so you can power your modules right off. Don't build a power supply for your first project.

[Addam]

decent soldering iron is worth the extra few bucks for sure, as is good solder. There is a wealth of good info here:
http://synthtech.com/docs/MOTM_DIY_guide.pdf

I'm not going to wade into the Tayda quality debate, though I have used them a lot and have not had any detectable problems with components
BUT one thing I think seasoned veterans take for granted about Tayda and places like that is the ease of use for finding relevant parts. I typically will order most items from Mouser these days but finding simple parts like a 10uF electrolytic cap on mouser can be daunting with the number of choices if you're not sure which specs you need to be looking at.

My ultimate recommendation: try a couple simple kits and see if you like it. Then you can look for panel+pcb combos where the manufacturer provides a link to an existing mouser cart (many of them do, or are found on this forum) to wade into the miasma of parts ordering.

I'll also agree with mskala to not worry much about "stocking up" on parts. If you are ordering capacitors and there is a nice price break when ordering 10 then go for it but I find that I always order extras and have built up a decent stock (maybe?) yet I always have to order at least a couple parts for even small projects. I also agree that ultimately saving $2 over the course of your life by ordering some value transistor in mega bulk is really peanuts compared to what you are going to spending on panels, pcbs, pots, knobs, etc.

[plushterry]

I agree that you won't really save money by stocking up on parts, but when it's 4am and you suddenly have a powerful urge to build a new filter (or whatever) from the schematic you just found, that big box of components you've built up sure comes in handy

[l3v3l6]

I jumped into the DIY world this year and the first thing I did was buy cap and resistor kits of assorted values. In hindsight I probably would have held off on that purchase.


What I've discovered is that the range of values for caps and resistors in the DIY realm is rather narrow. By buying an assorted kit I ended up with a bunch of components that I'll probably never use.

My suggestion is to study a kit you want to build and just buy the parts you need.

Another vote for Tayda - Great place for caps and resistors and pots.

Also not mentioned is buying ICs directly from Texas Instruments. Their prices and shipping costs are usually less than Mouser or DigiKey.

[tojpeters]

Here is another voice warning against tayda and other cheap places
All the good quality parts at mouser are still made in China or something
So the tayda cheap prices aren’t because of lower labor costs
So either it is cheap material and poor quality control
Or the manufacturer is just a really great guy who doesn’t want to make money
Buy good stuff

[WonderAliceLand]

Thank you for the welcome and the huge list rex and to all of those who have added up to this point!

I really like the idea of using component lists and buying PCBs and faceplates. I totally forgot that a lot of those places have a button that add all of the pieces to a cart automatically. I was reading one person says "build 3 sell 2" to help keep cost down (since I have all the time in the world and I love honing a new craft, this is fine with me, especially since I've always loved things like legos).

chloeprice mentioned "Potentiometers: 1M, 500k, 250k, 100k, 50k, 10k (you can get 10 pots them for around 2€) " and I was wondering if these were pricing for the metal ones. I found plastic ones for that price, but best metal price I found was .50 usd each.

I am currently watching a soldering iron youtube video where a person is comparing the Weller WE101 vs the Hakko FX888D and I may chose one of these, totally unsure though.

I am wondering if I should do things like making a 556chip dual filter out of components or if I should stick with PCBs and faceplates.


Thanks again everyone!

[l3v3l6]

I am currently watching a soldering iron youtube video where a person is comparing the Weller WE101 vs the Hakko FX888D and I may chose one of these, totally unsure though.

I bought the Hakko. Excellent soldering workstation.

[Schlumpfhut]

Another 2 vendors i can recommend are Banzai and Musikding (both here in Germany) especially for more uncommon parts which cannot easily (or at resaonable prices) be obtained at Mouser or Digikey.
Besides: When it comes to buying Switchcraft 1/4 inch jacks - which are always to be recommended for 5U builds - its worth to look arround. Prices can vary quite a lot on thes little guys

[WonderAliceLand]

Watched a ton of Louis Rossman. Think I'm going with the Mini TS100 along with a ts-ku and a ts-c4. I should have a laptop charger to power it and I will buy a stand and a Hakko brass mesh tip cleaner.

[Mostin77]

I typically will order most items from Mouser these days but finding simple parts like a 10uF electrolytic cap on mouser can be daunting with the number of choices if you're not sure which specs you need to be looking at.

I have this problem just trying to find 0.25w 1% resistors in various values. The mouser search seems to just bring up random values or even random parts even when I’ve typed in the relevant value (47k).

Would someone be so kind as to give me some pointers and tips of how to narrow down the search results, especially for the 1%, 0.25w through hole resistors?

[mskala]

I have this problem just trying to find 0.25w 1% resistors in various values. The mouser search seems to just bring up random values or even random parts even when I’ve typed in the relevant value (47k).

Would someone be so kind as to give me some pointers and tips of how to narrow down the search results, especially for the 1%, 0.25w through hole resistors?

Two thoughts: first, if you're typing the resistance value into a search box, it'll probably not work well, because that searches the text descriptions of components and the way they're described is not at all consistent. You'll have better luck using the structured data in the parametric search. Mouser's database still has a lot of consistency problems even in the structured data (e.g. the same power value might be filed under "250mW", "0.25W", and "1/4 W") but at least you'll have better luck than with the text search.



Second: the old traditional 1/4W resistors are something of dinosaurs today. Technology has advanced and lot of resistors made in the traditional size actually have a higher power rating - I've seen as high as 0.6W for resistors of the standard size that I think of as "1/4W". So if you don't really need the power rating to exactly be 0.25W for some reason, you may be better off searching a range of ratings like from 0.25W to 0.8W, or even skipping the power rating and searching on the physical size of the resistor body (length and diameter) instead to get a traditional-sized resistor.

[Mostin77]

the old traditional 1/4W resistors are something of dinosaurs today. Technology has advanced and lot of resistors made in the traditional size actually have a higher power rating - I've seen as high as 0.6W for resistors of the standard size that I think of as "1/4W". So if you don't really need the power rating to exactly be 0.25W for some reason, you may be better off searching a range of ratings like from 0.25W to 0.8W, or even skipping the power rating and searching on the physical size of the resistor body (length and diameter) instead to get a traditional-sized resistor.

Thanks mskala.

I had no idea about the power ratings, I’m guessing that in most cases like caps if the power rating is above what’s specced then it will be fine in most cases? I’m just searching for 1% tolerance resistors, but I added the 0.25w to try and narrow the search results down. I will check the sizes of the ones I’ve managed to successfully order in the past and try searching for side instead. Thanks again

[mskala]

I had no idea about the power ratings, I’m guessing that in most cases like caps if the power rating is above what’s specced then it will be fine in most cases?

Yeah - I think the only reasons a higher power rating would be a problem would be if the higher-powered resistor is too physically large to fit (which is kind of the opposite of the issue I was talking about) or if you were using the resistor as a substitute for a fuse, intending that it should blow out on overload to protect something else (bad idea, but people sometimes use resistors this way on module power inlets).

[ayruos]

Once you build a few kits and have some confidence, I'd suggest building these next - Barton Musical Circuits / http://www.bartonmusicalcircuits.com/

Tons of great utilities, some interesting modulation circuits too and uses very common parts - I actually built around 10 of his circuits, spent a little time going through all the bill of materials and ordered all of the parts in bulk from Tayda. It was pretty cheap! If you have means to make panels even better, but he does sell raw aluminium panels too.

Great sellers of kits etc (from personal building experience) -> Erica Synths (their DIY lineup is superb!), Befaco, Shakmat Modular, Music Thing Modular.

Have fun, it's a very fulfilling hobby