Doing some lessons and experiments with students on an Arduino Uno. We
are breadboarding some simple circuits, attempting to teach some digital
logic.
Can any of the mail order companies sell me a simple assortment (grab
bag) of resistors and capacitors? I've looked and Mauser and DigiKey
and can find nothing. All pointers or 'Key-words to use' would be
appreciated.
Thanks, Ivan Vegvary
Tell them to start looking for electronic junk tossed out. More recent
stuff has less to offer, but there are still lots of VCRs around taht can
supply a nice spread of small signal transistors, capacitors and
resistors, plus switches on the front panel and LEDs. The motors may be
useful for something.
The same with cassette decks that are getting tossed, analog meters or
"LED level meters" (often a daugther board so it can be kept intact),
motors, low power AC transformers, and common parts.
Around here lots of satellite and cable boxes get tossed, though they are
relatively new and offer fewer interesting parts.
It depends on the parts you need. Something like a "Sony Walkman" would
offer up a small motor, and likely a small headphone amplifier.
The thing is, anyone interested in electronics should be keeping an eye
out, maybe even carrying some common tools to extract boards on the scene
rather than bringing the whole unit home. To deal with existing pieces of
equipment is to diminish their power. And since most beginners start by
going to the parts store and asking for parts exactly as specified in the
construction article (one kid at high school decades ago said "I'm afraid
of making a mistake"), salvaging parts is not only cheaper, but a sign
that they have learned enough to tell when a part can be substituted, when
a part should stay as it is, and how much leeway there is.
The first frew projects I tried to build failed, but I went with the list
copied from the magazine, and didn't yet know enough about things to know
if I wsa getting good parts or substitues or not. The first things that
did work were a few months later, me putting together parts I pulled out
of transistor radios and mainframe cmmputer boards.
For common parts, this is a fairly readily at hand source of parts.
Michael
