A good place to bulk buy electronic bits?

paisleysoul

So, with my new-found free time thanks to redundancy, I want to do something i've been meaning to do for a long time. Build pedals.

The kits all look really cool, but i've seen lots of other designs on veroboards that i'd rather tackle. Plus i've still got circuits knocking around from my degree that i'd like to have a whack at (namely a Moog VCF filter).

So the question is, where can you get bulk components from? I know CPC/Farnell will send out components of a single value out by the hundreds, but I wondered if anyone could point me towards a lucky bag of sorts? Lots of different values resistors and capacitors as a bundle. Otherwise i'll just end up order 100 of various common values and have to build hundreds of pedals!

Danny1969

CPC sell resistors in sets dude like this E3 5% series 

Same with caps. You can also nick components from broken and discarded bits of electronics, I've built distortion circuits from components de soldered from radios, headphone amps by nicking bits from CD rom drives etc

paisleysoul

Well, i'll be damned. Didn't spot those at all! Thanks!

4114Effects

Ebay is your best bet. Lots of electronic component bundles on there. :-)

ElectroDan

The Carbon Composition resistors are supposed to be noisier than Metal Film ones. I've never tried a comparison, but there is not a huge difference in price either way.

I get stuff from Rapid, RS (which can be more expensive), and Musikding in Germany. I've recently been looking at purchasing through Ali Express for knobs and bits (Googling knobs is a minefield in itself).

There are loads of pedal building sites with links and tips. The forums own @juansolo site is a particularly good one.

paisleysoul

I remember the metal film ones generally being a lot nicer to work with at uni. As well as electrolytic caps too.

Digging out paperwork from 5 years ago is pulling up some odd diagrams!

ElectroDan

Electrolytics are supposed to sound shite in the signal path too, including Tantalums. Again that just seems to be the accepted wisdom.

ecc83

ElectroDan said:

Electrolytics are supposed to sound shite in the signal path too, including Tantalums. Again that just seems to be the accepted wisdom.

Not so. Electrolytics should not have more than about 85mV across them or they can produce low levels of distortion but well below anything going on in the guitar amp world.

If however you are a real audiophool corksniffer, the fix is an easy one. Make the caps about 10times the value indicated for the lowest -3dB F point. Carbon comp' resistors are noisy and a tiny bit non-linear at valve signal voltages. Buggerall of a problem with solid state stuff but MF are vastly better all round anyway.

Paisleysoul, if you want to do this as a business and make money have a really good look at the home recording scene? Most of those guys don't own a meter or an iron and even a simple TRS to TS insert "sniffer" cable is beyond them. Things like a very high impedance (10 M) pre amp for passive piezo acoustics cost a bomb but are piss easy to make.

There are loads of wee boxes you could make and sell. A pot in a tin for starters...Ah tell thee, were I 20 years younger and could see better I would be a mwyonare by now Rodney!

Dave.

lasermonkey

Rapid also does a metal film bundle. That's what I bought when I first started building my own. The beige resistors are carbon film. The tolerance on these tends to be 5% as opposed to the MF's 1% but chances are you won't really notice. From what I have read, the CFs can possibly be a little noisier than the MFs once you get above 100k ohms. If you're making fuzzes or distortions, chances are it won't make a blind bit of difference. Hey, even the original Klons mostly used carbon films!

When it comes to capacitors, it might be worth going on eBay to source an assorted set of polycarbonate caps for most duties. They'll be in the 1nF-1uF range. For anything over that, it'll have to be electros, unless you have a lot of room in your pedal. I tend to get the microminiature electros from Rapid, as they'll fit into pretty much any space and are low profile. For values under 1nF, you're either looking at ceramic (very cheap), polypropylene/polycarbonate (bigger and more expensive) or polystyrene (very expensive!). I'm pretty sure Rapid does a bumper pack of ceramic caps.

The one thing you'll find is that no one supplier either stocks everything you need or does it for the best price. Rapid's prices are ok, but you have to spend £35 or more (before VAT) to get free shipping. With CPC you only have to spend a tenner.

I get a lot of stuff from Tayda as even with shipping it's ridiculously cheap for most things. Their stock is a little limited though.

I love building on veroboard. Having built literally thousands of printed circuit boards in a previous life, I'm just not that eager to build any more!

paisleysoul

Thanks for all the advice guys!

I'm not looking to go commercial with this, it's just something to keep my brain busy whilst other stuff gears up and also to get my electronics back up to scratch. It's been 5 years since i've properly looked at a board and thats too long!

That said, I do have ideas, that I might test out on willing fretboard monkeys....if I get that far! Mostly it's just to make stuff and give friends some new toys to play with.

equalsql

For small stuff I can recommend http://www.bitsbox.co.uk/  they run a great service. I use them a much as possible for my pedal components. They've also got some excellent vero-board based pedal kits.

ElectroDan

ecc83 said:

ElectroDan said:

Electrolytics are supposed to sound shite in the signal path too, including Tantalums. Again that just seems to be the accepted wisdom.

Not so. Electrolytics should not have more than about 85mV across them or they can produce low levels of distortion but well below anything going on in the guitar amp world.

If however you are a real audiophool corksniffer, the fix is an easy one. Make the caps about 10times the value indicated for the lowest -3dB F point. Carbon comp' resistors are noisy and a tiny bit non-linear at valve signal voltages. Buggerall of a problem with solid state stuff but MF are vastly better all round anyway.

Paisleysoul, if you want to do this as a business and make money have a really good look at the home recording scene? Most of those guys don't own a meter or an iron and even a simple TRS to TS insert "sniffer" cable is beyond them. Things like a very high impedance (10 M) pre amp for passive piezo acoustics cost a bomb but are piss easy to make.

There are loads of wee boxes you could make and sell. A pot in a tin for starters...Ah tell thee, were I 20 years younger and could see better I would be a mwyonare by now Rodney!

Dave.

Interesting to hear a professional opinion. As I said, I have no particular comparison experience between Lytics and Polys. I just followed advice I came across on various sites.

I have built a few pedals now, sticking to MF resistors and Non-Electrolytic caps, and have been pretty impressed with the results so far. Very quiet at gig volume, and great tone.

Good luck @paisleysoul . It can be frustrating at first. But plugging into a pedal YOU'VE made and hearing a great tone come back at you is very satisfying.

jamie

I build my own amps so I was in the same boat as you. I found that for resistors and caps Ebay was the place to go. Even diodes, which I purchase in lots of 100, are way cheaper. I usually buy resistors in kits of mixed values, 1000 or 2000 at a time, but for values I use often (1.5k, 100k etc) I buy them in lots of 100.
Anything else I need I order from Tube-Town in Germany, great prices and fast delivery. I found that places like Farnell and RS get too expensive.
Good luck with the business, I am getting ready to license my amp building this year, just don't expect it to put food on the table for a while.

ecc83

"Interesting to hear a professional opinion. As I said, I have no particular comparison experience between Lytics and Polys. I just followed advice I came across on various sites."

Nice of you to say Dan! I suppose I could be classed thus seeing as I made my living as a tech but I have no degree.

But...EVERY component causes SOME distortion. Foil capacitors of certain types produce measureable THD (if you have VERY good kit!) some are worse than others and electros are worse than foils. Some ceramic caps are terrible! Microphonic to boot.

But such distortions pale into insignificance against an ECC83 producing just 10 volts pk to pk and so can be safely ignored in musical amplification gear.

In a complex, high end mixer? Different story!

Dave.

Danny1969

One thing to watch for on Ebay are fake capacitors and fake transistors. These are mainly found in  higher values of uf and power transistors as these cost more but don't assume things are what they seem unless you can trust the source ........... any old scrote can sell on Ebay and who knows where half of it comes from. 

ElectroDan

Forgot about ceramics. I don't use any of those either.

I've found buying caps quite frustrating. A no one seller seems to have everything I want for a particular project. Some values seem to be scarce in certain materials, and finding one the right size to fit in can also be tricky.

I have also found that how you search can affect the outcome e.g. 2n2 may not appear, but a search in pF or uF will be fruitful.