Ever look through your Parts-Box

[tp4tissue]

Got 1,200 resistors in 64 different values..

EXCEPT for the one you actually need..

[Sifo]

yes actually I can relate..

[margo baggins]

Imagine having 5 or 6 parts boxes :O

Resistors is a funny one - I used to buy resistors that were cheap, but, well i kind of went off them, some had component legs that were so thin they would break when I was preforming them :S or preforming them would break the legs off the substrate. So now i only use Vishay resistors.

Capacitors again I used to use whatever worked, but now I only like using Philips or Vishay for general purpose and Elna\Nichicon\Mundorf for audio.

Essentially what i've found is being a part snob is almost as bad as being a keyboard snob. Spending £240 on 12 10,000uf capacitors to a normal person would be insane, but that's what I want in my poweramp :S bloody electronics, stupid expensive hobby.

[tp4tissue]

Imagine having 5 or 6 parts boxes :O

Resistors is a funny one - I used to buy resistors that were cheap, but, well i kind of went off them, some had component legs that were so thin they would break when I was preforming them :S or preforming them would break the legs off the substrate. So now i only use Vishay resistors.

Capacitors again I used to use whatever worked, but now I only like using Philips or Vishay for general purpose and Elna\Nichicon\Mundorf for audio.

Essentially what i've found is being a part snob is almost as bad as being a keyboard snob. Spending £240 on 12 10,000uf capacitors to a normal person would be insane, but that's what I want in my poweramp :S bloody electronics, stupid expensive hobby.

I understand the sentiment..

But when I thought about it.. I get 1200 resistors for $8.00

20x resistor per each of the 64 different resistance values.

So... OUT of 20x,  a FEW of them will be good and test to good tolerance..   For $8.00 that's fine really..

Whereas, if I were to buy a bunch of Expensive resistors, Even if on average each is better, the cost doesn't work out remotely in the same league..

1/4watt Resistors arn't exactly High tech, hahahahaha.. 



Capacitors, are a little different.. If you're getting a big cap,  it's like a mini grenade,  so,  Don't want to deal with that going sour..

[margo baggins]

Imagine having 5 or 6 parts boxes :O

Resistors is a funny one - I used to buy resistors that were cheap, but, well i kind of went off them, some had component legs that were so thin they would break when I was preforming them :S or preforming them would break the legs off the substrate. So now i only use Vishay resistors.

Capacitors again I used to use whatever worked, but now I only like using Philips or Vishay for general purpose and Elna\Nichicon\Mundorf for audio.

Essentially what i've found is being a part snob is almost as bad as being a keyboard snob. Spending £240 on 12 10,000uf capacitors to a normal person would be insane, but that's what I want in my poweramp :S bloody electronics, stupid expensive hobby.

I understand the sentiment..

But when I thought about it.. I get 1200 resistors for $8.00

20x resistor per each of the 64 different resistance values.

So... OUT of 20x,  a FEW of them will be good and test to good tolerance..   For $8.00 that's fine really..

Whereas, if I were to buy a bunch of Expensive resistors, Even if on average each is better, the cost doesn't work out remotely in the same league..

1/4watt Resistors arn't exactly High tech, hahahahaha.. 



Capacitors, are a little different.. If you're getting a big cap,  it's like a mini grenade,  so,  Don't want to deal with that going sour..

Yeah I totally understand your reasons!

I spend as much as 50p per resistor for some of my pro audio stuff :O infact - more for 5w resistors. But analogue and signal chains I want to keep as clean and nice as I possibly can in audio stuff, because I pretend I can hear **** like that hahaha

[tp4tissue]

Yeah I totally understand your reasons!

I spend as much as 50p per resistor for some of my pro audio stuff :O infact - more for 5w resistors. But analogue and signal chains I want to keep as clean and nice as I possibly can in audio stuff, because I pretend I can hear **** like that hahaha

I never delved too deeply into pro audio because there's no way to test the end product at the DIY level..

Sound testing equipment , cost more than a car.. hahahahaha

The end result, is, welp,  let's assuuuummme it all just works.. 



For example,

Let's assume this is even a project designed and tested by Real Engineers with Real Testing equipment,  and not designed by some guy who just put off the shelf together going off tutorial videos.

So, that in itself is already a big hurdle,  most of the online projects people build arn't professionally designed, with 0- validation done.


So, now you got a verified project specification, you get to component selection..  Game OVER,   because that validation that the Engineer did is only valid for HIS EXACT components.


Let's say you got 200Va transformer,   the Toroidal transformer will sound completely different than the EI transformer.

Then you get to capacitors, film, electrolytic, a million different specs..


The end result is,  Something that's unverified and possibly very expensive..

[tp4tissue]

Spent 2 hours looking at fuses..

because Tp4 doesn't learned electronics.... 

[tp4tissue]

relay shopping...   

[margo baggins]

Yeah I totally understand your reasons!

I spend as much as 50p per resistor for some of my pro audio stuff :O infact - more for 5w resistors. But analogue and signal chains I want to keep as clean and nice as I possibly can in audio stuff, because I pretend I can hear **** like that hahaha

I never delved too deeply into pro audio because there's no way to test the end product at the DIY level..

Sound testing equipment , cost more than a car.. hahahahaha

The end result, is, welp,  let's assuuuummme it all just works.. 



For example,

Let's assume this is even a project designed and tested by Real Engineers with Real Testing equipment,  and not designed by some guy who just put off the shelf together going off tutorial videos.

So, that in itself is already a big hurdle,  most of the online projects people build arn't professionally designed, with 0- validation done.


So, now you got a verified project specification, you get to component selection..  Game OVER,   because that validation that the Engineer did is only valid for HIS EXACT components.


Let's say you got 200Va transformer,   the Toroidal transformer will sound completely different than the EI transformer.

Then you get to capacitors, film, electrolytic, a million different specs..


The end result is,  Something that's unverified and possibly very expensive..

Yes and no.
I've spent £500 building my DAC and headphone amp - it's unbeleiveably better than my old pc soundcard which cost me £200. So while I can't test that - to my ear it's much better. And my ears are all that matter in my head phone set up

The amp I'm working on at teh moment uses proven schematics, not just something drawn up by someone in their bedroom. The only place I've deviating is I'm designing my own power supply, but I like doing that and if it's noisy i'll just build another one and put it in. It's going to cost me about £350 in parts - will it be better than my cambridge audio amp that cost me £300? i'm hoping so.

So ultimately, I think building your own stuff you can build much better stuff than you could buy for the same money. But granted I think it takes quite a lot of research and experience.

Plus you don't really go for the exact specifications. If you understand your components and have built quite a few things, or if you socket stuff, you can change parts to tune whatever it is you are building to whatever it is your ear like to hear. It's not stuff being made for other people, I build stuff I like, I swap capactitors in different stages of the circuit to see how it effects the sound. And from doing so you develop an understanding how maybe an Elna cerafine cap will sound a bit different decoupling an opamp than an Elna silmic will. and experimenting in all that stuff is part of the fun!

[captsis]

I got 3000 resistors but 600Ohms aint one!

[tp4tissue]

My project cost is reaching money evaporation mode... this tool costs $150... Psssssh...  that's $150 less than my other tool..  Click buy..

[tp4tissue]

I think I am addicted to buying stuff made by Omron..

See something made by Omron,  I instantly choose it over equivalent products by any other brand, 

[tp4tissue]

Mouser has to be the most stressful website in existence..


You look at parts, and there's a tiny difference between them that you have to go through 20 pages of the spec sheet to find..

[suicidal_orange]

Mouser has to be the most stressful website in existence..


You look at parts, and there's a tiny difference between them that you have to go through 20 pages of the spec sheet to find..

And after all that effort it's usually something you don't even care about!

[tp4tissue]

Mouser has to be the most stressful website in existence..


You look at parts, and there's a tiny difference between them that you have to go through 20 pages of the spec sheet to find..

And after all that effort it's usually something you don't even care about!

Well Right now , I'm just looking through parts to make sure my box doesn't blow up..

Eventually I plan to expand to 4.5 kilowatt in this one box.

So.. gotta make sure all the parts can take that..


Main problem I have with many spec sheets, is they sometimes use these weird offset grids to compare parts.. sigh..

Then I have to count, ok, this is the 3rd box, correlates to the 1st box from the 2nd row.