Used parts
mosquito56
Posts: 387
·I was thinking about going to the flea market and buying some old electronics, desoldering the parts and playing with the prop education board to try to get them to work. This would be a learning exercise only. The problem I see is finding datasheets on the parts. Is there a way to find the old datasheets for older components?
· Also, where is a good place to find parts. Mouser is daunting. Should I just order from Radio Shack? I am looking for assortments of resistors, capacitors misc hardware I might need. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Mosquito
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Mosquito: An animal which buzzes in your ear and never stops. He may byte you, he may nibble you, but you will know you were bit.
·A good engineer borrows from others, a great engineer steals everything outright!!
· Also, where is a good place to find parts. Mouser is daunting. Should I just order from Radio Shack? I am looking for assortments of resistors, capacitors misc hardware I might need. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Mosquito
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Mosquito: An animal which buzzes in your ear and never stops. He may byte you, he may nibble you, but you will know you were bit.
·A good engineer borrows from others, a great engineer steals everything outright!!
Comments
Datasheets: You can find datasheets for some pretty obscure chips using Google, but finding the right search terms to get hits can sometimes be more of an art than a science. Here's some tips:
- The fewer search terms you use, the more "important" each remaining term is. Sometimes it works to search for just the chip number; other times you have to add "datasheet" or "pinout" but always try to use as few search terms as possible to avoid confusing Google about the real purpose of your query (the chip number).
- Try several variations on the chip number - if it has letters on the front or the end, or in the middle, try leaving those out. Or try leaving off the letters on the front but add the letters on the end, or vice versa. Sometimes an entire series of chips will share just one datasheet, so if you can't find the part you're looking for, try looking at the datasheet for similar parts - maybe the datasheet will apply to your part too.
- Some unscrupulous parts search web sites fill the bottoms of their pages with text like "7400 7401 7402 7403 ... etc." to pull in people searching for any chip numbers, even though the site might not have what you're really looking for. As soon as you see this on a page, leave; they are only trying to trick you into staying and you're wasting your time trying to find anything on their chip search.
- There are several sites which charge a fee for you to see the datasheet; this really pisses me off because the datasheets are distributed freely by the chip companies, and then here are these parasites making money by grabbing up things that are supposed to be free and charging people to see them. They pollute the search results, usually filling up most of the first page of results, but if go further down you can usually find the exact same datasheet on another site for free.
- Sometimes limiting your search to filetype: pdf can have a great effect, because datasheets are usually pdf documents.
Edit: here is another place for semiconductors' datasheets : www.datasheetcatalog.com/
If properly tested, used components can be very handy, but be aware that surprises, especially with semiconductors can cause problems. Good way to learn how they work... testing them .-)
Post Edited (Ale) : 12/17/2007 8:01:07 AM GMT
Worth a look at least.
Many parts are very specific....
You should have some "basic utilities" as well... I have prepared some suggestions... well they are in German, but may be also useful to you (remember your days in Heidelberg
This is a 4 MB pdf mp.tibit.eu/askon/mediawiki/images/Breadboarding-06.pdf