Decided what the heck and ordered some caps today from Goldmine. They had what appeared to be old stock 16v 1000uf KME's, some unknown panasonic looking 25v 1000uf, and 2200uf 10v caps five for a buck. Plus I went ahead and bought a box of electrolytic caps. Probably a bunch of low uf crap caps, but there supposedly is around 500 in a box for $6.50 so maybe I won't get hurt too bad on my purchase.
In addition I got a couple containers of LED's (supposed approx 200 in each container for $2) a few IN4002 diodes, some fast recovery rectifiers, a couple LM317's, and hopefuly enough 555 timers to last a long time.
I really wanted to get one each of their surprise boxes. Mostly from what I hear you get a lot of junk that you can't use, but there always seems to be at least a few usable parts in there to tinker with that are worth more than the cost of the box. And, the contents of every box is different.
Thats the thing I don't like about Goldmine, you never know exactly what you are getting when you purchase an assortment or surprise box. Sure they may be cheap but what good is buying something that you won't use?
Anyhoos pictures of the goodies will be posted when they arrive.
I plan on doing my next parts order from Futurlec. Apparently they are a semi-reputable company with a warehouse in Thailand and as best I can tell about the cheapest place on the net to buy parts. The only catch is they will hold your order if they don't have something in stock... for weeks or months unless you specifically tell them its OK to ship your order incomplete.
I would like to know exactly what comes in their assortment packs, especially the linear IC's. I found a few pictures of their assortment packs over on picasa, and unlike Goldmine from what I understand the contents of each assortment don't change. It would appear by the pictures that you get 300 carbon resistors in 25 different values for $2.95 and $4.95 for .25 and .5 watts respectively. I will have to look closely and figure out what their values are and then go ahead and order individual packs of resistors for values not included. I figure for $15 I can have ten of everything minus sub-ohm current sensing resistors on hand for prototyping.
But what really caught my eye was the SMD to DIP adapters for pocket change. I can scavenge tons of op-amps and other SMD IC's all day long but I have no way to mount them on breadboards for testing.
Hopefully I will have enough cash next month to order one assortment of resistors, monolithic and mylar caps, shottky barrier diodes, some breadboards, less than common but occasionally encountered transistors, potentiometers, LM1084's and LM1117's, and a few other goodies from them and if I'm lucky it will be here by christmas. That should pretty much take care of filling up my parts bins for the moment so I can get some tinkering done with various circuits.
In addition I got a couple containers of LED's (supposed approx 200 in each container for $2) a few IN4002 diodes, some fast recovery rectifiers, a couple LM317's, and hopefuly enough 555 timers to last a long time.
I really wanted to get one each of their surprise boxes. Mostly from what I hear you get a lot of junk that you can't use, but there always seems to be at least a few usable parts in there to tinker with that are worth more than the cost of the box. And, the contents of every box is different.
Thats the thing I don't like about Goldmine, you never know exactly what you are getting when you purchase an assortment or surprise box. Sure they may be cheap but what good is buying something that you won't use?
Anyhoos pictures of the goodies will be posted when they arrive.
I plan on doing my next parts order from Futurlec. Apparently they are a semi-reputable company with a warehouse in Thailand and as best I can tell about the cheapest place on the net to buy parts. The only catch is they will hold your order if they don't have something in stock... for weeks or months unless you specifically tell them its OK to ship your order incomplete.
I would like to know exactly what comes in their assortment packs, especially the linear IC's. I found a few pictures of their assortment packs over on picasa, and unlike Goldmine from what I understand the contents of each assortment don't change. It would appear by the pictures that you get 300 carbon resistors in 25 different values for $2.95 and $4.95 for .25 and .5 watts respectively. I will have to look closely and figure out what their values are and then go ahead and order individual packs of resistors for values not included. I figure for $15 I can have ten of everything minus sub-ohm current sensing resistors on hand for prototyping.
But what really caught my eye was the SMD to DIP adapters for pocket change. I can scavenge tons of op-amps and other SMD IC's all day long but I have no way to mount them on breadboards for testing.
Hopefully I will have enough cash next month to order one assortment of resistors, monolithic and mylar caps, shottky barrier diodes, some breadboards, less than common but occasionally encountered transistors, potentiometers, LM1084's and LM1117's, and a few other goodies from them and if I'm lucky it will be here by christmas. That should pretty much take care of filling up my parts bins for the moment so I can get some tinkering done with various circuits.
I just don't need motherboard grade caps for tinkering with 555 timers and the likes... what I do need is the widest selection of voltages and capacitance to have on hand for when that spur of the moment project idea hits so I don't have to stop and order parts. 
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- but watch out for any light-blue lens ones, they might actually be photodiodes.
But, at least I got enough blinkies to play with for a while. 
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