I will definitely bow to your greater experience. Thanks for the input, too—this’ll help me out in the future. Like I said, I’m in a similar position as the OP. I’ve seen a handful of simple oscillators that use the 40106 to generate a square and saw wave. Otherwise maybe not that useful. Aside from the shipping costs for just buying a handful of ICs it definitely seems more cost effective to just buy them on a per-project basis. Maybe best to save up a bunch of planned projects and order for the lot of them all at once. Also, never a bad idea to buy a few extras in case you blow one out.
ETA: I totally forgot about Schottky diodes. Oops.
My suggestion is to go with PCBs – don’t mess around with protoboards of any description. Once you’ve learned to use the design software (learning curve for EasyEDA is not steep) it’s quicker, easier, cheaper, vastly less error-prone and your modules will be more durable. Other than that, I use the same components that everyone else has mentioned. LM13700 are still very easy to find. Buy one from a known good supplier, like Electric Druid, and buy five or ten from someone on eBay with a good feedback rating. That way you’ve got a good chip to test against. If the others work in the same circuit, buy some more from the same seller.
For hardware, I recommend these components:
Jacks: PJ301M-12
Pots: RK097N Vertical (B100k for Analog, B10k for Digital)
Toggle Switches: MTS Series (101 SPST, 102 SPDT On-On, 103 SPDT On-Off-On)
They are ubiquitous, can be bulk-purchased cheaply online and (crucially) they are the same height.
More complex module. 8 Pots, 9 Switches, 12 Jacks, Microcontroller, SPI chips, etc. Wiring would have been a nightmare without a PCB (Yes, I did get around to cleaning up that flux eventually :))
You’re right about the ease of eda and pcb production if all you want is a reliable finished module.
Me, I love breadboarding and building up components and functions on perf or stripboard (is it still called vero?).
A lot of my passive through hole components have been scrounged, recovered, salvaged from junk, or samples requested from wholesalers.
Almost all my surface mount stuff is from heating/scouring old circuit boards from the dump.
Keeping old tech from landfill makes me happy.
I do a lot of inline and dead bug too as i love the look and utility.
If your interest goes beyond modules then i heartily recommend a regularly fed stockpile of salvage, freebies and bin babies.
Speaking about jacks, I did some research and here is what I’ve found (which, take it with a grain of salt because I haven’t been able to absolutely verify any of this). Also, this may all be common knowledge, but I had to dig a little to find it:
The PJ301M-12, commonly known and sold for eurorack as the “Thonkiconn” jack, appears to have been originally manufactured by QingPu Electronics (unverified). A newer, sturdier version of this part is the PJ398SM, which is functionally identical, which most retailers are now selling in place of the earlier PJ301M version. QingPu manufactures the PJ398SM under the new part number WQP-WQP518MA.
Alibaba and AliExpress offer the WQP518MA from the manufacturer Jingteng. They seem to be significantly cheaper (¢0.16 vs ¢0.50) but may also be of inferior quality. I haven’t been able to find any of these part numbers on the usual electronics distributor sites; they appear to mainly be sold specifically for eurorack by specialized retailers like synthCube and Thonk.
Hope this helps, or was at least mildly informative!
ETA: I’ve been able to find the pots on Tayda by searching “Alpha B100k” for example. They have a decent selection, and they’re reasonably priced. The more expensive one that seems identical has a metal chassis instead of plastic.
The difference between the jacks is just the collar, which gets pulled flush with the panel when you tighten the nut. I guess that after years of heavy use, the plastic might get rounded-off or crack, and the jack could become wobbly. If that ever happens, I might finally have a use for all of the star washers from toggle switches that I have been hoarding.
I agree with @Farabide: an idea in the middle of the night, next morning rootle through my stock of spare components, re-purpose previous modules (breakout pins!) + breadboard to fiddle with values, solder it up on perfboard, cut the panel, bolt it together and put the knobs on.
Occasionally finished in just one day, not often.
Look at the bill of materials for no more than 4 of the things you want to make. That’s a good start. Note that resistors and other small components will be sold in numbers far greater than you need.
Id suggest kits, packs of various values but build something first. I still have unused values from one of the first kit packs i bought.
If you have a look at the ‘Modular in a week’ site you’ll see Christian has all his projects in a spreadsheet so he can see the parts and quantities required. Some others here do similar.
I get the black nylon standoffs myself, they do make my builds run faster and my veroboards look slick and mean. Which is what all the cool builders tell me is the ‘bong’ ? (Is that right?)
thats what im talkin bout and cheap too! thanks for the hook up luminiferous
some of my builds are acrobatic contraptions in the way my board is connected to the panel , not squared away or “bong” lol
workin on it , i learn a lot from yall on LMNC
