Best starter set and supplier for SMT Components (UK) - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: Kraythorne
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2021, 12:31:08 pm
content: HiI have worked exclusively in through hole and Valve/Tube Circuits and would like to paly around with building some SMT projects, but I don't want to just buy the component for each project as I need them as the delivery cost and price per component become too steep.As such I am looking for a recommended starter kit, either commercially available or to be able to create a shopping cart of, so that I cover most of what I might need of the most common components, i.e. Resistors, Capacitors, Transistors, IC's, etcDoes such a list of components or kit exist? or can people familiar with this technology advise? Looking to spend about £75-£100CheersSteve

author: richard.cs
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2021, 01:24:42 pm
content: Kits of passive components exist, at farnell, etc. around £40 gets you a book full of resistors or capacitors. You can pick up much cheaper passive kits from Chinese suppliers, around £6 for a similar range of values on paper tape, I have a few of these, quality seems OK so far. 0603 is probably your go-to size, not too small for a beginner and the resistors have the values written on them unlike the smaller sizes.So, £20 or so gets you all the passives you're likely to want. Then you should probably get some jellybean bipolars, mosfets, diodes, etc. in SOT-23 packages or similar. I would make up an order from RS/farnell and get 20-100 of each, whatever makes sense with the price breaks. You could also pick up a few larger ceramic capacitors as an 0603 kit will probably top out at about 10 uF at some low voltage rating. Perhaps get some 25-50 V 10 uF and some >=16 V 100 uF in 1206 or 1210 size. That'll probably be another £30 or so.Chip-wise it depends what kind of work you want to do, but for a beginner stick to SOIC or SOT-23-5. I guess a few opamps, regulators, logic ICs, make sense. Price wise these are usually considerably cheaper than the through-hole equivalents.Give some thought to how you want to store them. The little plastic bins (aka "mouse toilets") are nice but expensive. Often kits come in books that hold strips of cut tape. If you get the very low cost passive kits they will literally a bundle of labelled paper tapes held together with a rubber band so you'll need to organise them. Any semiconductors you buy are likely to come on unlabelled plastic tape in a bag.

author: Kraythorne
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2021, 10:12:43 am
content: Great info - Thank you!!

author: beanflying
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2021, 10:24:16 am
content: These days my nearest Electronic store (really poor one) is well over two hours drive so I keep a fair bit of stuff myself. So another option is look at Sample Books to get you a spread of bits. I tend to buy new branded bits for a project but these have provided me a good go to for replacements or a quick job.Caps, Resistors, Transistors, Fets, Diodes and Voltage Regs are a good start point. Recently added to a few pages some SMD Fuses as I needed a few and didn't have any.https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l1313&_nkw=sample+books+smd&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_osacat=0&_odkw=sample+books