We launched the

Common Parts Library for Prototyping

in August with the goal of making it faster and cheaper to prototype connected devices. As we talked with people at Maker Faire, MakerCon, and Open Hardware Summit , we heard questions about how the library could help with deciding what parts to stock in an electronics lab or purchase for a hackathon-type event. In this blog post, we will introduce the categories of parts and review which components should be stocked in your hardware lab.

Development platforms are circuit boards with micro-controllers. They process inputs such as motion, light, touch, and temperature, and they control output such as lights, motors, and audio. There are several options for these, and they differ in cost, the number of input/output pins (GPIOs), and processing capabilities.

The Arduino Uno is a beginner-friendly board which is great for single-purpose projects such like

automated window blinds

or a

tweet-enabled coffee pot.

Another option, Raspberry Pi, has 1GB RAM and 900MHz Quad-Core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU. It comes with USB pins, an HDMI port, ethernet port, audio jack, and SD card slot — all of which is awesome for more complex multimedia projects such as this

hand-held gaming console

or the

video surveillance system

. If you want to retain the processing ability of Pi but want the external interfacing options of an Arduino, BeagleBone Black is a great choice.

From left to right: Arduino, Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone Black

The first prototype of Pebble smartwatch

was made using an Arduino Uno.

Left: A prototype of Pebble using Arduino Uno, Right: Pebble smartwatch

2. Interface Boards:

Interface boards can be used with microcontrollers for wireless/bluetooth/cellular connectivity. The

ESP8266 Breakout

and

Particle Photon

are popular options for Wi-Fi connectivity. They can be supplemented with

Bluetooth Low Energy module

and

GPS module

for connectivity.

From Left to Right: ESP8266 breakout, Particle Photon, BLE Breakout, GPS Breakout

Some of the interface boards such as the Particle Photon come with their own micro-controllers so you can use them independently without needing a development platform.

Sensors are an important part of any electronic project as they help in getting the data from the environment such as motion, temperature, light, proximity, pressure, humidity, touch, and more. These sensors can then be combined with the ‘brains’ of the microcontroller development platforms and made into awesome projects such as

athletic quadcopter

, a

garden controller

, an

ArduSat

and more.

There is a wide selection of sensors available, but the ones to definitely stock in the lab would be

accelerometer

,

inertial measurement unit

(IMU) ,

temperature sensor

,

photo resistor

,

proximity

,

hall-effect

,

pressure

,

infrared

,

humidity

and

capacitive touch sensors

.

We use several of these sensors in our daily life: smartphones have several sensors built-in. The iPhone comes with a

and has its own own

which senses when you are on a call — this is what shuts the lights of the screen and disables touch. It also has a

to automatically change the brightness of the screen. If you are curious, read about

all the components inside iPhone 6S

and see this

chart for all the sensors in your phone

.

IMU, proximity sensor, photo resistor, and capacitive touch sensor

4. Wearables:

Flora GPS Jacket by Adafruit

5. Batteries and Regulators:

Different batteries are good for different applications. The

9V Alkaline battery

with

connector cable

is a fast way to make a project portable but the capacity isn’t very high and it’s not rechargeable.

Coin cell batteries

are also not rechargeable but have much smaller size.

Lithium Ion Polymer batteries (LiPo)

are popular batteries as they are small and can be recharged using a

battery charger

. They are a good source of power and are really robust.

To learn more read the

Sparkfun’s article on different types of batteries

.

Different types of batteries

As the battery voltages deplete with time,

, which are placed after the batteries, ensure that the micro-controller continues to get constant voltage.

L7805

(output voltage of 5V),

LD1117

(output voltage of 3.3V), and

LM317

(adjustable output) are the most popular through-hole options.

After the development platforms, sensors, and batteries come the LEDs, motor drivers, audio, display screens, and relays which allow creative interplay of the outputs.

3mm

and

5mm

LEDs are a must for indicators such as on/off.

RGB LEDs

can be controlled digitally to add variety of colors.

Neopixel rings

are built using

WS2812 RGB LED

and can be used to make interesting projects such as the

NeoGeo watch

.

Stepper motor driver (A4988)

and dual H-bridge motor driver (

L293

and

L298

) are popular options for motor drivers. They are used in 3D printers, quadcopters, and to control the motors in robots.

Having some speakers, buzzers, and a microphone amplifier board gives you the option to add audio in a project. This makes for interesting projects such as the

LED Sound Reactive Drum Kit

.

Having a display is great for showing information such as temperature or humidity, or to allow some kind of user interface. You can use either the

standard LCD

or

RGB Backlit LCD

.

What if you want to control coffee-pots, lamps, toasters, or anything connected to the mains AC voltage?

PowerSwitch Tail II Relay

is the recommended (and safe) way of working on such projects. It can even be used with Raspberry Pi for creative ideas such as this

internet streaming “on air”

sign:

Internet streaming “On Air” project using PowerTail Switch II by Adafruit

7. Linear and Digital ICs:

A selection of linear ICs are useful for a range of applications.

(such as

LM358

/

LM324

/

MCP6022

) are used for sensor interfaces, filtering, and other analog applications.

(such as

LM311

) compare two analog signals and give digital output.

555 Timers

are really popular and can be used for timing, pulse generation, and oscillator applications.

Shift registers

are great if you want to control lots of LEDs or want more I/O in general.

Level shifters

are useful for shifting 5V to 3.3V logic and vice-versa.

Good to stock a few ICs such as op-amps, comparators and shift registers

8. Passives:

Passives are used all the time, and it’s handy to have the resistor or capacitor you are looking for within reach.

Through hole

can be carbon film or metal film.

Carbon film resistors

have much more variation than metal film ones. For higher precision designs like filters or DACs,

metal film resistors

are recommended.

Single-turn

and

multi-turn potentiometers

are useful to have for tuning output voltage or setting gain.

are used in filters, timing circuits, and more, but their most common use is for decoupling the power supplies. They prevent the high-frequency spikes in power supply to reach the ICs which might cause damage. Electrolytic capacitors have much more variation than the ceramic capacitors but they can reach large values of even upto 1mF.

Kemet’s C315 series

for ceramic capacitors and

Panasonic’s ECA series

are good choices for through-hole capacitors as they have several values available at different voltage ratings.

Resistors, capacitors, diodes, transistors: always handy to have them around

are not used as often as resistors and capacitors, but are useful for transceivers or for reducing high frequency noise coupling.

Bourns’ RL-622

series has a good selection of inductors.

are electronic components that permit current flow in only one direction and are popular for use with DC-DC converters, rectifiers and motor drivers.

1N4148

is popular general-purpose, fast switching diode.

1N400x series

is good for high voltage, high current operation.

are next -- they are useful for any switching or amplification operation. They can be used to drive LEDs or to do voltage shifting. In terms of what to stock,

PN2222

for NPN,

PN2907

for PNP,

2N7000

for N-FET and

ZVP3306A

for P-FET are good choices.

TIP120

/

TIP125

are used commonly as power transistors. Breadboard friendly

crystal oscillators

can be used for providing external clock to micro-controller.

9. Equipment:

Selecting the right equipment is critical for setting up a good hardware lab. Dave Jones has done a great

video on how to select lab equipment

.

Starting off with

,

Mastec’s MS8268

is a good entry-level multimeter and is a good value for money,

Extech’s EX330

is popular and is around the $50 mark. If you are looking for high quality, industry grade multimeter,

Fluke-117

is a great choice but it is little more expensive.

TP-3005D

is a good value for

and

DS1054Z

is a good entry-level

which comes with 4 channels which are rated at 50MHz.

Next comes the

. There are lot of cheap solder stations, but it’s worth investing in a decent quality one as you will use it often.

Hakko’s FX888D

is a popular recommendation and it comes with its own digital temperature control. 60/40 Rosin Core solder spool (

0.02”

and

0.031”

diameter) is a must to have but if you are looking to make RoHS compliant devices, you should use

lead free solder spool

. Add a

and

for desoldering work.

Multimeter, power supply unit, soldering station and wire stripper

10. Wires, Cables, Buttons, and Headers:

Last but not least are wires, cables, buttons, and headers. It is amazing how much precious time is spent on getting the right wire or cable or header in labs which should not be the case. You should have

solid core

and

stranded wires

,

alligator clips

,

male/male

,

female/male

and

female/female

jumper wires as well as

USB to micro-USB

,

USB to mini-USB

and

USB to USB-B

cables. Add

tactile buttons

,

and

slide switches

for getting user input.

Also,

jumpers

,

test points

, and

headers

are important to have on the bench for debugging, connections, or probing.

This is a fairly long list of components and parts to stock in your hardware lab, but still does not cover 3D printers, woodworking, metalworking, laser cutting and more. If you want to learn about these, refer to this excellent

Makerspace manual for setting up a lab

in which they dive more into the parts we did not cover in this list.

A lot of these choices are quite subjective, if you have any suggestions on what should be on the list, please write in the comments below. You can also reach out to us at

contact@octopart.com

.