At 10:14 AM 5/28/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>I just started at a small medical research lab which has never had an
>engineer on staff before.  They have most of the tools needed (meter, scope,
>power supply, signal gen, etc) but they are VERY short on components (pretty
>good selection of resistors and capacitors, but that's about it).
>
>My question is this:  what is the best way to stock this lab so that I can
>reasonably expect to put together barebones prototypes without having to buy
>anything?  I'd like to keep cost down if possible, below maybe a couple of
>hundred dollars, but I'd also like to know that within reason, I'll have a
>few of most of the generic parts needed for most projects (i.e., two or
>three types of diodes, two or three types of NPN/PNP/NMOS/PMOS/JFET
>transistors, LED displays and drivers, etc) WITHOUT having to sit down and
>order them individually.  Is there a company that sells a box labelled
>"Random Common Electronic Bits"?

Order the stuff you need on a project by project basis, add in speculative
or small fill-in projects at the same time, and bump the quantities up to
the next level and/or order similar parts. Use some of your few hundred
dollars to get storage drawers for the new parts. Since you can get just
about anything overnight the main reason to have stuff on hand is to be able
to try things out quickly. Try to get at least a weekly order in and
save up stuff on a whiteboard or whatever to save shipping costs. In a
year or two you'll have lots of stuff.

Best regards,

Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..."            "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

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