I've been buying new resistors and capacitors for radios as onesy-twosy, hunt down each piece, order a couple.

But I just found some resistor kits like this part# 370-293-C-RC in Mouser:
http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Uns ... zHg6taI%3d

It contains 7200 resistors, 1/2W 5% carbon film, covering 6-1/2 orders of magnitude (from 2.2 ohms to 3.3 Mohms), and it's only $100, or 14 cents apiece. Seems to me like that's a bargain. Do many of you "stock up on parts in advance" like this? Or does it take so many decades to use them, that you find they've drifted out of tolerance when you pull one out to use it?

How about capacitors? I haven't looked yet, but I assume if I'm finding resistor assortments, I can find capacitor assortments too...

Thanks,
Rodney

I have gotten several kits from these people:
http://www.justradios.com/

In the long run, the kits will save on shipping costs.

This thread has every supplier known to man.......
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=179878

There are common part values that will appear over and over again, so it' a good idea to keep lots of them on hand. Obviously, you shouldn't go ordering so many that they'll have 'spoiled' before you even get to them. That's just pure waste.

Ideally, you'll only need to buy lots every couple of months, or years, with a special parts run every now and then.

Might want to rethink the math. More like .014 cents per each, rounded off.

Just over a penny a piece is a good price but how long would it take you to use them all?
A kit with a basic assortment with different (some higher) wattages might be better for starters if you can find one.

You won't use many of those less then 10 Ohms.
And you will need a few between 4 and 10 megs for some AA5 radios.
You could series or parallel some of them to use up more of the kit.

I personally prefer to stock 1 watt units.

1.4 cents per unit, not .014. That would be nice though.

ok

(no affiliation) I've ordered a bunch of these over the past few years:
Deluxe 1/2W, 1W, 2W Resistor Kit, 340 Pieces Total, Values from 10 Ohm to 10M.

$7.95

http://www.elexp.com/srp_qtr1.htm

I bought two resistor kits from Digikey, quarter and half watt carbon films. The half watts have some apps in old radio repairs. Otherwise I have accumulated parts over the years. Like when rat shack sold variety packs of resistors and ceramic discs, etc. And at hamfests or swapmeets, I sometimes buy various parts, sometimes in quantaty. Someone should do a survey of the most common AA5 resistor values and then we could stock up more of those values on hand. There is no shame in salvaging good parts from old gear.

Yeah, I definitely like the idea of multiple-wattage kits. Thanks for all the pointers everyone!

Rodney

I buy here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Metal-Film-Resi ... 3357f5e3e8 same price, 1/3 the investment. So far, no problems, after two years. FWIW, they are 1%.

Bill

Rodney, I bought a kit from these people. Just be aware that they will take some time to get to you. So i hope you are not in a rush to get them. It took almost two weeks to get mine. They do state this in there add
Stan Ski

I think Bob's starter kit is a very good choice for little money

http://www.radioantiques.com/supplies.html#cords

AES

Fourteen cents apiece is ridiculous!!

OOPS, didn't verify OP's math, just "presumed" his #'s were correct. Per a couple other posters who DID verify, its actually 1.4 cents, so the rest of my original post was pointless.

You must have pissed Karen Off Stan. Normally I get a shipment from Sunpec in 6 days... from Hong Kong. I buy her 2 watt assortment of carbon film resistors.

Carbon 1/2 watt I buy in 100 lot per value from Mouser Its a bit of a bite to start with but after that its minimal to reload once a year.

John k9uwa

Here we go again...

$100 divided into 7,200 units... that's 0.014 (0.01389) DOLLARS each.... or 1.4 cents.

I like to keep 10 - 20 of the most common types of resistors and capacitors on hand and buy a couple of the oddballs as needed. I also like to rummage the parts bins some vendors have at Kutztown. You'd be surprised what you can find. One man's trash.........

I bought some off eBay I while ago. What makes it so tough to chose is that some packages let out some values that others include, some may have more but missing certain values, some may have less but have a wider variety of values. etc

Unfortunately I went with the absolute cheapest kit and the leads on the things might as well be magnet wire and they seem very sensitive to heat. So just be careful!