Getting Started with Electronics on Raspberry Pi

About fifteen years ago I did Electronics as a course in college, and at the time my younger self didn’t fall in love with the topic, set down to a culmination of issues.

Now with time at hand and a rejuvenation I felt when getting to grips with the Raspberry Pi I thought it time to get involved again. I must stress that this time these are baby steps, and the Raspberry Pi helps me as it does most of the work for you, with any electronics added considered to be more of a peripheral rather than a self-sustained product.

Still, it’s been great to get hands on with components again, and with thanks to YouTube channels from Big Clive and Ben Heck I have the confidence and aspirations to start creating things for my own. This post is to document my experiences over the past couple of weeks and what I have learned and can pass on.

First off is getting inspiration for projects, and is completely contained within a Google search. With such a large online community almost any idea can be found with a search for “raspberry pi..” then the project. Most search results will feature the official Raspberry Pi forum and Adafruit, with the latter dealing more in a project guide from start to finish, and the Pi forum solving any problems you may encounter along the way.

Next is creating the projects. An obvious tip that’s demonstrated in many projects is to test it out on a solderless breadboard, but when its working correctly you find yourself wanting a more permanent solution that releases the breadboard for the next project.

Soldering on

Therefore, the next logical step is to get some perfboard/stripboard, wires and hand create a permanent circuit. This is where I found out the quality of soldering iron and solder can make a huge difference in making your soldering experience a happy one. Previously, and on a whim I purchased a Maplin 40W soldering starter kit, and only after purchasing a different iron found out that it was terrible. The kit also came with lead free solder but after advice from Big Clive’s video I purchased lead based solder with flux and it made the world of difference. The two main issues I found from the bad kit was the tip of the iron wouldn’t actually melt the solder, causing me to use the side of the tip and therefore making it more awkward, and the solder would immediately turn to a sphere under enough heat, and not flowing over its intended connecting. This was fixed by getting a cheap but effective soldering iron with a chisel tip and lead based solder from RS Components.

Shopping

Then there’s the price, I was effectively starting from scratch so needed an outlay to source everything needed. Over the past two weeks I’ve used three sources of items, RS Components, Maplin and eBay. These are my experiences in order of time of first use:

RS Components: I chose them for my initial purchase of things needed due to sheer convenience of everything being delivered at the same time and within one order. The online catalogue is extensive and I found it a bit daunting for someone not familiar with the products, especially when ordering something I wasn’t completely sure was right for the project.

Prices are relatively competitive and seemed cheap enough, however there seemed a despairingly different cost between like for like products, possibly down to my naivety amongst these components, but more annoying arranging the search to lowest price first displayed bulk items where the price per unit was low, just as long as you bought 500 at a time.

Another enticement that made me order from RS is the free next day delivery, I ordered twice and on both occasions my order failed to arrive within these timescales.

Maplin: The price, oh the price, they are extortionate! When shopping in a retail store you may know that the product includes a hidden cost for the building, fixtures and fittings around you but it’s so apparent when looking at prices in the local Maplin store. That said it can prove to be helpful for a beginner, finding a staff member that knows their stuff can be hit or miss but on my first visit a managed to find a like-minded person who knew what they were on about and helped me get what I needed. Also the benefit of being in a store is the chance to see and hold the components before purchase to give an extra layer of confirmation that the right component is in front of you.

The stores obviously carry a limited supply of components so used the website and stock checker to ensure the items were available before grabbing the car keys. And thus found the website a tad lacking, the best match feature tends to favour more premium products, this is a given for most online stores but what aggrieved me is that the cheapest items were omitted from search results unless it was searched for specifically. For instance, I found a rocker switch online, by accident, for 22 pence, however when conducting a search for “switch”, arranged by lowest price first, the first result was 99 pence with the former no-where to be found.

Despite the high mark ups on most items it is possible to find certain components at more competitive prices, especially on lower end items such as common resistors. It’s down to how much you’re willing to pay to get that all important component immediately.

eBay: I used this source as the third method mainly down to its volatility around delivery. But before I go into that, the prices are extremely cheap. I only choose sellers that are UK based but if prepared to buy from China and wait for delivery the prices drop to values that cannot be beaten. Even with UK sellers, prices will handsomely undercut any established retailer and so far, failed to find any quality issues with products.

Now on to delivery, yes, it is gamble every time you see the “Fast and Free” estimated delivery time, but when searching for components on eBay you notice certain seller accounts cropping up again and again. Therefore, it’s about testing the water with sellers and seeing which one comes through with the advertisement of fast delivery.

eBay’s search algorithms are good at adapting to the type of item you want, so after a few searches for common components such as resistors and LED’s the search tends to accommodate for a vaguer component search. That said, a bit of research may be needed to discover the correct name for what you want to search for. For example, I wanted a simple switch to turn a LCD backlight on and off, after research it turned out I wanted a SPST latch switch.

Where to Buy

After my experiences and as a recommendation I would choose eBay as the first call for components, with Maplin as an immediate backup if you’re willing to pay to get something immediate. With RS as a backup for the more obscure item or in my case, a good soldering iron and solder.

Right now and during a big creation streak it’s a matter of waiting for components to arrive before creating the next project. Hopefully as time goes by my inventory of spare useful parts will grow but when starting out its about slowly gaining an arsenal of components for when its needed.