Elec. Supplies
A few Elwire sources Apr 3,2005
A few more sources for electroluminescent wire: elwirecheap.com they sell different kits and you can get stuff a la carte as well.... if you have any questions about your inverter and whether it will work, call them, they're helpful.
Acroname Aug 29,2003
Acroname - They carry some nice H-bridge chips, and sensors. Great articles on how to use their products as well.
Al Williams Electronics Aug 28,2003
Al Williams Electronics - makes a number of useful kits and modules, including the PAK-V multiple PWM chip.
Aligent Aug 28,2003
Aligent - they make LED's, fiber optics, motor control parts, displays, and much more. Formerly Hewlett-Packard's semiconductor division.
All Electronics Aug 28,2003
All Electronics - Various electronic and mechanical parts, including some used and no-longer-manufactured parts.
Amalgamated Instrument Sep 14,2003
Amalgamated Instrument Instrumentation and Sensors for Industry and Lab. Among other things, they sell digital flip displays, aka rotating analog counters.
Amazing Magnets Nov 25,2005
Amazing Magnets sells rare earth magnets, ferrofluid, and other magnet products. Thanks to Zach Layton for the link.
Amazon Electronics Nov 16,2004
Amazon Electronics A small site, but some nice PIC resources; alternate programmers, kits, etc. Thanks to Inshan Khairulllah for the link...
Analog Aug 28,2003
Analog Devices - Accelerometers, Digital Potentiometers, and many other electronic components.... Their ADXL202 and ADXL210 accelerometers are staples of the sensor world.
BG Micro Nov 4,2005
They carry kits, surplus parts, and retail parts. Thanks to Andrew Milmoe for the link.
BatchPCB and OpenCircuits Feb 20,2006
Sparkfun has started two new spin-off sites recently, BatchPCB and OpenCircuits.... It's slower than other PCB fab sites, because they manufacture them in batches, but it's one of the cheapest I've seen.
CTL Electronics Aug 28,2003
CTL Electronics New York City 212-233-0754 - Floors and floors of old video junk, I'm told. I've never been there.
Canakit Dec 24,2004
Canakit has some useful electronics kits, for when you don't want to build your own. Their kits can be incorporated into larger projects, and they're reasonably priced.
Castlewood Nov 27,2003
Castlewood sells parts for in-class scientific demonstrations, including hand-crank generators, gyroscopes, and more.
Circuit Specialists Aug 28,2003
Circuit Specialists - a wide range of electronics and electronics components...
D-Tools Dec 29,2005
D-Tools is Stanford Design School's entry into the microcontroller module market. D-tools is based on the Atmel microcontrollers, like Wiring and Arduino.
Decagon Oct 13,2006
Decagon sells environmental sensors for agricultural work: soil moisture sensors, pH meters, and more.
Digikey Aug 28,2003
Digikey - a staple of the electronics parts world. They carry a ton of parts, and are very good about shipping and service.
Dontronics Aug 28,2003
Dontronics - they sell a number of useful items, including an rs-232-USB module and a USB PIC programmer. They're located in Australia, so shipping isn't always the quickest to the US, but service is very good.
Electronics Parts Search via Alltheweb May 13,2006
Alltheweb.com has a pretty good search engine that does a really good job pulling up data sheets for various electronic parts. Thanks to Geoff Smith for the link.
Eroktronix Jul 1,2004
Eric Singer sells a nice MIDI interface, the MidiTron, to which you can interface all kinds of sensors, and have them generate MIDI data. It's considerably cheaper than comparable MIDI sensor interfaces, if you don't have the resources to build your own.
Fascinating Electronics Nov 20,2004
Fascinating Electronics is a good source for anemometers, wind direction gauges, and other weather instruments.
Findchips Aug 28,2003
Findchips - Got a chip that you can't identify? Enter the part number here!
Global Spec Mar 31,2004
Similar to the Thomas Register, but more specific to engineering needs.... Thanks to Brian Maniere for the link.
Goldmine Electronics Aug 28,2003
Goldmine - Surplus parts, cheap.
HB Electronics Nov 25,2005
HB is an electronics reseller shipping parts from China. Pretty good prices on LEDs, Peltier modules, and more.
HVW Technologies Aug 28,2003
HVW Technologies - Robotics sensors and motors, kits, and books. They carry some simple RF modules, and some nice accelerometers and FSR's, among other things.
Herbach & Rademan Aug 28,2003
Herbach & Rademan - Electromechanical suppliers; among other things, they make frame-and-belt combinations for building your own X-Y plotter device.
JELU web shop Feb 25,2004
They have some useful electronic components, including much of what you need to build an MP3 player module, some nice small LCD modules, good sound components, and surface mount adaptors. Here are some details on the hardware for the MP3 module they make.
Jameco Aug 28,2003
Jameco Online Catalog - A staple source of electronic components, prototyping boards, tools, wire, etc....
Jensen Tools Aug 28,2003
Jensen Tools, Inc. - Good for tools, electronic parts, prototyping boards, and more.
Junun Robot Store Aug 29,2003
Junun Robot Store has many useful sensors and components for robots and non-robotic sensor applications. And they're inexpensive.
Leeds Electric Sep 14,2004
Leeds Electric is an electronic retailer in Brooklyn.
Marlon P. Jones Associates Aug 28,2003
MPJA - A variety of electronics, incuding miniature steppers dirt cheap...
Maxbotix Ultrasonic Sensor Jan 4,2006
The Maxbotix ultrasonic sensor looks like an interesting model, in that it's smaller than most ultrasonics, and has a number of different interfaces: serial, PWM, and analog.
McMaster-Carr Aug 28,2003
McMaster-Carr - All kinds of good mechanical, electrical, and electronic supplies. A staple source for physical computing.
Mendelsons Electronics Jun 20,2004
Mendelson's Electronics is a good surplus and electronics store; they have, among other things, cheap motors, and chewing hooves and rawhide.
Mettrix PCB fabrication Nov 25,2005
Mettrix is an upstate NY company who do PCB fab and assembly. Their work is recommended by Todd Polenberg, and apparently they can do Ball grid array parts too.
Mike's Electric Stuff Nov 22,2003
An excellent homebrew reference page on all kinds of antique electric displays like neon, nixie tubes, etc. A must-see if you like messing with antique technology. Also some great links and info on tesla coils, lasers, and much more.
Milford Instruments Aug 28,2003
Milford Instruments - English maker of special function modules for microcontrollers, including a SmartMedia card interface for the Basic Stamp.
NYU Computer Store Aug 29,2003
The NYU Computer store stocks BX-24 microcontrollers, a limited line of PIC microcontrollers, siteplayers, and various electronic parts needed for the ITP physical computing courses. 242 Greene St.
Newark Aug 28,2003
Newark - Electrical and electronic supplier. Also industrial electrics supplies.
Non-Mercury Tilt Switch Feb 4,2007
Non-mercury tilt switches are handy for reading when motion's passed a threshold (and much cheaper than accelerometers), but sometimes hard to find. Here's one Hatti Lim found.
P.H. Anderson's site Sep 13,2003
Peter Anderson - Teaches a course in embedded Processor control, using many of the controllers and components this course uses.
Polar Heart Monitors Jul 31,2005
Polar makes a number of health-related sensor products, including this OEM heart monitor kit. It gives nice readings of heart rate non-invasively and wirelessly.
Pololu Oct 4,2003
Pololu sells parts and electronics for robots, many of which are useful in physical computing. They have some nice motor control boards, gearboxes, and circuit boards.
Printable circuits and displays Jul 4,2004
Two potentially interesting companies for wearable computing designers (both of these assume you have some experience in circuit design): Conductivetech - they custom-manufacture circuits on flexible surfaces; plastics, fabrics, and so forth. Elumin8 - they custom-manufacture EL-wire and EL-paper displays.
Proto Chip-n-Dip Apr 3,2005
A useful printed circuit board for prototyping surface mount devices (SMDs). Supports SOIC-Wide & Narrow, SSOP, TSOP32, SC70-6, SOP32, SOT89, 143, 223, and DIP on the side.
Recycle.net Nov 20,2004
Recycle.net - a source for recycled parts, goods, etc. Also a good place to send your stuff to be recycled. Thanks to Teresita Cochran for the link.
Russell Industries Aug 28,2003
Russell Industries - Industrial and electronic supplies of all sorts.
Schmartboard Mar 22,2006
"SchmartBoards are pre-traced printed circuit boards that support a majority of electronic component types, both through-hole and surface-mount.... Basically, these things make it a whole lot easier to interface surface-mount components with breadboard projects and hand-soldered perfboard projects.
SciPlus Aug 28,2003
SciPlus - Surplus electronics, motors, military stuff, etc. Similar to All Electronics. Not always consistent, but interesting...
SerialIO Aug 27,2005
SerialIO sells a number of serial I/O products, including barcode scanners, serial cables for a number of different PDAs and phones, and more.
Sparkfun Feb 13,2004
Sparkfun sells some fun stuff: cheap accelerometer boards, PIC programmers, and more. They also have the cheapest GPS modules I've seen so far.
Steadlands Aug 29,2003
Steadlands - They make force-sensitive resistors and much more.
The Laser Guy Aug 28,2003
The Laser Guy - His 12-tip Keychain lasers are popular with students of physical computing, for beam-break sensors.
Thermochromic inks Nov 25,2005
They have the widest product line and appear to provide some of the smaller resellers as well (they sell minimum by the 1/2 gallon i think).... "The problem is that all of the products we have come across start with a color and go to clear or to a lighter color when activated with heat (or cold)."
Total Robots Jan 8,2004
Total Robots has sensors, IR communication modules, RF modules, GPS modules, motor controllers, and more. Some nice servo controllers as well.
Vantech Aug 28,2003
Vantech - High-end remote Control motors and toys and robots...
Zeke's Aug 28,2003
Zeke's - Computer Surplus Parts...
ePanorama Aug 29,2003
ePanorama - A list of links to all things electronic. Excellent resource.