Which bulk parts do you keep on hand?

WarLordAG

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I've been tossing around the idea of ordering capacitors in bulk. I hate getting a game home, only to wait a few days to get parts to re-cap a monitor or whatever else.

I made the leap and ordered over 1300 capacitors. I figured I may as well order that weller station I'd been contemplating ordering as well. No more throwaway irons that take 5-10 minutes to warm up. The digital wasn't worth the extra cost to me, no matter how cool it looked.

My question is, I want to finish filling these storage bins with other stuff, and probably buy a third. What other parts do you guys keep around in bulk? My main goal is to rarely have to order parts to work on something. Certain transistors, diodes, etc?

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If you plan on doing a lot of monitors, you should get some common HOT's and VR's, as well as some resistors for those that have common failures (like the G07's R908). Also, some color processor chips and adjustment pots of various sizes are a good thing to have.

I tend to accumulate stuff somehow. Sometimes when I get a new game, it has a box of parts that were bought and never used, and they get stuck in the drawers for "someday". Or if I order one part, I get several extras "just in case" and then have them to store. It helps when I need something NOW, but unless you have a lot of money, it's kind of impossible to have EVERYTHING you could possible need in stock.

Here's my setup right now. The four 4x4's on the bottom row (with the space in the middle) are all monitor caps of various sizes...

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Is my best bet ordering the hot's and vr's from Bob? The pots are something I was thinking of for sure, I'm just not sure which ones would be best to stock up on, or just a couple sets of each for various monitors, boards?

Does no one else really keep bulk parts on hand around here?
 
I don't really have parts in bulk but I keep a few cap kits, potentiometers, fuses and transistors around. I will be buying some of the more common diodes as well though.

Is my best bet ordering the hot's and vr's from Bob?

If I need a HOT or VR I tend to buy these elsewhere in qty's of at least 5. I tend to get them a bit cheaper this way. Especially the HOT's.
 
I dont do allot monitor repairs , but I always keep allot of new tmolding, its a cheap easy way to spruce up a game, and i keep allot of bottom corner protectors also which is another cheap way to spruce up a game
 
I do a lot of pinball repair in addition to the arcade stuff. I've got loads of diodes and transistors. I actually used the lists of parts that Clay recommends on PinRepair.com as my starting point. I've also made a policy that anything I have to buy, I buy more than what I need (depending on price, an $8 chip I'm only buying one extra, but a $.02 diode I'll buy 50).

I'm fixing more monitors than I used to, so I'm starting to stock up on voltage regulators, HOTs, some of the more common monitor ICs. I have a few flybacks on-hand. I've also started picking up used monitor chassis boards (great source of parts). I also have been picking up ceramic power resistors where I can, as I am sorely lacking and have been bit by a few recently.

I've also been stocking more of the common capacitor values. Seeing a BUNCH more bad caps of-late in the stuff I work on.

I also am recently working on more Bally pinballs, so I have 5101s and some of the Bally-centric power supply parts on-hand.
 
I've got a bulk buy on resistors of just about all values. Keeping some spare rams and EPROMS is not a bad idea either.
 
Here's my list of monitor capacitor values for bulk purchases:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=80699.0

If you intend on during power supply repairs, here some items to order:

2SC3039 transistors (common in Peter Chou and other power supplies)

FR107 diodes (fast recovery)

Bridge rectifiers.

3 amp pigtail fuses.

Fuse clips (in both end terminal and side terminal versions)
 
I've been tossing around the idea of ordering capacitors in bulk. I hate getting a game home, only to wait a few days to get parts to re-cap a monitor or whatever else.

I made the leap and ordered over 1300 capacitors. I figured I may as well order that weller station I'd been contemplating ordering as well. No more throwaway irons that take 5-10 minutes to warm up. The digital wasn't worth the extra cost to me, no matter how cool it looked.

You do know that Bob sells a great bulk pack of Caps for monitors for $40 right? I have capped monitors and power supplies on DVD players etc with that pack. Highly recommend it!
 
If anyone needs GO7 hot and regulators I have tons of them and can do good pricing on them. Same goes for the GO7 pigtail fuses.
I have 570 2SD870, 341 2SC1106.
 
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You do know that Bob sells a great bulk pack of Caps for monitors for $40 right? I have capped monitors and power supplies on DVD players etc with that pack. Highly recommend it!

Yeah, but I needed more than 5 of each capacitor. That's not nearly enough. Why order in bulk if you only have 5 of each?

Here's my list of monitor capacitor values for bulk purchases:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=80699.0

If you intend on during power supply repairs, here some items to order:

2SC3039 transistors (common in Peter Chou and other power supplies)

FR107 diodes (fast recovery)

Bridge rectifiers.

3 amp pigtail fuses.

Fuse clips (in both end terminal and side terminal versions)

Your list is what I based my initial order off of. I added a few values to it, though I realize now it wasn't completely necessary, it isn't a big deal either. Thanks for the other suggestions as well.

If anyone needs GO7 hot and regulators I have tons of them and can do good pricing on them. Same goes for the GO7 pigtail fuses.
I have 570 2SD870, 341 2SC1106.

Can you PM me a price shipped for 5 to 10 of each? I just got a ton of all fuses in, so I'm good on those
 
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If your going to do repairs you need some of everything on hand. For a hobbyist this is not cost effective so you might want to consider what you will be working on most and stock parts for that. I started out by buying parts to have on hand for my repairs and now I have a pretty good inventory of parts and im about $20,000 into it. I might break even in about 10 years or so.
You can never have too many capacitors on hand. A good assortment of resistors is also good to have and they are dirt cheap. Dont overstock on caps as they do have a shelf life.
You should also stock high failure rate parts like rams, cpus. A good assortment of sockets is a must as well. When buying parts on sites like digikey, mouser, jameco, etc always look at qty price breaks and buy in qty to save alot of money.

Ok, so if anyone wants to stock up on 2SD870 or 2SC1106 im offering them for $2.50 each if you buy 5 or more. Thats half price of what Bob Roberts sells them for.
 
Ok, so if anyone wants to stock up on 2SD870 or 2SC1106 im offering them for $2.50 each if you buy 5 or more. Thats half price of what Bob Roberts sells them for.


Great Price, I would love to stock up on these but my funds are on hold until next month.

I would recomend picking these up if you do alot of Electrohome G07 monitors.
 
I keep a Lot of bulk IC's around Still haven't figured out the best way to store them in those 25 piece tubes. At least I haven't figured out a way to store them in an orderly way right now there in a huge pile rubber banded together in my tool box. Anyone got a good way to store bulk IC's? I also have a good amount of resistors and Capacitors mostly in plastic storage boxes.
 
I keep a Lot of bulk IC's around Still haven't figured out the best way to store them in those 25 piece tubes. At least I haven't figured out a way to store them in an orderly way right now there in a huge pile rubber banded together in my tool box. Anyone got a good way to store bulk IC's? I also have a good amount of resistors and Capacitors mostly in plastic storage boxes.


I ordered boxes the right size from uline. Dont use boxes too big, a box full of eproms can be pretty heavy and makes it hard to handle. Every box on the shelf has an inventory sheet that has part numbers, qtys, and price I paid on it. If I pull some parts it gets taken off the list. This way if I want to do a full inventory of my stock I just need to pull the sheets and update the master stock list file on the computer. It makes it really easy to find stuff. This morning I pulled two chips that I only had one of each in stock. I also keep parts for my repairs in bins next to the bench. I like the Akro-Mils bins.
 
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I ordered boxes the right size from uline. Dont use boxes too big, a box full of eproms can be pretty heavy and makes it hard to handle. Every box on the shelf has an inventory sheet that has part numbers, qtys, and price I paid on it. If I pull some parts it gets taken off the list. This way if I want to do a full inventory of my stock I just need to pull the sheets and update the master stock list file on the computer. It makes it really easy to find stuff. This morning I pulled two chips that I only had one of each in stock. I also keep parts for my repairs in bins next to the bench. I like the Akro-Mils bins.


I will have to keep those Ideas in mind I did do an inventory of my stuff but I have to figure out what I did with the list lol (I think its on my external HD). Also used stuff and didn't update it yet so better organization it a must. I think I really need to get a few more shelves so I can get stuff in a more accessible location.
 
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