- A bread board
- A soldering iron (which one)
- 5 kilometers of 16ga wire
- etc.
You can't have a breadboard without good wire. I've used it all, the stiff multi-packs they sell, solid-core CAT5, etc. The very best stuff I've found is this
Jumper Wire Bundle from Solarbotics. Couple that with the
F-F bundle. I would actually get two of the F-F bundles, at a minimum. I've exhausted the wires in one pack on a small project and was glad I bought two. Pololu also sells bundles of jumper wire, but they don't sell an assortment like Solarbotics does.
A word of warning on these though, once you use them, you will never want to go back to the old breadboard wire method
Next you need
IC hooks with pigtails. Get a two pack at a minimum, yes they are expensive, but very very versatile. Do yourself a favor and pickup a
banana to alligator cable set. You can make due with clipping alligator clips to your multimeter leads, and then to the item under test, but this way is
so much easier. I honestly wish I had found those years ago.
If you have a scope, pickup at least 1
banana to BNC cable set
For other components,
SparkFun is good, so is
ProtoStack. SparkFun tends to be a bit more expensive, but they've done a lot of leg-work to limit their catalog and only list common components.
For example, if you search for mini-pushbutton on Mouser, you'll come back with 1,612. On SparkFun, you get 1. Mouser is cheaper, but you will spend several minutes (or more, I've spent well over two hours) trying to find the right part for your project. So if you want dead simple, and don't mind paying a little more, go with SparkFun.
-dan
