Links to sites important in the construction of Bing

Electronics parts and supplies

Marlin P. Jones & Assoc., Inc  Various electronic equipment.  Bought power supply and miscellany from them and got what I ordered in a timely manner.  Decent prices.

Circuit Specialists  Various electronic equipment.  Bought soldering iron, breadboard, and other miscellaneous items from them and got what I ordered in a timely manner.  Good resource.

Digikey  If you don't know about Digikey you probably aren't interested in my site!  Excellent and efficient operation, but many items are not in stock which is a bummer when you want that one specific part.

Newark Electronics  If Digikey doesn't have it, check Newark.  I don't know why no single supplier has the stuff we robot nuts need, but in the treasure hunt this is a good place to look for the chip you have to have.

Pioneer-Standard Electronics  Another good place to check for that chip you just can't seem to find.

Wyle Electronics  And yet another good place to look for the elusive chip you need.  Really, you might need to check all of these places and more to find what you need.  I have ordered stuff from all of these places and been satisfied.

FindChips  A great multi-site search engine that can help tremendously in the battle to find The Chip You Need.

Finally, if you are lucky enough (as I am) to have an electronics shop besides Radio Shack within driving distance, go there as soon as you can and give them some business.  It is very cool to peek in all the bins and let your mind wander.

General consumer high-tech stuff and books

Buy.com  The place to buy computer stuff.  Generally the best prices I've found.  Bought Gameboy camera and the really nice Kodak NiMH batteries from them and have bought various items in the past.  Fast efficient service.  You have to use their search facility to find stuff as their main product navigation is useless.

Amazon.com  Not great for electronics but still the best place for books.  Great web site and service.

Mechanical hardware and supplies

Tower Hobbies  Servos, RC parts, etc.  Good stuff, decent prices, lots of items.  Bought servos, gyro, and other mechanical parts from them.  Excellent web site and order system.

Online Metals  Small quantities of decent-quality metals and plastics.  Prices seem high but this stuff is hard to get.

Small Parts  Lots of fun stuff, though much of it is not on-line yet.  Neat catalogue.  Not cheap, but very convenient.

And, if you are fortunate enough (like me) to have a "hobby shop" that you can get to, visit and spend some time poking around and buy something neat.  These are friendly people who like the same stuff we do.

Machine tools and similar

DPP Engineering  Good prices on Sherline machine tools.  Their ordering system worked flawlessly for me (the stuff gets shipped directly from Sherline) and I'll go back every time I need wingdings for my mill.

Precision Weighing Balances  I decided that I needed a decent scale to weigh stuff and this is the place to buy such things.  Happy with the products, service, and information on their site.

Discount Tools  Pretty OK prices on hard to find machine tools.  I have bought tiny end mills from them, which are very neat.

Just about every town has one or more nifty local hardware stores full of great finds.  I love the smell of a bin full of hex bolts, don't you?  Spend hours there looking at everything.

General Robot Sites

The Robotics Club of Yahoo  Neat place to talk about robotics.  If, like me, you are the only one you know that is into this stuff, the Internet is the only link to a peer group.  TRCY is a good one.

There are many other robot sites on the net but I don't think I can do better than your favorite search engine at providing links to places you will find useful.  Ain't the Internet cool?

Microcontrollers, sensors, and other necessities

Atmel  After some thoughtful  review, Atmel's AVRs are the neatest little microcontrollers out there.  As an example, their 4434 chip will do 8 mips at 8 mhz, with 8 channels of A/D, decent PWM capabilities, and lots of I/O pins, for about seven bucks.

Motorola  More cool gizmos than anybody has ever seen, and good technical documentation to boot.

Axiom Manufacturing  I bought my "main brain" (their PB-555 board) from them and had a good experience.  They have a nice-looking small Motorola 68332 board too.

Software

Atmel AVR programmer for Windows  Build a little circuit whose entire cost is a parallel cable and two resistors, and this free software will program your AVR microcontroller.  Works great for me!

Eagle Layout Editor  Their free version is capable enough to make most of the circuits that hobby roboticists need.

Rhinoceros  Yes this is an expensive program but it is a very cool CAD package for graphics or mechanical design.  Before you buy it, drop me a line and I'll dig up the site where I got it at a substantial discount.

Miscellany

Guinness  When I'm not working with power tools or soldering irons or other dangerous gizmos, you can bet I have a Guinness in my hand!  Other usual disclaimers apply.