Robot Kits, PCBs, and Brain Boards
Electronics Components, Test Equipment, and Surplus Parts
- Digi-Key
Large stock of electronic components, easy to search, easy to order, and reliable.
- Mouser Electronics
Good selection of electronic parts. Many unique items. Some better prices.
- Electronic Goldmine
Variety includes solar panels, switches, LEDs, and toy motors.
- Electronix Express
The least expensive source of most electronic parts, multimeters, and soldering tools.
- All Electronics
Overstock and salvaged items.
- Future Electronics
Not easy to order from, but carries some unique parts.
- Jameco Electronics
Lots of electronics. Some unique robot elements.
- Circuit Specialists/WebTronics
Good selection of meters. Nice wireless camera.
- B.G. Micro
Lots of interesting components, surplus items, small motors, and optics.
- FindChips
Great site for locating a chip seller.
Construction Material, Metal, Plastic, and Shop Tools
Manufacturers of Semiconductors, Microcontrollers, and Batteries
- Atmel
Manufacturer of my current favorite microcontrollers, the AVR 8-bit RISC family.
- Microchip
Bought Atmel. Make some nice voltage regulators and lots of other chips.
- AVR Freaks
An independent site for AVR developers.
- ImageCraft
Development environment and C compiler for the AVR and other microcontrollers. I've moved on to GCC.
- Texas Instruments
A wide variety of logic chips, interface chips, and voltage regulators.
- Infineon
Formerly International Rectifier. Some of my favorite power MOSFETs for H-bridges.
- On Semiconductor
Forermly Fairchild. Good MOSFETs and diodes as well as logic and interface chips.
- NXP
Formerly Freescale and formerly Motorola. My previous favorite microcontroller, the 68HC908.
- Maxim Integrated
Another good semiconductor manufacturer.
- AMS
Formerly TAOS. Very cool light sensors!
- Cypress Semiconductor
Formerly Ramtron. Excellent serial memory chips!
- Energizer
Specifications for the sizes, capacity, chemistry, and voltage of their power cells and batteries.
- Duracell
Technical data for their batteries (alkaline, NiMH, NiCd, silver-oxide, AA, AAA, C, D, button cell, and so on).
Printed Circuit Board (PCB) Fabrication -- From Prototype PCB to Multilayer PCB
- ExpressPCB
Fast manufacturing and shipping of prototypes. Excellent quality. Made in the USA. Free schematic and board layout software!
- OSH Park
Inexpensive, yet extremely high quality and options (board shapes, non-plated holes, solder mask, silkscreen, gold flash). Wonderful preview of board layers before ordering. Made in the USA.
- Electronic Interconnect
Great prices for volume. Color choices for solder mask. Also great quality and made in the USA.
Electric Motors, Gearmotors, Gearheads, and Encoders
- Maxon
High-quality miniature DC motors. The cost of brand new motors are out of the price range of most hobbyists.
So, use this site to look up the motor specifications that are listed on eBay.
- Faulhaber
Makers of fine quality gearmotors with company names of “MicroMo”, “Mini-Motor”, and “Faulhaber”.
- Portescap
Another manufacturer of excellent small motors. Sometimes the name is shortened to “escap”.
Magazines and Books for Robots, Software, Machining, and DIY
- Make
Instructions and tutorials on making a wide variety of things. Always something new!
- SlashDot
News for nerds!
- Home Shop Machinist
Projects and reading material for hobbyist machinists. The ads are useful for finding bargains and tools you never knew existed.
- EEVblog
Great supporter of the electronics community, with a no-nonsense attitude towards bad products and engineering.
- The Amp Hour
A podcast around timely electronics/science topics with interesting guests.
- Apress
The publisher of Robot Building for Beginners, Intermediate Robot Building, as well as a lot of books on programming languages.
Cool People, Builders, or Interesting Websites
- Steve Hassenplug
Steve is a master Lego builder. His creations and devices often outshine machined competitors. A friendly, great guy.
- Hackaday
Constantly something new about reverse-engineering, hacking, or tweaking technology.
- Society Of Robots
Site and member-authored tutorials on parts, techniques, and getting started with robots.
- Instructables
User-generated articles across many topics, including electronics, art, and robots.
- Dave Hylands
A well-respected robot builder and machinist. Lots of photographs and articles.
- Alphadrome
Vintage tin robots and space toys. I think the Robot Room mascot is a Nomura Zoomer Rachet.
- Theodore Gray’s Periodic Table
A physicists dream: an actual physical table containing chemical elements. Fascinating short stories and pictures.
- Alexander Avtanski
A variety of interesting electronic projects that cleverly combine ordinary materials with the right scientific stuff.
- Chuck Hellebuyck's Electronic Products
He is a book author and creator of electronic products -- with particular emphasis on Microchip PICs.
Robot Clubs and Schools