Book and Parts Resources/was Any good books for a beginner?

   My post grew to include everything I know  :-)  so I changed the
subject line.



   I've got the earlier edition of McComb's Bonanza book and found it
interesting (he's posted here occasionally, and he's written many
other books on technical topics). If you want get several robotics
books, this (or perhaps the newest, second edition) should probably be
one of them, but I think this book has recently been outdone...
   At the local club <botlanta.org> I've paged through "Robot Building
for Beginners" by David Cook and it looks really good, it goes into a
bunch of practical ideas and problems that I'd never really thought of
(mundane but important stuff like how to attach wheels to shafts and
to motors...), and tells how to get through them. Here's Amazon's
entry with reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1893115445
   He also has an "intermediate" book. I usually look at Amazon's
reviews when deciding on a book even if I don't order it from them.
Here's a few other sites for finding the cheapest new and used books:

http://www.bookfinder.com  new and used
http://www.addall.com/     new
http://used.addall.com/    used

   Full disclosure (and cheap blatant self-promotion): I've got a few
dozen used books for sale on Amazon, though none specifically on
robotics:
http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/ts/customer-open-marketplace-items/AXP76PGQBBR9X/ref=fb_comi_spgl/002-8807506-1636053


   Probably the "most reputable" source of electronics parts is
http://www.digikey.com . Download their .pdf catalog or order their
free print catalog (it's like Byte Magazine in the early '80's or so,
it's approaching phonebook size) and peruse to see what they have.
   Also reputable, but not neccesarily reliable in that what you want
could be sold out at any time, are electronic surplus stores. I think
all have good online catalogs and ordering systems, and they generally
know how much of what's in their inventory, so if you order over the
web you're pretty sure to get what you ordered. The one I like the
most is http://www.allelectronics.com  but there are many others. That
one and a few others, BG Micro and Goldmine, have had ads in the back
of electronics magazines for probably 20 or 30 years that I know of.
   Here's my "seekrit" list of links to interesting places for
robotics-related parts. The ones I describe are sites I've ordered
from in the past five years (I got everything I ordered except from
digikey which was once backordered on a part, I got it later).

http://www.digikey.com       new electronics distributor
http://allelectronics.com/   electronics surplus,
http://bgmicro.com
http://goldmine-elec.com
http://www.surplussales.com/
http://www.mpja.com/
http://www.meci.com/         electronic and mechanical surplus
http://www.alltronics.com
http://www.hoffind.com/
http://www.sciplus.com/
http://www.scientificsonline.com
http://www.edmundoptics.com
http://www.anchoroptical.com
http://www.sciencekit.com
http://www.harborfreight.com  Mostly import (Chinese) wood/metalworking
and measurement tools
http://www.smallparts.com     new mechanical parts and materials
http://www.mcmaster.com/      Giant industrial-products warehouse

   These all shipped to my home address. About four years ago I put in
an order, I forget whether it was with Grainger or MSC (the two other
Giant industrial-products warehouses), and got an email that they
couldn't find any evidence that I was a business (I didn't see where
they actually NEEDED such evidence when I ordered - my credit card was
good), and requested I send a copy of a business license. I didn't
bother, as I didn't think it was worth it to get a business license
just to have that order. Apparently they don't want to do business
with 'hobbyists' whereas others have gladly taken my money.

   It helps have a few hundred megs free disk space and a high speed
net connection to get all those .pdf catalogs.

   And I might as well throw this in, I've used their software and
ordered PCB's from: http://www.expresspcb.com/


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