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Comment by AceJohnny2 | Hacker News Reader

I've recently gotten back into hobby electronics, trying to revive all that EE knowledge I haven't used in 15 years, and one thing I sorely lack is knowledge of common components to use.

Online electronics stores are no help because of the overload of possible components.

Is there some sort of Cookbook out there I could refer to for up-to-date examples of common circuits and electronic tasks? I mean, I otherwise totally would've used a 2N2222 transistor for some tasks, because I wouldn't know better.

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A lot of manufacturers have parts designed as drop in replacements for older parts, sometimes even with similar looking part numbers. Another thing that I often do is use Digikey's search and check their stock quantity to find out what's "popular". For example, if I want an op amp, I'll go to that category on Digikey and then first enter a quantity and sort by price. Then I'll start adding constraints - for example, for a 324 replacement, I might want it to be through hole (I nearly always do SMD designs though). From that, I unsurprisingly find the LM324 (it's still one of the cheapest!). But I also find the MCP6002, which is lower voltage but has rail to rail inputs and is designed for a capacitive load - perfect for driving a microcontroller ADC.

The truth though is that it's not like the old parts got any worse, and are still often the cheapest choice. You have to add additional constraints (I want lower loss, better performance etc) for something else to be "better".

I'm using the MCP6002 to drive the ADC of an ATTiny85 for a guitar pedal that replicates Game Boy sounds. It's got both rail to rail input and output and it all works happily on 3.3v.

Octopart (YC'something, now part of Altium) have an excellent Common Parts Library:

https://octopart.com/common-parts-library

I also often refer to Sparkfun's product list as a reasonable starting point.

Octopart is much nicer than http://findchips.com (which has been around about 20 years, searches many more vendors but doesn't consolidate pricing)

The octopart.com Common Parts Library is a good place to start if you are looking for a generic part...

https://octopart.com/common-parts-library

Horowitz and Hill third edition.

Also, searhc digikey and sort by quantity in stock, descending. The popular parts are the ones to use (if you don't have special requirements of course).

I've been looking for the same thing for weeks, I ended up just texting my electrical engineer friend

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