List of important IC to buy for your electronics lab at home

Setting up electronics lab has lot of perks if you are an electronics engineer or hobbyists, you can experiment and learn a lot. However setting up your lab can be a daunting task due to constraints such as budget, space, choice of tools, electronic devices to stock etc. From almost a millions of components in the market its hard to find the right component to have it at your disposal in your lab. So in this article we have listed about fifteen most important IC to have stocked in your electronics lab. This list is compiled after going through several forums asking opinions from engineers and hobbyists who spend years building electronic projects in their home lab.

Also read:  How to set up electronics lab at home

LM393

LM393 is a IC with a dual comparator in a single IC package. The dual independent voltage comparator in this IC is capable of single or split supply operation. LM393 has the input voltage range of 2V – 36V. The dual comparator feature of this IC enhances high gain and wide bandwidth characteristics. LM393 has an input offset voltage of 2mV. This IC can be used in voltage comparator circuits, electronic oscillator, and timer circuit.

LM386

The LM386 IC is a low power audio amplifier which can be used in small audio amplifier circuits. The chip can provide a voltage gain of IC is 20-200. The IC consists of 8 pins with acceptable supply voltage of 5-18V. It can deliver a power of about 800mW to output load. This IC is advantageous to use for applications that include low power consumption and portable devices. The IC can be used in AM-FM amplifiers, portable amplifiers, and audio boosters. Read about Working of LM386 and how to use them in circuits.

LM555

LM555 is one of the popular devices which can generate accurate time delays, PWM signal or clock pulse of variable frequency. The input supply voltage to this IC ranges from 4.5V to 16V. The output pin of IC 555 can source or sink up to 200mA. Astable and monostable multivibrator are two of the most popular configurations of IC 555. This chip can be used for a wide range of applications like pulse generation, pulse width modulation, sequential timing, and timer projects. Read about Working of IC555 and how to use them in circuits.

MCP6002

MCP6002 is an dual operational amplifier IC that can operate in a supply voltage of 1.8V to 5.5V. This chip has 1MHz gain bandwidth and 90-degree phase margin. This chip draws quiescent current of about 100uA and input bias current of about 20pA makes it suitable for low power applications. Moreover, the output voltage can swing rail to rail supply voltage.

TC1427

TC1427 is a 1.2A dual high-speed MOSFET driver with two inbuilt channels. The output channels possess low output impedance of 8 Ohm. This chip can operate at a supply voltage of 4.5V to 16V. This chip offers output transition time of 75nsec making the switching of output faster It can withstand the temperature range of 0 to 70 degree making it a great choice to operate at extreme conditions.

ULN2803

ULN2803 is a Darlington transistor array chip that can be used to drive high power loads. The IC consists of 8 transistor Darlington arrays for 8 Input / Output channels. It can drive devices with operating voltage up to 50v and current up to 500mA per channel. ULN2803 works in inverting logic that is when input channel is driven with logic 1 output goes low thus sinking the current from the output device. Refer to Working of ULN2803 chip to get more in depth understanding of its working. This IC can drive inductive loads such as relays, motors, etc.

PC817

PC817 is a photo coupler chip that comes in 4-pin DIP packages. This IC consists of a IRED ( Infra-Red Emitting Diode coupled to a photo transistor. The IRED can be driven by 1.25V input and collector emitter voltage of output phototransistor can go up to 80V. Photo coupler chips such as this can be used to provide electrical isolation, operate high power electric home, noise suppression etc.

HT12E

HT12E is a 12-bit encoder chip. This chip can be driven using a supply voltage of 2.4V to 12V. Out of the 12-bits, 4-bits contains the actual data and other 8-bits set the address. The encoded data can be transmitted using RF or IR medium. The IC consumes low power of 0.1uA at 5V and designed with high noise CMOS technology. This chip also has a decoder chip HT12D that decodes the incoming encoded signal from the encoder. Read more about working of HT12E and how to use in circuits.

HT12D

HT12D is a 12-bit RF decoder chip. The operating voltage of this IC ranges from 2.4v to 12v. Like HT12E, 8-bits are dedicated for address and the other 4-bits are dedicated for data. The address data from encoder HT12E should match the set address in HT12D to successfully decode the received data. HT12E and HT12D is used widely in communication systems, alarm systems etc.

MCP4901

MCP4901 is a 8-bit Digital input to Analog converter with SPI interface. This chip operates with a supply voltage ranging from 2.7V to 5.5V. In addition, this IC supports 2x gain signal at the output. It uses SPI interface to take digital data from an external source such as Microcontroller and then translates that into an Analog signal. This IC provides low noise, high-performance industrial applications like a motor control feedback loop, and calibration of optically controlled communication devices.

LM3914

LM3914 is a LED driver IC that can drive LEDs, LED bar and Dot displays etc. This chip supports operating voltage ranging from 1.2V to 12V. It provides the feature to program the output current fed into the LEDs. This chip comes with a built in series of comparators to compare the input signal against preset voltages and incrementally light up LEDs.

74XX series

This series of IC’s are handy ones to have stocked. These series of IC’s include NAND, NOR, Hex inverter, JK, D flip-flop. XOR gate and Decoder. The significance of this series chips is that it operates in TTL logic levels. Below are some of the important 74xx series chips.

• 7400 – quad 2-input NAND gate
• 7401 – quad 2-input NAND gate with open collector outputs
• 7402 – quad 2-input NOR gate
• 7404 – hex inverter
• 7405 – hex inverter with open collector outputs
• 7470 – JK – Flip Flop
• 7479 – D – Flip Flop
• 7486 – XOR gate
• 7442 – Decoder

4XXX Chips

Similar to 74xx IC series 4xxx series includes NAND, NOR, Hex inverter, JK, D flip flop. XOR gate and decoder. The key difference is that 4xxx chips operate in CMOS logic levels. Below are some of the important 4xxx worth stocking in your lab.

• 4012 – NAND gate
• 4009 – Hex Inverter
• 4096 – JK Flip Flop
• 4511 – Decoder
• 4076 – D Flip Flop
• 4070 – XOR Flip Flop

Linear Voltage Regulators

Regulators come into play when we need to obtain a required voltage as per our need. It’s always good to buy some linear voltage regulators which are simple to use and less expensive when coming to switching regulators. Below are some of the popular linear voltage regulator chips

7805 –  Constant output voltage of 5V.
7812 – Constant output voltage of 12V.
7809 – Constant output voltage of 9V.
LM317 – Adjustable output voltage from 1.25V to 37V with output current of 1.5A

Switching Regulators

While Linear regulators are easy to use, they waste lot of energy in the form of heat. Switching regulators can be an excellent alternative in that case to derive the necessary voltage output from the regulator chip.

LM2576WT – It is an adjustable switching regulator with input voltage ranging from 4V to 40V and output voltage ranging from 1.23V to 37V and the maximum output current up to 3A.

LM2577T – It is a switching regulator with input voltage of 3.5V to 40V and maximum output current up to 3A.

Hope this list gave you a good starting point to stock your electronics lab. If you feel any other ICs should be added to this list, do leave your opinion in the comment box below.