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PARTS

In this appendix, you will find more information about the parts used to make the projects in this book. Unlike the individual project supply lists, the tables in this appendix list two types of sources: preapocalypse and postapocalypse. If you’re looking to buy parts and stockpile them in your secret underground bunker before the dead rise, look to the suppliers in the preapocalypse column. Buy your materials in bulk online now, and you can even order extras so you’ll be prepared to replace any components that break.

If you’re reading this guide after zombies have already taken up residence in your neighborhood, you want the postapocalypse column. Your options will be limited without the Internet, but if you’re lucky, you’ll find the odd brick-and-mortar hobby shop to loot, and there should be plenty of cars, microwaves, and other electronics that you can harvest components from. Good luck!

A NOTE ON BRICK-AND-MORTAR SUPPLIERS

When it comes to brick-and-mortar stores for electronic components, since the demise of Radio Shack, your choice in the United States has been reduced pretty much to Fry’s Electronics in California, Texas, and a handful of other states (http://www.frys.com/) and a few independent stores around the country. If you live in the UK, then Maplin Electronics (http://www.maplin.co.uk/) is your best bet. Both Fry’s and Maplin offer online ordering as well.

ELECTRONICS MODULES

This section describes items that could loosely be termed modules, or preassembled parts, rather than basic electronic components.

RASPBERRY PI AND RELATED PARTS

This list includes all Raspberry Pi–specific parts you’ll need, including the Pi itself.

LEADS AND CONNECTORS

In this list, you’ll find all the wires, leads, jacks, and other bits you’ll need to connect your circuits.

TOOLS

No self-respecting zombie apocalypse survivor should be without the following general household tools:

• A drill

• Screwdrivers

• Pliers

• Snips

• A wood saw

• Scissors

You should be able to find these at any hardware store. To complete the projects in this book, you will also need a few electronics construction tools, listed below.

ELECTRONIC COMPONENTS

A lot of the components here can be found in electronics starter kits for hobbyists. Kits like Adafruit’s ARDX Experimenters Kit for Arduino (product ID 170) or the SparkFun Beginners Parts Kit (KIT-10003) will give you a good start with the basic resistors, diodes, and transistors.

OTHER HARDWARE

Finally, you’ll need just a few other odds and ends to be able to power and construct the mechanics of your projects, as listed here.

RESISTOR COLOR CODES

Resistors have stripes on them that tell you their value, and an essential piece of geekiness is to know your resistor color codes.

There will generally be three of these bands together starting at one end of the resistor, a gap, and then a single band at the other end of the resistor. The single band indicates the accuracy of the resistor value. While gold and silver represent the fractions 1/10 and 1/100, they’re also used to indicate how accurate the resistor is; gold is ±5 percent and silver is ±10 percent.

Figure A-1 shows the arrangement of the colored bands. The resistor value uses just the three bands. The first band is the first digit, the second the second digit, and the third “multiplier” band is how many zeros to put after the first two digits.

Figure A-1: Resistor color codes

Let’s say the digit-1 band is red, the digit-2 band is violet, and the multiplier band is brown. That makes this a 270 Ω resistor, or 27×101. Similarly, a 10 kΩ resistor will have bands of brown, black, orange (1, 0, 1,000).