Where do you order your components from?

Mister X · Post by **Mister X** » Sat May 31, 2008 7:48 pm

I just checked out my latest order from my usual supplier, Jameco, and found that I was sent a pile of chip capacitors instead of disc capacitors, which has put a HALT to one of my projects. Pretty hard to solder something by hand that's 1.6 millimeters wide.

Searching for another supplier is giving me a headache; Jameco is also lacking a few miscellaneous parts I need, so meh. Right now, I can't even begin to start drawing traces until I know the dimensions of the parts I'll have on hand.

I need a few 0.1Âµf disc caps , red, white, and yellow panel-mount RCA jacks (for obvious reasons), mini din 4 pin s-video jacks, perhaps some mini din 9 pin jacks, etcetera, etcetera. Trying to find one place to order them all online, but no store I've checked has even half of these items. I'm not going to pay $30 in shipping across 4 shops to buy $10 in parts.

mothatrucka · Post by **mothatrucka** » Sat May 31, 2008 7:52 pm

Have you tried Mouser.com? I like them. I've never once had a problem with them. I believe Ben uses them as well.

Mister X · Post by **Mister X** » Sat May 31, 2008 8:12 pm

The only 0.1Âµf caps Mouser has are a buck each. I don't need kilovolt capacity for a small signal amplifier powered by single-digit voltage.
Rather than mess with a string of series-connected caps of greater values to get down to 0.1Âµ, I'll just say screw it until I can find exactly what I need.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Sat May 31, 2008 8:13 pm

There is digikey.com, I've heard they're good. You could also find cheap/free electronics to salvage some of your parts from.

Post by **bicostp** » Sat May 31, 2008 8:53 pm

I stocked up on parts when one of the Radio Shack stores near me liquidated their stock. Almost everything was 75% off toward the end, and since almost nobody deals with electronics anymore there was still a lot to choose from.

Other than that, I just harvest parts from dead computer equipment. (The aluminum and larger copper parts go to the scrapyard, where they pay by the pound for that crap.) There's a whole box of boards that are chock full of fun bits, plus some compartment boxes with sorted pulls, and an underbed storage box full of miscellaneous bits and pieces.

Between those two sources there's plenty of parts to do the occasional project with. For example, I just composite-modded my light 6-switch 2600 with jacks and pots from a dead TV, and when I got a Hummer DTV (also on clearance), it got a keyboard mod with a PS/2 port taken from a dead Slot 1 motherboard.

Let's hear it for being cheap!