Someone is selling them on ebay for a ridiculous price, 24$ per IC. You may be able to bargain with him a bit, maybe 2 for 1 or something?

http://cgi.ebay.com/CA3161-Integrat...ZWD1VQQ_trksidZp1638.m118.l1247QQcmdZViewItem

Steve

I clicked on "visit seller's store" out of curiosity. Also out of curiosity, I sorted the offerings by price - highest first. I had to triple-check that I was reading the numbers right on the first page. I found nothing in the first 42 pages (of over 1000) that cost less than $100.00

I realize much of what is being sold is rare, but obscure chips really worth so much money?

 

just on the topic.

<snip>

In the interests of consistency, this violates forum rule #8 - I understand it was an innocent mistake, but we enforce this rule pretty strictly and for everyone. Offer them for free by all means - Dave

 

That chip does the decoding and has current limiting plus other features. In it's day it saved money in parts and board space because you didn't have to have external resistors.

Obsolete parts can be worth it but they are usually ones that have complex functions that cannot be duplicated for reasonable cost.

That part could be duplicated from off the shelf components to directly replaced but it would cost more than finding and buying an obsolete part.

Parts from the same time frame that you cannot duplicate are microcontrollers with either program proms (not eproms eeproms or flash) or were made with the program on the die. You can't duplicate them cheaply. You find them in TVs, microwaves, and a wide variety of critical systems.

Currently parts are available that take programs and have anti-tamper/reverse engineering features. If the part goes bad there is NO other choice but to go to the device manufacturer not the chip manufacturer. CPLD's, FPGA's, GAL's, PALs etc If they are out of business or they've lost the coding/obsoleted the device they made you're screwed.

Also consider this when bitching about how expensive military equipment is because to sell to them you have to provide code or they buy the parts "for the life of the unit". I was building "new" devices with parts that Motorola had obsoleted three years previous. Getting all the funding together took that long and they had only X number of parts with no margin for error.
Fun stuff. In some cases the could have Motorola make more at ruinous prices or provide the die blueprints and go and bid on more parts but the FDA is blindingly fast compared to how long that'd take.

I'm all for open source hardware, software and cores. If I'm being taxed for it the gov't should own it.

 

I clicked on "visit seller's store" out of curiosity. Also out of curiosity, I sorted the offerings by price - highest first. I had to triple-check that I was reading the numbers right on the first page. I found nothing in the first 42 pages (of over 1000) that cost less than $100.00

I realize much of what is being sold is rare, but obscure chips really worth so much money?

I suppose this is a case of - if you can, do. Ebay has that effect on people.

Dave

 

Many obsolete ic's are still available in quantity, but through warehouse operations. They only deal in quantity, and have $500 minimum bids for the items. Kinda hard to afford one or two.

 

that seller is ridiculous

 

The Americans seem to be out in the cold for once. I've also noticed comments about supply difficulties like this in other forums.

Although there is an element of this effect in UK/Europe there are some very good suppliers in bulk or small quantities offering very reasonable prices.

One from Germany goes by the handle of 'germanium transistor'.

I have also had some pretty good component deals from Hong Kong, mostly OnSemiconductor copies of UK or US types.

 

The AD9060 ADC is the best one.. Digikey list is 442$ and he is selling them for 2286$.. It's a bit shameful to capitalize on this, but I guess everyone just wants to make a buck or two

Steve

 

$442 for an ADC? Sounds like a lead-to-gold converter.

 

The AD9060 ADC is the best one.. Digikey list is 442$ and he is selling them for 2286$.. It's a bit shameful to capitalize on this, but I guess everyone just wants to make a buck or two

Steve

Lol! That's not capitalisation, that just daylight-robbery! A 500+% mark-up is criminal!

Dave

 

Although there is an element of this effect in UK/Europe there are some very good suppliers in bulk or small quantities offering very reasonable prices.

studiot, which UK-based suppliers are you referring to?

Dave

 

(snip)
Also consider this when bitching about how expensive military equipment is because to sell to them you have to provide code or they buy the parts "for the life of the unit". I was building "new" devices with parts that Motorola had obsoleted three years previous. Getting all the funding together took that long and they had only X number of parts with no margin for error.
Fun stuff. In some cases the could have Motorola make more at ruinous prices or provide the die blueprints and go and bid on more parts but the FDA is blindingly fast compared to how long that'd take.
(snop)

Dealing with Gov't programs can be a royal PITA, particularly if it's spacecraft. EVERYTHING has to be conservatively rated and be on a list of "preferred parts", even if some of the parts on the list that perform the required function has been obsolete and not produced for years. Ran into that problem nearly a couple decades ago. We had to scrounge around from other manufacturers for "new old stock" parts, as at that time the Internet was not nearly as populated as it is now. There was no time to re-design or wait for the manufacturer to gear up for a special run, and the parts after programming were going straight into extended extreme temperature cycle reliability testing for 9 months.

Somewhere around 85% of the parts failed after this test. Fortunately, that had been planned for - but we wound up with only one set of spares

 

With over a thousand pages of parts, and with eBay insertion fees running from $0.15US to $4US, I'd think he or she would go broke. Unless someone is actually buying some of these overpriced goodies. I checked some of the lower priced ones (ran the sort the other way) and found 2x to 3x normal price was the norm there.

 

With over a thousand pages of parts, and with eBay insertion fees running from $0.15US to $4US, I'd think he or she would go broke. Unless someone is actually buying some of these overpriced goodies. I checked some of the lower priced ones (ran the sort the other way) and found 2x to 3x normal price was the norm there.

Is the word a "chancer" applicable here?!

Dave

 

I've just read the details of this supplier and I see that he is actually UK based.

I also note his price match offer

"Company Background
LittleDiode supplies a wide range of components. Our aim is to supply a wide range of electronic components and spare parts on a 'No Minimum Order' basis. We will provide the most competitive price and can match any price elsewhere. "

 

They charge a buck a piece for TL074, plus six bucks shipping. I can get them on the other side of town for a quarter each. (7 bucks = 4.43 Euro today. A quarter is 0.16 Euro.)

 

Hi,

Yes you are rite...

The littlediode, E-bay shop is very expensive. I enquired recently about a large purchase of IC's. They wanted 2 GBP each for them. I got them for 0.38 GBP (100 off).
That is not to say that E-bay is not a good source of components. I have bought hundreds of thousands over the last couple of years, and have been very happy with them.

The answer is "allways shop around" and if you are building something that you wish to use for many years, "don't buy just one of the IC's that you need for it". You should allways get an extra one or two, as things go obsolete so fast these days. Then at a later date , you may have to pay through the nose for it...

Components are are never realy rare, as milions are still out there. It's just a matter of being patient and finding them.

Daniel.

 

"Company Background
LittleDiode supplies a wide range of components. Our aim is to supply a wide range of electronic components and spare parts on a 'No Minimum Order' basis. We will provide the most competitive price and can match any price elsewhere. "

Perhaps we could take them up on their offer!

I wonder what Trading Standards would have to say should they fail to meet their verbiage.

Dave

 

lol US$45.72 for an ne566! Yet someone else has a lot of ten for $40 or another selling them for $8 each. wish they were still 50cents each. i need a few. lol

 

lol US$45.72 for an ne566! Yet someone else has a lot of ten for $40 or another selling them for $8 each. wish they were still 50cents each. i need a few. lol

Electronic Goldmine had NE566's for $2.99 each a couple months ago when I picked up a few. Sadly, they are now out of stock.

A reputable E-bay seller who I've bought a number of parts from sells them for $8/ea nowadays:
http://cgi.ebay.com/NE566-HAM-Funct...ryZ38071QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem