I am addicted to getting packages in the mail containing electronics parts, i find it exciting to unbox something and get that smell that seems to come with every delivery which i duly sniff, then empty out the packets from the box onto my table, components that i have no immediate use for but may need in the future, I used to buy from Amazon but i just went to order some resistors and read some of the reviews on said components which said the leads were very thin and unsuitable for breadboard construction so i looked elsewhere and ended up ordering from Digikey, i received my order and am delighted with the quality.

Now.....I am straddling the fence as to do i buy from Amazon with their speedy delivery sometimes within 12hrs or less and their free delivery along with bargain prices for buying parts in bulk for which i have no choice, you cannot buy just 1 capacitor for instance, you have to buy a kit, or to go with Digikey and their 4 day at least delivery time and extortionate shipping cost...the components from Digikey do seem to be of higher quality from what i have seen though.

Amazon = cheaper components, speedy delivery, bulk buying only

Digikey = Slightly more expensive components, longer delivery times, expensive shipping costs

Ummmmm..........

What do you guys do?

 

Amazon - quality unknown, authenticity unknown

DigiKey - only quality authentic merchandise

I buy from Amazon to get things like resistor kits. I use Mouser or DigiKey for critical components.

 

I used to buy from Amazon but i just went to order some resistors and read some of the reviews on said components which said the leads were very thin

They also sometimes/usually use a ferrous metal instead of copper for the lead core.

What do you guys do?

When authenticity/reliability is required, I buy from reputable suppliers (Newark, Mouser, Tayda). I used to recommend Jameco but have found that they sell some counterfeit parts. I'll still buy commonly available parts from them.

I generally don't buy from Digikey because I've found their large selection to result in higher prices.

Since counterfeiting became such a problem, I don't buy components from Amazon and rarely from Ebay (especially if it ships from China - they'll eventually start shipping from other countries). If I'm going to buy components of questionable authenticity/reliability, I'll cut out most of the middlemen and buy from AliExpress.

 

I am addicted to getting packages in the mail containing electronics parts, i find it exciting to unbox something and get that smell that seems to come with every delivery which i duly sniff, then empty out the packets from the box onto my table, components that i have no immediate use for but may need in the future, I used to buy from Amazon but i just went to order some resistors and read some of the reviews on said components which said the leads were very thin and unsuitable for breadboard construction so i looked elsewhere and ended up ordering from Digikey, i received my order and am delighted with the quality.

Now.....I am straddling the fence as to do i buy from Amazon with their speedy delivery sometimes within 12hrs or less and their free delivery along with bargain prices for buying parts in bulk for which i have no choice, you cannot buy just 1 capacitor for instance, you have to buy a kit, or to go with Digikey and their 4 day at least delivery time and extortionate shipping cost...the components from Digikey do seem to be of higher quality from what i have seen though.

Amazon = cheaper components, speedy delivery, bulk buying only

Digikey = Slightly more expensive components, longer delivery times, expensive shipping costs

Ummmmm..........

What do you guys do?

When I was a broke college student (back long before Amazon and its ilk were around), my bread and butter were the electronic surplus stores (there were quite a few of them back then, virtually none exist today) and scavenging parts from discarded equipment. I used the Digi-Key catalog to research what was available and then spent hours trying to find someplace where I could get it at an affordable price. If I couldn't find something at a surplus store, I discovered that places like Allied often had much better prices, but almost always had minimum order sizes (per part, not per order) that I couldn't afford. My approach and decisions were driven by my finances -- I didn't have the money, I did have the time. After I started working as a full-time engineer, I carried over this same approach, since it was the only one I knew, but after a couple of months I sat back and looked at it from the perspective of someone who's time no had value and I ran the numbers. I immediately realized that the time spent trying to beat Digi-Key's prices quickly cost more than the savings from doing so, unless I was in a position to buy the minimum order size that the other houses required. I realized that Digi-Key and Mouser were actually reasonably prices for the service they provided -- I could look up in their catalog nearly everything I needed, order it all at one time (I usually phoned the order in, and found working with their representatives to be most pleasant), and I could get almost everything in single quantities. If I need a single potentiometer for a project, I could order just one. Shipping and handling cost $5 for orders under $25 and was free for orders above that provided you paid at the time you ordered. As a working professional, this was actually quite valuable and more than offset the higher prices -- on balance, it was actually a cost savings when I factored in what an hour of my time cost the company, especially after all of the benefits were taken into account. As a sole-proprietor, my situation was a hybrid of the two, so my purchasing habits became a hybrid. I ordered quite a bit from Digi-Key, but also spent quite a bit of time at the surplus stores. I developed a decent feel for which resource to use for what under different scenarios.

As a retired engineer doing very limited hardware work these days (my focus is elsewhere right now), I'm arguably back to the "broke college student with a lot of free time" model. I wouldn't have much qualms about buying most passives from Amazon and such, but fortunately I have a pretty good bench stock of that kind of stuff. For ICs and the like, if I need something I'm probably turning to Digi-Key. I'll pay the higher price in exchange for knowing that I am getting the real thing -- that has value to me.

One thing that I definitely miss are the manufacturer's samples. As a student (especially) or a prototyping engineer, you could call up TI or National or any of the others and request engineering samples of a large fraction of their offerings and they would send them in the mail to you for free. I got quite a few rather expensive ICs that way -- and it resulted in modest orders for those parts down the road in some cases.

 

If I need the dopamine hit by buying something I want the anticipation to last a while. I'll take the longer delivery time. It's also cool to watch it travel across the country.

 

The very best deals seem to me to be damaged shipments, where the packaging is damaged and the different components are all mixed together.Many of them having bent leats, no longer usable in automated assembly machines. But if you have no need to insert 20 resistors a minute all day, those parts are OK.

 

Surplus stores, boy did I love going to those and just browse through the components!

I would hold in my hand a gigantic heat sink, a multiturn pot with a vernier dial, a box of matched TO3 transistors or perhaps a “computer grade” electrolytic cap the size of a beer can, and daydream about what sort of project I could build with them. Marveled at the rainbow colored film caps. Practiced my color codes by deciphering a resistor value prior to reading the label. I would literally drool over those fancy, expensive and mysterious things called ICs.

That was my dopamine rush.

 

I buy from Amazon to get things like resistor kits. I use Mouser or DigiKey for critical components.

I do same, depending on my application.

Ron

 

 

...my addiction to stuff has ebbed - clearing away another's accumulation helped.

Though it was waning prior to that - building my retro chip tester pro I had to buy about 1500 5V6 diodes [or was it 5V1] to get enough (50-ish) at the top end of the spec.

 

...my addiction to stuff has ebbed - clearing away another's accumulation helped.

Though it was waning prior to that - building my retro chip tester pro I had to buy about 1500 5V6 diodes [or was it 5V1] to get enough (50-ish) at the top end of the spec.

I am on the back side of the curve now, too. When I was single and making really good money, I was collecting all kinds of stuff that I had some vague notion of what I wanted to do with it someday. I can't believe how much stuff then sat around for literally decades without ever being taken out of the box. I've now probably gotten rid of about half of my stuff, including well over a thousand textbooks that used to be my pride and joy, and the house is still crammed to overflowing (though the progress is very apparent if you know what it used to look like).

The house that my parents owned that we moved out of when I was five was 920 sf. This house is more than four times that size. Clearly, all this crap is not needed. If nothing else, it makes it so hard to find the stuff that you do want/need and that you know is around... somewhere.

 

I setup a workshop/office in a spare garage here. This began in earnest around the time of Covid as I was working from home anyhow.

I began accumulating lots of truly helpful bits n pieces, mainly from Amazon, stuff like M-M, M-F, F-F dupont jumper wires, assorted kinds of rechargeable batteries, tool sets for opening those star shaped screw heads, magnet hooks, bunches of colored banana plug cables, multiple colors of power cables (easy to unplug a specific device from a congested power strip) various kinds of BNC couplers, fiber optic camera gizmo for looking inside walls and crammed spaces, ribbon cable connector crimpers, various kinds of adhesives, a spring set (box of assorted springs) truly a life saver sometimes.

I went through a phase of hunting out obscure items and tools because they were generally not expensive and I was tired of contriving stuff, if there was a proper tool, proper cable, connector etc, I bought it.

Today if I dabble in any kind of job or project I say "Ah, I have just the tool" or "Good, I have the right connector for that" and so on, so parts are fun but so too are these kinds of tools and stuff, Amazon has a huge selection.

 

I setup a workshop/office in a spare garage here. This began in earnest around the time of Covid as I was working from home anyhow.

I began accumulating lots of truly helpful bits n pieces, mainly from Amazon, stuff like M-M, M-F, F-F dupont jumper wires, assorted kinds of rechargeable batteries, tool sets for opening those star shaped screw heads, magnet hooks, bunches of colored banana plug cables, multiple colors of power cables (easy to unplug a specific device from a congested power strip) various kinds of BNC couplers, fiber optic camera gizmo for looking inside walls and crammed spaces, ribbon cable connector crimpers, various kinds of adhesives, a spring set (box of assorted springs) truly a life saver sometimes.

I went through a phase of hunting out obscure items and tools because they were generally not expensive and I was tired of contriving stuff, if there was a proper tool, proper cable, connector etc, I bought it.

Today if I dabble in any kind of job or project I say "Ah, I have just the tool" or "Good, I have the right connector for that" and so on, so parts are fun but so too are these kinds of tools and stuff, Amazon has a huge selection.

I've always been a tool whore -- and that is one of two areas that I have made zero progress on. The other being test equipment. I just can't bring myself to part with an Allen wrench, even the ones that come with the assemble-yourself furniture and I probably have two dozen of that same damn size! It's on my list, though. I've most been trying to collect all the tools in one location (unless they truly belong somewhere else) with the intention of going through them and making up decent kits for each vehicle (not a lot of point in keeping much in today's cars, even the old beaters that we own, because there's not a lot you can do on the side of the road anymore), a good set of small tools down in the lab, a suitable set in the reloading area, and everything else in the tool chest in the garage, properly sorted and organized. The key to keeping them that way is to make consolidated tool kits, something I've been meaning to do for nearly forty years -- and something that will probably never happen.

As for the test equipment... probably not much is ever going to happen on that end.

 

I am addicted to getting packages in the mail containing electronics parts, i find it exciting to unbox something and get that smell that seems to come with every delivery which i duly sniff, then empty out the packets from the box onto my table, components that i have no immediate use for but may need in the future, I used to buy from Amazon but i just went to order some resistors and read some of the reviews on said components which said the leads were very thin and unsuitable for breadboard construction so i looked elsewhere and ended up ordering from Digikey, i received my order and am delighted with the quality.

Now.....I am straddling the fence as to do i buy from Amazon with their speedy delivery sometimes within 12hrs or less and their free delivery along with bargain prices for buying parts in bulk for which i have no choice, you cannot buy just 1 capacitor for instance, you have to buy a kit, or to go with Digikey and their 4 day at least delivery time and extortionate shipping cost...the components from Digikey do seem to be of higher quality from what i have seen though.

Amazon = cheaper components, speedy delivery, bulk buying only

Digikey = Slightly more expensive components, longer delivery times, expensive shipping costs

Ummmmm..........

What do you guys do?

I recently had a good experience with TME, I found things there that I failed to easily locate anywhere else , I lately go to jameco a lot, and I have done digikey as well although jameco has been winning with the search simplicity for the last few small purchases I made that way. TME also packaged in nice heavy duty ziplock bags, so it's nice to get project bags.

I always prefer amazon for the shipping speed, but they're limited, I always prefer aliexpress for the price, but they have a thing.

ebay can be cool but sometimes the shipping is crazy and always slow.

I often see things from places in china or indonesia that have unique kits or something I can't find elsewhere no matter how hard I look, but never buy because the shipping is hard to justify. I don't know how aliexpress does it but they sure can ship for a price I can live with. Sometimes I think it would be cool to just move to china just to be in their shipping network. I would need a shovel to move the piles of little bags.

 

I've always been a tool whore -- and that is one of two areas that I have made zero progress on. The other being test equipment. I just can't bring myself to part with an Allen wrench, even the ones that come with the assemble-yourself furniture and I probably have two dozen of that same damn size! It's on my list, though. I've most been trying to collect all the tools in one location (unless they truly belong somewhere else) with the intention of going through them and making up decent kits for each vehicle (not a lot of point in keeping much in today's cars, even the old beaters that we own, because there's not a lot you can do on the side of the road anymore), a good set of small tools down in the lab, a suitable set in the reloading area, and everything else in the tool chest in the garage, properly sorted and organized. The key to keeping them that way is to make consolidated tool kits, something I've been meaning to do for nearly forty years -- and something that will probably never happen.

As for the test equipment... probably not much is ever going to happen on that end.

Oh God, allen keys or "wrenches" as our American friends say, yes I too have probably fifty of them all the same size sitting around here.

Here are some of the things I've gotten from Amazon over the past few years. As a kid I had no money, it was not an option back then but I recall seeing and reading of well equipped labs and life always looked so simple with the right tools.

















and so on, the point I'm making here is these things are not expensive and are so easy to get, that I have acquired lots of stuff like this and their combined utility is astonishing.

I have a rule here, if I need something once I might need it again.

 

Here are some of the things I've gotten from Amazon over the past few years. As a kid I had no money, it was not an option back then but I recall seeing and reading of well equipped labs and life always looked so simple with the right tools.
I have a rule here, if I need something once I might need it again.

I was in a similar situation as a kid and up through grad school. The bright side is that I learned a lot of tricks on how to do some pretty neat things with what I had, and that has paid nice dividends over the years.

I used to also be of the believe that if I need something once I might need it again (although my mindset was more like "probably" rather than "might"). But experience and taking a hard look as proven that this is far less often the case that I had deluded myself. I used to console myself with the notion that it was offset by the occasional thing I got thinking that I probably wouldn't ever need again that has come in handy time and time again.

I have a friend (well, had, he's now deceased) that had a much more rational approach. If he really needed something he didn't have, his preferred option was to borrow or, possibly, rent it. If he needed it a second time, then he bought it. There were, of course, exceptions both ways. But he ended up with a much smaller, but much more focused and useful, toolset than I can really claim that I have. Especially since the shear volume of tools makes it harder to keep them organized and in one place (though a big part of that is lack of discipline on my part, too).

 

For "stock up" parts, Tayda Electronics in Thailand is a good source. They have a wide range of quality parts at great prices and shipping is reasonable.

Resistors and capacitors can be purchased in small quantities and many values, and connectors and terminal blocks are an incredible value.

 

I am addicted to getting packages in the mail containing electronics parts, i find it exciting to unbox something and get that smell that seems to come with every delivery which i duly sniff, then empty out the packets from the box onto my table, components that i have no immediate use for but may need in the future, I used to buy from Amazon but i just went to order some resistors and read some of the reviews on said components which said the leads were very thin and unsuitable for breadboard construction so i looked elsewhere and ended up ordering from Digikey, i received my order and am delighted with the quality.

Now.....I am straddling the fence as to do i buy from Amazon with their speedy delivery sometimes within 12hrs or less and their free delivery along with bargain prices for buying parts in bulk for which i have no choice, you cannot buy just 1 capacitor for instance, you have to buy a kit, or to go with Digikey and their 4 day at least delivery time and extortionate shipping cost...the components from Digikey do seem to be of higher quality from what i have seen though.

Amazon = cheaper components, speedy delivery, bulk buying only

Digikey = Slightly more expensive components, longer delivery times, expensive shipping costs

Ummmmm..........

What do you guys do?

OK. Do you test the components after receiving? I know digikey sells QC passed components but I have questions about Amazon. I'd like to know your experience with the quality of components sourced from amazon.

 

OK. Do you test the components after receiving? I know digikey sells QC passed components but I have questions about Amazon. I'd like to know your experience with the quality of components sourced from amazon.

i only buy learn electronics type stuff but I must have bought over 100 kits and sets of components from amazon with 0 percent failures. obviously some stuff is lower quality and gets appropriately reviewed, but does work exactly as it is built to. (looking at you fnirsi 1014d, with your inability to read below 30mvpp)

 

OK. Do you test the components after receiving? I know digikey sells QC passed components but I have questions about Amazon. I'd like to know your experience with the quality of components sourced from amazon.

i'm not going to sit and test a complete kit of resistors or capacitors no, the only failure i have had was an op amp that drew 30mA by itself and ran very warm, i just pulled it out of the circuit and junked it. Since i breadboard all (or most) of my circuits it's easy to swap out a bad part which i almost never get. I recently received an order of resistors from digikey and was very impressed, i just hate to pay $6.99 shipping when my order was $4.29, the 4 day shipping doesn't bother me though, it depends whether i am in a rush for my components. In answer to your question though, no....i never test components prior to inserting into a circuit.