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.