by the time I get parts from china I have forgotten just why I needed them oftentimes.

LOL! HECK YEAH! I've been there too.

 

Little known bit about DigiKey: They ship for free if you mail a check or money order:

DigiKey - Terms and Conditions

Read the asterisked line under Section 6, Shipping Charges.

 

Little known bit about DigiKey: They ship for free if you mail a check or money order:

DigiKey - Terms and Conditions

Read the asterisked line under Section 6, Shipping Charges.

Was not aware of that. However, wouldn't that mean sending them a check on Monday, they get it by Wednesday or Thursday; possibly wait till the check clears (possibly seven days), then they process your order and then ship it?

[edit] {cut-n-paste}

6. Shipping Charges.

Products Shipping from Digi-Key's Warehouse. Except as otherwise provided on the Site, (1) shipping or freight charges and insurance will be paid by the customer*, (2) all sales are made FOB Digi-Key's warehouse in Thief River Falls, MN, USA, and (3) shipping or freight charges from Digi-Key's warehouse in Thief River Falls, MN, USA are prepaid and added to the invoice, billed collect or billed to a third party.

* When a check or money order accompanies your order, Digi-Key pays all shipping and insurance (our choice for method of shipping) to all addresses in the U.S. and Canada.

Products Shipping Directly from Suppliers. Except as otherwise provided on the Site, (1) shipping or freight charges and insurance will be paid by the customer, (2) all sales are made FOB supplier’s warehouse, and (3) shipping or freight charges from supplier’s warehouse are prepaid and added to the invoice.

Excessive Weight or Size. Shipments of excessive weight or size may require additional charges. Digi-Key will notify you prior to shipment if these conditions exist.

For International Shipments: Availability of ship methods is dependent on the destination country. Except as otherwise provided on the Site, (1) the shipping costs will be prepaid and added to your order, and (2) all import licenses, duties, tariffs, taxes and brokerage fees will be your responsibility.

[end edit]

 

Was not aware of that. However, wouldn't that mean sending them a check on Monday, they get it by Wednesday or Thursday; possibly wait till the check clears (possibly seven days), then they process your order and then ship it?

You can't have your cake (free shipping) and eat it too (fast).

 

Digikey shipping is very reasonable if you select USPS. I haven't ordered in a while and this might have changed due to the pandemic, but if I order parts from Digikey and use priority mail, shipping is only a few dollars and I usually have it in a few days.

I guess it is only for Canada, the CAN$8.00 flat rate shipping and Fed-Ex next day air delivery?
Max.

 

Was not aware of that. However, wouldn't that mean sending them a check on Monday, they get it by Wednesday or Thursday; possibly wait till the check clears (possibly seven days), then they process your order and then ship it?

I used to do that for personal orders, since I could usually wait and shipping charges could be significant back then (they are pretty tame, by comparison, these days). They never waited for the check to clear and always seemed to ship the same day they got the check (my guess is that this was primarily because their entire system was always set up around very fast order fulfillment). This was back at a time when companies couldn't give discounts for not using a credit card (or charge extra if you did) due to the agreements with the credit card companies (terms which have since been ruled illegal). So this was DigiKey's way of getting around that.

 

Check? What the heck is that? I'm not even sure I still have an old checkbook anymore...

 

Hello,

In the Netherlands a lot of internet purchases are paid in advance using IDEAL (a payment service).
https://www.ideal.nl/en/
Even amazon.nl allows the use of IDEAL.
We do not use checks anymore.

Bertus

 

I generally pay with Paypal.
Max.

 

So just off the top of your head, if a transistor or IC costs $1 on ebay, what would the real thing cost from the common vendors like digikey in NorthAmerica ?

IDK, I only bought 2-3 things legit before, the rest was ebay/unknown

As others have mentioned, the quality of components on ebay may be suspect. That is not a rule. In some cases, the only way I could get parts (and I shop 70 countries around the world) was by an mfg rep on ebay, so you have to understand what you're buying, and how it might be compromised.

Other than that, it depends on how many of something you buy. an IC on ebay that runs you $1, might be $0.45 on digikey or elsewhere if you buy 20 of them or 50. It may be less just for 1. I recommend you look around and find what works best for you:

mouser
digikey
arrow
jameco
molex

etc

 

Small beef with fleaBay and PayPal. For some cloudy reasons, fleaBay vendors advertise in their native currency. For example, I in the US buy a product for Canadian Dollars. Then, on top of the agreed-upon price, I also have to pay a currency exchange surcharge in addition to the agreed-upon price?!?! I also used to run into this in Canada when using US dollars in small town rural stores. They always wanted to value US currency at the same rate as Canadian when (at that time) US 90 cents = CD 1$. Call it a currency exchange tax.

 

I prefer Paypal.
Just a few months ago, I purchased some STM32 boards from China using Aliexpress. (not my normal source) and the next time I tried to buy something my credit card was rejected. It turns out one of the stores must have been flagged and the bank turned my card off.
One problem was the bank did not let me know for quite a few days!
Oh, the STM32 boards arrived finally, so the first one went through ok.
It is a lot better to have Paypal deal with those problems.

 

Small beef with fleaBay and PayPal. For some cloudy reasons, fleaBay vendors advertise in their native currency. For example, I in the US buy a product for Canadian Dollars. Then, on top of the agreed-upon price, I also have to pay a currency exchange surcharge in addition to the agreed-upon price?!?! I also used to run into this in Canada when using US dollars in small town rural stores. They always wanted to value US currency at the same rate as Canadian when (at that time) US 90 cents = CD 1$. Call it a currency exchange tax.

You would be much better off going to the bank an doing the exchange before you go. Most banks only charge a 10% fee on cash exchanges - way better than paying 1USD per Canadian USD at a rural town in Canada, who has to take your crummy US cash to their bank and pay a 10% exchange fee to get usable money.
Those smallTown Canadian stores are so shaddy, they just refuse to take it on the chin for American tourists that don't plan.

 

I make money playing with parts. If I get a "next to free" part from India and it does not work right it will likely cost me $1000s to find the bad part and order a replacement. Days, weeks of delay cost me money. I can not afford to get parts from an unknown vender.

I was watching a youtube video of boys pulling parts off of mother boards and cleaning them up, putting a new part number on them. No wonder some of these cheep parts don't work right.

 

Counterfeiting is rampant in Asia; even for parts that sell for less than a penny.

From a NASA report:


Someone bought counterfeit 8086's on eBay (for < $4):

 

When my wife worked as a Procurement Officer for the government (US) she had very specific information who NOT to purchase from. Due to the counterfeit issues. Ebay and Amazon were among those listed.

 

We bought PIC16F73's from China at 1/4 what we pay our distributor. Definitely counterfeit. The part number was barely readable with a darker ink and the leads that slightly fan out on a DIP package were straight up and down. Again we tried ISD4003-08MPY from China for $1.00 each instead of $10.00. They worked but had no part number at all! Being critical parts in our products, we buy nothing but distributor parts only.

 

My own perspective: When you buy through known vendors who are authorized manufactures (at some point you have to take somebody's word that they are genuine) You know what you get and you can complain to the manufacturers if there is a problem.

Some parts I only buy from top-class distributors such as Allied, Digikey and http://www.es.co.th/index.asp

 

Does anyone use Mouser? I order typically from them or Digikey

 

Does anyone use Mouser? I order typically from them or Digikey

I have used Mouser, but have found that Digi-Key has cheaper shipping, and they're faster too.