I am trying to buy a few small components for a small project I'm working on with breadboards. Where can I buy parts in small quantities with low shipping prices? Thanks!

 

Welcome to AAC.

If you are in the Silicon Valley area, you can shop in the brick and mortar Jameco Electronics, or San Mateo Electronic Supply.

Disclaimer: I don’t live in the area and haven’t been in either store but I have made many purchases from Jameco online and before that via mail from a print catalog. The SM Electronics Supply store has been in business over 60 years so I expect it to be a good resource.

 

https://m.facebook.com/HSCElectronics/

https://anchor-electronics.com/

https://m.yelp.com/search?find_desc=Surplus+Electronics&find_loc=San+Jose,+CA

 

I am trying to buy a few small components for a small project I'm working on with breadboards. Where can I buy parts in small quantities with low shipping prices? Thanks!

Anchor's the only one left.

 

Jameco isn't really a store; it's not a place you can go in and wander around.

You can order online or by phone, and pick up your order there.

 

Anchor's the only one left.

That is sad. From almost a dozen in the 90's... If they quit, the only choice will be salvaging from dumpsters.

 

As the first post said, San Mateo Electronics is another source (not technically in the Valley, but close enough). Jameco has will-call pickup (order online, pick up in person), but they have raised the minimum purchase amount over the last few years - I think it is now $50 - so you can't just buy a few components like you used to.

 

I am trying to buy a few small components for a small project I'm working on with breadboards. Where can I buy parts in small quantities with low shipping prices?

I'd stop by Anchor Electronics in Santa Clara. I used to stop by and browse their "dollar" bags whenever I could spare the time when I was back in the Bay Area for vacation.

Jameco has will call, but they have a $50 minimum now. You have to order on-line at least 2 hours in advance and prepay by credit card.

HSC Electronics was another good place, but they've been out of business for years now. They had the store near the intersection of Central and Lawrence expressways, one around Sacramento, and a third (somewhere). I used to buy copper clad scraps there for $0.02/square inch. They used to have an annual sale where they sold some things by the pound; great for picking up bags of miscellaneous hardware.

 

Jameco isn't really a store; it's not a place you can go in and wander around.

You can order online or by phone, and pick up your order there.

I was just about to say this, but I see I already did

 

Going out to the surplus stores on wek-end mornings used to be a regular activity, at least it was for my friends and me from the early 1960’s lthrough the 1990’s.

 

I got the best deals online. Just search the exact pieces you need on google and I am sure you'll find something for you.

 

I'd stop by Anchor Electronics in Santa Clara. I used to stop by and browse their "dollar" bags whenever I could spare the time when I was back in the Bay Area for vacation.

I'll second Anchor - they're a small shop, not a surplus outfit, and most of the inventory is in the back - where THEY retrieve it (so it isn't a mess). In fact, the actual browseable inventory only amounts to a couple hundred square feet of space at the front end of the store. That said, most of the inventory is stuff you can just buy from a standard online distributor like Digikey, et-al. Still, I'll be down there in a couple of days, and they will be a stop for me.

Excess Siltions was an AWESOME place in a large warehouse, with aisles and aisles of racks with bins of parts. You could spend an entire day in there and still not have looked through everything. Sadly, mid-2022, they announced they were auctioning off most of their inventory and going online-only https://excesssolutions.com/. I didn't find out about that until after, I was so bummed, not only for missing some even better deals, but also a big part of going there (for me at least), was having a list of stuff I specifically was on the look out for, and just finding some thing and going "okay, these would be cool to have on hand." It was the sort of place you could thumb through 1/2 full spools of SMD resistors and capacitors looking for ones that would be handy to have, and they'd cost all of $1 or $2. Antistat bags of digital logic and opamps, and etc. Also mechanical hardware - screws, nuts, pulleys, fans, heatsinks, connectors, etc.

A little north of the valley is San Mateo Electronics Supply https://www.smelectronics.com/ -- they're closing shop two weeks from now as I write this.