Where do you buy stuff?

Professionally? Mouser, then Digikey. Mouser has a project tracker thing, and when I design a board, I put the parts for it in the project, and when I need to make another board I buy that project.

Know what? I’ve started doing that for my class kits I’ve been designing too.

At home I buy a lot of crap from wish.com. takes some time to get here but the electronics usually works fine for me (except solder clock kits for some reason) I keep telling myself I’m going to head down to derby to RadioShack but never do. That is an old style RadioShack and that dude is knowledgeable.

Amazon is hit and miss. You have to realize that amazon is like Dillon’s. If you don’t like the hidden valley thousand island you bought at Dillon’s, you probably aren’t going to like it if you buy it at Walmart.

Solder kits are the same way. You buy a real Vellman, adafruit, sparkfun, or jamco kit, you will probably be successful (unless you solder the chip upside down like me). Gikfun, whdts, vkmaker… are usually stuff off of wish. They usually work, but the instructions may not be clear or missing, may have to do some googling. It needs to be updated but I have an amazon list of kits that don’t really suck. Lately though, if I need a chip and I need it right I order Mouser. But then I also use them professionally and so the tend to kiss my butt a lite and I like that. :slight_smile:

I never got to trusting Ebay much, buying or selling.

Post comments on where you buy stuff!

(Amazon.com)

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Same, mostly Mouser and Digikey. Occasionally from MPJA, Newark, Amazon or the Derby Radioshack. I try to buy local for simple things like resistors and capacitors.

When repairing things and I need the same chip, I’ve bought from ebay when the US stores don’t carry them. Mosfets, Step down regulators, etc. I’ve had good luck and all of them have worked so far. Always look at the seller’s info. I try to stay 99%+ for positive feedback, as low as 95% if they’re the only option. Also sellers that have a higher number of feedback, minimum 1k+, usually 10k+. Absolutely avoid sellers with less than 100! Too many scammers at that level.

Also, Octopart.com for searching all the sites to find out who has stock of the part I need.
It’s quicker than going to each site individually and fairly accurate but not always.

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if I need something specific, digikey. I spent a lot of time learning how to use their filters…

I also subscribed to the email list for

https://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/

and they sometimes have good deals on stuff I’m sure I’ll need someday. Their surprise boxes are a fun way to get past the $10 minimum too.

I’ve bought large packs of LEDs on ebay and they’re fine and cheap. I have a bunch of shift registers on the slow boat from China, we’ll see if they are any good.

I also bought some 7-segment display drivers that showed shipped, but the tracking never updated and they never showed up. Ebay didn’t hesitate to refund them though.

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Professionally, I’m a mouser guy. I like their projects feature.

At home I’ll use mouser, if I don’t need it quickly, I’ll use wish through the geek app. I have really good luck with electronics, except clock soldering kits for some reason…

I have been buying my random components from Amazon, and what ever is in some Arduino kits that I have gotten.

Unfortunately, it definitely seems like Amazon is kinda the best spot to order from if you’re looking for short lead times and low MOQs (minimum order quantities)… kinda got frustrated on the roadster build when a couple suppliers were not willing to sell to me unless i bought 1000 connectors when I only needed one or two.

That’s the fun of hacking popular products that have a lot of IP on them… the manufacturer tends to put a lock or high MOQ to keep other people from trying to hack their product.

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