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Arrow Electronics (Free Shipping in November)

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Mikebits

Well-Known Member
Just an FYI, for the month of November Arrow Electronics is offering free shipping on orders. This can be quite a substantial savings. Just thought I would pass this on for anyone who might be needing to order parts. I am gonna make a big order of stuff I been needing, but have not got around to it.
P.S Sorry, should have mentioned that this is for USA orders, not sure about outside US. :(
 
As you say Mike, shipping can be a considerable cost.

In the UK, if you register as a company, the suppliers don't usually bother about shipping costs. But the general rule with the big suppliers, like DigiKey and Mouser, is free shipping for orders over £33UK.

Talking about shipping costs: it always amazes me that on ebay that postage from the far east is free and the prices are so low. For example a pak containing 100 of MBMT3904 and 100 of MBMT3906 transistors from Hong Kong for £0.99UK including postage. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/100pair-OR-200PCS-Transistor-2N3904-2N3906-MMBT3904-MMBT3906-SOT-23-NEW-/141739142768?hash=item21004fae70:gQ0AAOSwHnFVxIJa :happy:

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Talking about shipping costs: it always amazes me that on ebay that postage from the far east is free and the prices are so low. For example a pak containing 100 of MBMT3904 and 100 of MBMT3906 transistors from Hong Kong for £0.99UK including postage. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/100pair-OR-200PCS-Transistor-2N3904-2N3906-MMBT3904-MMBT3906-SOT-23-NEW-/141739142768?hash=item21004fae70:gQ0AAOSwHnFVxIJa :happy:

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Yes they are CHEAP, But these Overseas Parts don't always meet full specifications.
 
Yes they are CHEAP, But these Overseas Parts don't always meet full specifications.
That is true. There are the following categories, in my experience:

(1) Rip-offs: We all know about rip-offs and it is simply not advisable to buy that category of component except from the manufacturer or a trusted source: batteries, big electrolytic capacitors, medium and high power RF transistors, audiophile transistors. safety critical items
(2) Factory rejects: this may not be as bad as it sounds, apart from item1 category components, from a home builder point of view. It may be a that a batch sampling criteria has not been fully met or the case is not formed correctly or even that the component paperwork is not in order or has been lost.
(3) Second tier manufacture: is a full spec product but the manufacturer is second tier and does not fully comply with the very best manufacturing and quality standards
(4) New old stock: many components fall into this category, especially the old favorites, NE555, LM358, etc. I bought some Motorola chips a few years ago with a date code from the 1980s.
(5) Full spec: a high proportion of components fall into this category. There are mountains of perfectly good components that are simply surplus to requirements, which are either trashed or sold to component brokers. And if vendors buy directly from the manufacturers, in any volume, the cost of most semiconductors is ridiculously low. Bear in mind that a billion 555 timer chips are manufactured ever year.

At the company where I worked we had a small production line making marine radars and the stuff they chucked out would make you cry. At the end of each batch of radars they simply put all remaining components in a skip (dumpster). When I tackled them about it, they said that they could not use old components on a new batch of radars and, besides which, the cost of sorting and storing the old components would be more than the components were worth. Old in this case being 6 months. The main input capacitors on the radar were computer grade GE 6,800uF. Guess what value capacitors my audio amps had in them.:D

As a matter of interest, I recently batch checked about a thousand 2%, 250mW, metal film, resistors. They were well made, indistinguishable from the real thing, and all the resistance values ranging from 10R to 1M were in spec. Total cost £4UK including PP from Hong Kong.

I suggest that, with caution, you can get some bargains from the low-cost vendors if you are careful and selective in what you buy.:)

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I've generally had good luck with eBay components. One I've purchased frequently is the MAX7219 LED driver chip, which can be had for a fraction the price of those purchased from regular sources.

Recently, I had 60 copies of an audio oscillator board built in China. These boards use 6 ICs, including a LT6904 I2C-controlled clock chip, an I2C-controlled digipot and a TI amplifier chip. When I got them and ran a test program which should have produced a sequence of a constant tone at increasing volume, I got a sequence of varying tones and silence that was different every time the test was run.

A little head-pounding and troubleshooting later, my conclusion was that the LTC6904 chips were counterfeit. Replacing the suspect chip with a known-good one (incidentally purchased through Arrow) resulted in the expected operation.

The fake and real chips look exactly the same - the silkscreen on the package is identical. I don't fault my assembler for the fake chips. They got swindled.

Sending 60 faulty boards, 60 chips from a reliable source (Arrow) and and microcontroller board with test code back to China for re-work was an experience, with about a week and a half on pins and needles anxiously waiting for it to arrive. The package made it, rework has started and the first boards have passed the test.

By the way, if you've never used Arrow, check them out. They don't have as many parts as Digikey and Mouser, but their pricing is very aggressive on many components.
 
Talking about shipping costs: it always amazes me that on ebay that postage from the far east is free and the prices are so low.

Shipping cost on sales are something I watch very closely on items I am after. If I am serious about an item I get the full shipping details such as the sellers zip code and the actual as shipped weight of the item and if that doesn't add up I call them out on it and if it's a high enough discrepancy I report them to eBay without hesitation.

Believe me I have heard a lots of BS stories about how a sellers time is worth X amount an hour (well above median hourly pay and in many case far more than the item is worth new) or crap like that to justify outrageous shipping process behind cheap items. :mad:
 
I've generally had good luck with eBay components. One I've purchased frequently is the MAX7219 LED driver chip, which can be had for a fraction the price of those purchased from regular sources.

Recently, I had 60 copies of an audio oscillator board built in China. These boards use 6 ICs, including a LT6904 I2C-controlled clock chip, an I2C-controlled digipot and a TI amplifier chip. When I got them and ran a test program which should have produced a sequence of a constant tone at increasing volume, I got a sequence of varying tones and silence that was different every time the test was run.

A little head-pounding and troubleshooting later, my conclusion was that the LTC6904 chips were counterfeit. Replacing the suspect chip with a known-good one (incidentally purchased through Arrow) resulted in the expected operation.

The fake and real chips look exactly the same - the silkscreen on the package is identical. I don't fault my assembler for the fake chips. They got swindled.

Sending 60 faulty boards, 60 chips from a reliable source (Arrow) and and microcontroller board with test code back to China for re-work was an experience, with about a week and a half on pins and needles anxiously waiting for it to arrive. The package made it, rework has started and the first boards have passed the test.

By the way, if you've never used Arrow, check them out. They don't have as many parts as Digikey and Mouser, but their pricing is very aggressive on many components.

Do you know I have seen full mill-spec chips, with all the supporting paper work, that have been faulty. We once had a batch of fully qualified transistors that simply would not work in their modules. The transistors turned out to be NPN rather than PNP. Capacitors, not just tantalum, were the most troublesom components though. We also had a batch of 709 opamps that failed at low temperature.

Yes, arrow are good and for low cost in the UK, CPC (part of Element 14 group) take some beating on costs. https://cpc.farnell.com/

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Curiously, CPC sometimes beat Farnell on price, despite being part of the same company. Just one of the machinations of economics that I'll never understand.
 
Curiously, CPC sometimes beat Farnell on price, despite being part of the same company. Just one of the machinations of economics that I'll never understand.
Hi tomizett,

Yes, that is true. CPC is part of the same group but has no connection with Farnell as I told quite sharply only a week ago by a sales lady from Farnell (Element 14). CPC traditionally have supplied the consumer side of the market: TV repairs, white goods repair AV_PA etc, while Farnell focuses on the industrial sector.

TLC is another company that has some bargains. They are electrical rather than electronic though.

By the way, I just noticed this morning that RS do not make any delivery charge for internet orders. They are pretty fast too.

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