Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.
Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.
just wondering where you can buy cheap electronic parts here online, I tried googleing it but most shipping costs are high for just a couple components.
That depends on where in the world you live. You have not told us or filled in the location in your user profile.
This question gets now and again. Search the site and you may find what you are looking for if you live in the US or UK. Maybe a few other places. If not let us know where you need to shop.
There used to be a guy that would sell you a few parts and ship it in a letter. He is history. Do not even recall the name.
Most places do not want to deal with a few parts. By only shippping UPS or FEDEX they encourage you to buy enough stuff per order to make it worth their time. It used to be worse in that many places had a handling charge for small orders. I have not seen that in a while.
I order most of my parts from Mouser. You can get some parts cheaper elsewhere but these places often do not have all the parts you need so you end up paying shipping twice.
By far the least expensive place for some parts is futurlec.com but they take about 2 weeks to deliver. Shipping is about $5 maybe $7.
For example .1 inch pitch 40 position breakaway pin headers range for $1.50 to $2.50 from Digikey/Newark/Mouser. Futurlec sells them 10 for $1.90, 19 cents each. If you buy 25 packs of 10 the go down to 17 cents each!
The quality is not as good but they work well enough. Not everything they sell is a barging. I have found that if I serarch mouser I can find some of the stuff at the same price but mostly if 100 quanity.
Currently I have an Futurlec order in limbo. It has been placed, ACKed by them, but they will not take the money or process it.
I look at it this way. The parts I buy from futurlec are so much less expensive that even if I loose an order now and again (money down black hole) I am still $ ahead in the long run. It has not happend yet.
Another source is ebay, but you have to be careful. Some parts are very outdated or end up costing as much as Mouser or Digikey, once you factor in shipping. For power semiconductors (e.g., SCR and IGBT), reels of capacitors, and various assortments of passive components (e.g., SMD capacitors), I have had some success on ebay getting lower prices. JAMECO is another place that has some nice assortments, but I find its on-line catalog a headache.
I am very happy with Futurlec.
Both my orders were shipped next day and took 7 days to reach me. No minimum order and low shipping charges.
Attached is my last order.
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