There's Farnellinone and what other's in Australia ?

There is RS (radiospares), but whether they are cheaper or not is debatable. You really have to look up both catalogs for the particular items and quantities and compare

WES are another, dont have the range, (as they cater more to the TV service end of the market) and in many cases may not have the quality or certification of parts that farnell and RS have.

RS Components are similarly priced i.e. over the top unless you're desperate.

Depending on what product/quality you want, and whether you qualify for trading with wholesalers, Electus (wholesale arm of Jaycar) and WES are part of the scene.

RS is the only competion with the range (and quality) of products. You won't really get cheaper in Australia if you want the large range of stock items. You are paying for the service and the stock. Farnell and RS are basically on par with pricing, you have to check each item in both catalogs to fidn out who's cheapest for that particular part. Farnell and RS are actually very competively priced on many items, but yes, other items can be 10 times what you pay elsewhere. Often I find I might only save 10-20% by going to the official distributors, which is usually not worth it when you have to wait 4-6 weeks minimum.

Dave :)

If you wish to order online, rather than phone the distributors up and order what you want, then you probably should consider off-shore warehouses as well.

Offshore

Manufacturers - many will send free samples.

Some local suppliers

is essentially the same as farnell, farnell can source parts from Newark if they are not available in the farnell catalogue.

since when?

nevermind, just read the press release

They aren't now called NewarkInOne for nothing!

Speaking of buyouts, I heard a rumour that Electus (Jaycar) bought out Sonar/ Polykom. I can't find any info, anyone know anything?

Dave :)

Scratch that, just found it :->

Dave :)

Wonder if this will mean it'll be easier to buy online from sonar/polykom ? Usually ten times easier to just ring them up.

Alex

dam expensive shipping

will be interesting to see what happens

Memec seems to have a much better range of fpga boards than Avnet.

Might make it easier to buy things from them. They usually want to know all sort of weird and wonderful details especially if they know you are doing contract design work. They always try and find out who you are doing the work for.

Alex