Who Do You Get Your Parts From?

Apr 28, 2006 17 Replies

The following seem to be the big names in electronic component supply:



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What are the relative merits of each for a small time parts ordered (


Not much from MCM for me. For semicons I use

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uk.farnell.com (ordered via Newark)
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(Richarson, RF stuff)
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(Rochester, obsolete stuff)
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Thanks, - Win

but

thought

I've downloaded DigiKey's entire catalog in PDF:

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is the main "browse" page, and near the bottom, you can download the whole thing. What I generally do is use their parts search function if I know what I want, and I can go right to the catalog page. Otherwise, it's pretty much like browsing any catalog, except it's phosphor on glass instead of ink on paper, and it takes longer to flip pages. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

As long as we're talking about our favorite ordering websites:

McMaster-Carr,

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is pure heaven!

The website is a breeze to use. You can select items a trillion different ways, with graphics and menus that are actually relevant at every single step. And while they don't do electronic components, they do just about everything else :-). No minimum orders, warehouses all across the US so most orders arrive the next day via UPS ground, and I have actually had stuff arrive SAME DAY!

I mean, I thought Digikey had a good online ordering selector. They're still good and getting better, but McMaster-Carr just blows them away in terms of ease of use.

Tim.

In a previous position, working on a small project, I used to order almost all the electronics parts I needed from Digikey and mechanical parts from McMaster-Carr, on my own credit card, then submit an expense report for reimbursement. I found that I could get my reimbursement check from finance faster than I could get parts ordered through purchasing.

Then we got a new manager who thought I was trying to pull something over on him.

Yup. (L.A. Basin) A company that knows what SERVICE means.

He was probably worried that somehow it'd take away from what surely was going to be his golden parachute, whether he performed or not.

over on

going

A compromise was eventually reached - the department admin assistant got a company credit card an ordered things we wanted, after printing out the order, having it initialed by the manager, then initialed by the program manager who owned the account the parts would be charged to, then she would type in the whole order again (without error!) and order the parts.

At my next job, I got a company credit card of my own to order parts with. All I needed was a verbal or e-mail approval from the project engineer to spend the money.

There's one just down the street from me - I can call in an order, and go pick it up at will-call in about 10 minutes. (maybe 20 if they're really busy.) ;-)

Cheers! Rich

I'll have to try that sometime. I'm 20-30 minutes drive from the one in New Jersey.

Mark

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