clueless shop staff

In the UK we have a chain of shops called Maplin, which sells electronic goods and components. I detest having to go there, because it is full of expensive crap, and worse, the staff have no clue what they are talking about yet pretend they do.

Here's todays example, which came about because I had forgotten my glasses and couldn't read the catalogue to find the correct part numbers:

Hi, can I have 2 5mm white LED's, and 2 standard 5mm green LED's please.

What voltage are you running them from?

Er, I don't care about that, I just need 2 white LEDs and 2 green ones.

Well, we have these high intensity white ones, they run on 4.2 volts. If you run them higher than that they could pop.

Er, I'll have 2 of those please.

Oh, we seem to be out of stock of those. We have some superbright ones, they run on 3.6 volts, which is lower. You might have to watch your voltage.

Er, OK, I'll have 2 of those please.

We have these green ones, and they run at, oh, 2.2 volts, that's much lower.

Er, OK, I'll have 2 of those as well.

Would you like some resistors with those?

Er, no thanks, just the LED's.

I should have said yes, and found out how he was going to try and calculate the resistor values required.

That's why I detest Maplin.

Gareth.

Reply to
Gareth Magennis
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I only go into my local Bevois Valley , Southampton one perhaps 3 or 4 times a year, (last week for a micro SD ). So I can monitor how much the floor is sagging at the entrance. You now tend to trip over the edge of the sag as it is so deep. They will be stung sometime soon by a large compo claim when a 25 stone customer falls through the floor. There may even be a large cavern under the shop. The road outside has to be closed every ten years or so as a large and deep hole appears in the road. Only sand geology underneath and an underground watercourse and heavy rains wash the sand away. Oddly they took over an earlier electronics shop called Valley Radio .

Reply to
N_Cook

Gareth,

Well, don't move to the US, as things here are much worse. We have "Radio Shack" as the last retailer of electronics parts, and they sell very few of those recently..

I was in the UK in 2012, and stopped at the Maplin store in central Cambridge. The had actual inventory, and the sales staff was pretty good. I wish we had something close to that in the New York Metropolitan area where I live. In this area, there is no longer the choice of running down to a store to buy a part to complete a rush job, everything must be mail ordered.

Radio Shack used to use the tag line "You've got Questions, We've got Answers". Someone on this news group changed that to "You've got questions, We've got high school drop outs in neck ties", which was unfortunately often close to the truth. Also, Radio Shack no longer offers a catalog.

Regards, Tim Bristol Electronics

Reply to
Tim Schwartz

Maplin sounds like Fry's as far as LED prices. The GeekMormons at Fry's at least understand techni-speak, if not English. I use Digikey and Mouser and Parts Express. You can get bunch of LEDs for a couple bucks from China on eBay.

Reply to
dave

[snip]

It didn't used to be like that. When the shops first opened they had staff that were very helpful, knowledgeable, helped customers design stuff on the back of an envelope and then sell them the bits.

At some point it became a toy shop, with some electronics parts kept in the little room down the back, where the odd people go. I suppose changing times and all that :(

Once it got to the "strong possibility that if you need more than two of any component, we don't have them" stage it became clear that their stock control department hated the shops!

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Reply to
Mike

[snip]

It didn't used to be like that. When the shops first opened they had staff that were very helpful, knowledgeable, helped customers design stuff on the back of an envelope and then sell them the bits.

At some point it became a toy shop, with some electronics parts kept in the little room down the back, where the odd people go. I suppose changing times and all that :(

Once it got to the "strong possibility that if you need more than two of any component, we don't have them" stage it became clear that their stock control department hated the shops!

I know it didn't used to be like that.

I used to go to the only shop they had, in Westcliff. I bought and built a String Synthesiser kit from that shop, and the staff there were true enthusiasts and very helpful.

Which is probably why I hate so much what they have now become. It's really very embarrassing to experience that.

Gareth.

Reply to
Gareth Magennis

Maplin sounds like Fry's as far as LED prices. The GeekMormons at Fry's at least understand techni-speak, if not English. I use Digikey and Mouser and Parts Express. You can get bunch of LEDs for a couple bucks from China on eBay.

Yeahbut, sometimes you need it now, and locally, and Maplin is the only option here.

Gareth.

Reply to
Gareth Magennis

The permanent staff at their Bath branch are usually pretty knowlegeable; some of the 'temps' aren't quite so clued-up, but they are generally enthusiastic. Most importantly, none of them have tried to pretend they understand things that they don't and nobody has ever tried to bullshit me.

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Reply to
Adrian Tuddenham

They have been conducting the Beeching way of economics (cut the railway service frequency so fewer people use the service , so they can then close the line citing lack of use). Since they doubled the price of 2W MO resistors and 16mm pots I never go in there for such. But I do get the odd computery sort of item and whoever serves me those, obviously knows more about it than I do.

Reply to
N_Cook

Fry's is in Burbank, 20 miles on way. If you phone to inquire about stock it is so frustrating you figure it's easier to just go there and take your chances. Gasoline is too precious these days.

Component level troubleshooting is a dying art. We don't support independent electronic stores like we used to. I'm just grateful Mouser and Digikey have no minimum orders and the Post Office still delivers the little parcels fast.

Reply to
dave

I think it's safe to just call it dead and not dying.

There used to be a handful of component suppliers in Chicago. You'd just walk in and order at the counter and somebody would shuffle through thousands of carboard bins on rows and rows of shelves. One in particular was fairly busy with all the local repair and hobby folks. There were local catalog houses where pretty much anything could be had next day. I recall one guy who delivered out of his van, and I think the warehouse was his garage. You could order parts faster than you can type in a credit card number these days.

All that stuff must have vanished about 15 years ago.

Reply to
Cydrome Leader

The one old type store left locally that was around when I was a kid, it seemed to get a lot of surplus and we'd walk down the rows of parts ourselves. It was really quite useful, because if there wasn't the value you needed, you could redefine things, and pick something else, rather than having to know before you went what you needed or try to explain that to the guy behind the counter (who I don't think were actually into electronics, the store was well away from everything and I assumed it hired people local to the area).

If you can actually see that surplus meter, you can make a decision whether it will work for the project or not.

And I didn't get up there for a few years, which apparently was longer than I thought. I got up there in the fall of 2012, and the place had all been redone. The surplus annex (which once had been the place to buy Coleco Adam computer bits, and surplus switching supplies and those 3.5" disks with that had the hub like 5.25" floppy disks) was gone. And the rows of parts that we picked from were gone too. It's still as big as ever, but the rows are now for consumer type things, tools and hdmi adapters and the like. The parts are presumably behind the counter. So it really becomes like any other place now. I remember twenty years ago, my Tektronix scope developed ripple in the power supply, and I was actually able to find high voltage, high capacitance filter capacitors there. But because they were on display, I could see what would fit. Now it's gone, and unless the surplus is behind the counter too, the surplus is gone too. SO many neat things they used to get.

Michael

Reply to
Michael Black

Buddy of mine is a country boy, and can fix about anything. That includes cars. One time he was looking for a job at an auto parts store. They wouldn't hire him because he knew too much.

Apparently they make more money selling the WRONG parts. Of course then you have to come back for the RIGHT parts.

Reply to
jurb6006

we have a surplus store here, which is technically still in business (sciplus.com) but it's just a toy store these days. The loss of local manufacturing is probably one reason there's slim pickings when it comes to electrical/mechanical/optical surplus around here. Retarded MBA accounting practices seem to make throwing stuff away rather than selling it more appealing these days too.

The other gem we had was "The Radio TV Laboratory". It was around so long that everything inside the place aged into electronic antiques. Towards the end there was just one path into the place. It was not uncommon to have to back out of the store (yes, walk backwards) to let the next customer in. If what you wanted was old and weird, it was in there somewhere, including new parts and manuals for wire recorders. The fire marshall kept shutting the place down, but it was always open once the path was widened back to about 18".

Surplus Sales of Nebraska has an impressive store, but the prices tend to steer towards on batshit crazy for everything. If you're ever in Omaha, see the zoo and the surplus store.

Reply to
Cydrome Leader

There are just a few of you hard core doityourselfers out there. The stores you all miss are no longer financially viable. We live in a throwaway society. Plus there is the liability issue. I started and ran an electronic surplus store in the SF bay area for 25 years. Closed it in '97 as it was no longer worth the time and effort. Broke my heart to dismantle what I had built. Then there is the liability issue. Some wanna be doitselfer could cause harm to himself, others, or property. I don't know about all of you, but I get 4or5 requests a year to be part of a class action. We refused to give any technical advise or identify a part brought in. Also, for the same reason, if you bought it it was yours unless you could demonstrate it was defective. We didn't want to support your R&D.

CP

Reply to
Pilgrim

This small-scale enterprise seems to be ok, with a physical store a couple of miles from me, no junk as such

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Geared towards hobbyist roboteers I think but useful for 16mm pots , polyswitches , American thread nuts and bolts (in the UK is pretty rare) etc. You have to have their stock number to be served in the shop, but that is ok

Reply to
N_Cook

The weekend before last I needed a 24v DC power supply in a hurry for a job that had to be installed the following Monday. There wasn't time to order anything by post so I popped into the Bath branch of Maplins and bought a plugtop SMPS. I PAT tested it with 500v DC and it appeared OK, but I wasn't very impressed by the 200mV p/p sawtooth ripple on the output (it said "low ripple" on the box), so I installed some extra smoothing in the audio filter which it it powered.

While I was installing it, a colleague touched the metal box of the filter with one hand and the metal casing of an amplifier with the other, and received a substantial 'tingle'. I measured 80v rms between the two and a leakage current of 1.4 mA on short-circuit. The equipment had to be put into service immediately, so I made sure the two boxes were properly bonded together and left the PSU working.

When I reported this to Maplins a few days later, the shop-floor staff promptly referred me to the manager. He took down all the details in writing and assured me it would be reported to the chief buyer in his e-mailed report that evening.

The shop staff handled it perfectly properly, but I wait with interest to see how their head office will deal with it.

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Reply to
Adrian Tuddenham

At least Maplin policy on returns is to bundle them up and sell off at the "trade" Nottingham auction house and the explicit caveat emptor that goes with buying in that manner. Compare with Aldi policy. My experience over the last year a Dremmel like mains powered high speed drill. 13 GBP excellent value , at a 1/3 of the price of Dremmel and IMHO good engineering (just bad mains switch position and speed control could be less prone to vibration movement). I waited for them to turn up again , to buy a spare. Bought a second one but one of the brass 1/8 & 3/32 inch collets was missing. Returned it and got refunded but they were all like this in the stock. Either security tab was obviously corrupted or like the one I had bought was re-stuck (closer perusal showed they were not virgin security tabs) and all were missing the second collet, ie returns by people like myself I assume, but Aldi trying to sell on regardless, at the same 13 GBP. Next time they made an appearance, 2 weeks ago, now boxes themselves obviously battered, as well as no second collet. But now the price was 8 GBP with marked down sticker and I bought one for a spare.

Reply to
N_Cook

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