Sourcing components - tips, tricks and bargains?

[alex.s]

Thought it'd be nice to get the ball rolling with a subject often discussed in the good old whatever post: components sourcing.

Where do you get yours? Where do you get your best bargains? Any eBay seller we should know about? Where are you/is the seller based? Let's share the knowledge and save each other a few quid or -why not- even just a few pence.

Wanted to get the ball rolling with the eBay seller from whom I bought 1000 assorted 1/4w metal film resistors for £3.90 plus £1.10 postage, but just realized I must have got lucky with a mistyping by the seller as they are now going for £30.90...!

[Geiri]

I've got a bunch of places where I buy things dirt cheap! I'm currently on my iPad and I can't be bothered looking up the sellers but I will soon and post here.

I do occasionally use Tayda when buying bulk.
Gapco for enclosures
Bitcheslovemyswitches for 3PDT's - Best price ever and he will put a lower value on the package so you don't need to worry about customs!

[rudeez]

i will put a list down later on here but mostly i use tayda and ebay. can't beat taydas shippingcosts and prices really!
i do wonder tho, where do i source these dirt cheap?
i saw that banzai music has them, expensive tho.

[IvIark]

Yes Tayda and Futurlec are still hard to beat for general components, and here's a few of the eBay sellers that I frequently visit. There's some great stuff from these sellers and at some real bargain prices:

tiaochongyi - great for caps, particularly small multilayer ceramic (they do some 1uf and 2.2uf that are really nice, tiny and close tolerances).  Nice cheap bulk pack of greenies as well.

MIGHTYCROKET - great prices and choice on general components, particularly less common caps and resistors.

HoneyComps - Canadian seller with a great range, particularly caps.

bjkachner - US seller, not a huge choice but fantastic prices even with trans-Atlantic postage.  Nice range of axial multi layer ceramics for peanuts!

I also loved WestFloridaComponents but they've stopped shipping to the UK

More mojo type components:

KW-TUBES - Paper in Oil and PETP capacitors

bigsmythe74 - Dale metal film and carbon comp resistors

[Geiri]

Alright here's what I've been going through:
eBay user: may139189 - This guy has the best prices I've ever seen on pots. You can buy a few (not so cheap) or bulk of 50 or 100 and that's where it gets cheap. I've been using those pots for a while and they're fine! Also a bunch of other stuff.

eBay seller: hongkongsupply - I linked to where the ICs are. You'll have to browse through but there's a few really good deals there.

eBay seller: gc_supermarket - I was browsing this guy yesterday and there was LOADS of good deals there. I just checked now and I could only find 9 items. Might be something wrong so check later to make sure!

eBay seller: satisfyelectronics - A bunch of stuff, have a look, you'll find something useful!

eBay seller: ericcheungelectronic - Lots of great bulk deals. 100 electro caps for £3.12 and free shipping? Not bad!

eBay seller: leiqingjun1973 - 100 pots for £20 including shipping is pretty good. Loads of other things as well. Great for bulk buy!

eBay seller: Atop_Authentic_Auction - Have a browse, there are good deals there!

I think that's a decent contribution for now. I don't have more eBay sellers to offer you but I'm constantly hunting for more.

I'll add a few deals that I particularly like:
100x JRC4558D for £5.50 with shipping

200x 1N4148 for £1.56 with free shipping

100x SPDT for £18.99 with free shipping - Just an example. The seller has loads more similar stuff!

100x 2N3904 for £3.99 with free shipping

350x of 1N4001 through 1N4007 for £10.69 with free shipping

100x Boss style knobs (good ones) for £36.99 with free shipping

100x TL072 for £7.38 with free shipping

Sorry I couldn't resist..

[Rolf Poti]

hello,

I was wondering if anyone have any experience with this shop?
http://www.uk-electronic.de/onlineshop/index.php/

Anyway they seem to have good pricing on Alpha pots.
and lots of unusual pedal parts: )

[Dave]

I use Tayda a lot, they seem particularly cheap on most things, at the moment im working on trying to get enclosures cheaper as they are by far the most expensive part of any build.
Thanks
Dave

[lowbrow]

I doubt you'll beat Tayada on enclosures. The best price I've found yet and also better quality than most, like Mammoth or Smallbear.

[Geiri]

I'm in Iceland (recently moved back from London) and I always buy from Gapco: Click here!

They have a pretty decent price, especially when you're buying many. International shipping is well priced and QUICK! Placed order on thursday, got on the tuesday after. Consider me a happy customer since getting these things here in Iceland is impossible!

[dexxyy]

Gapco have reasonable prices for enclosures but other than that I find their prices to be ridiculously high, eg, tayda 50 dc jacks =$6.50 = £4.10, gapco 50 dc jacks = £162.50
Tayda 50 mono jack sockets = $34.00 = £21.43, gapco 50 mono jack sockets = £100

Tayda order = £25.53
Gapco order = £262.
A no brainer for me, and gapco are VERY restricted in the parts dept.

[vick]

http://www.4siteelectronics.com/category_s/57.htm

4 site which I believe is where Mammoth gets their enclosures is the cheapest I have found .  You do have to do a minimum order of 10 though.

[Olav]

Much love for Dutch based online store; http://www.newtone-online.nl/catalog/
Whole site is in Dutch, which I realise might be a bit of a problem for most here. But those that read it could do much worse than to take a look at that link. Well stocked (!), cheap and quick.

[Madferret]

I know most folks will know this if you 'like' Tayda on Facebook but they've currently got a 15% off discount code, it's 933666 but it runs out on the 23rd of Jan so don't sleep on it if you want something!

[Geiri]

Oh man I forgot the BEST prices for 3PDT is at www.bitcheslovemyswitches.com which is in the US and he ships same day. "$16.95 worldwide shipping... no matter how much you buy!"

It's the best price I've seen, unless you're buying just a few. I'm buying at least 50 each time so..

For knobs, I found this guy who has A LOT of them and prices are pretty good, I gotta say! Click here!

[dodido]

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[ichilton]

Where do UK builders get their boxes, jacks, knobs and switches from?

At the moment ebay seems the cheapest from what i've compared.

3PDT - 10x or £12.39 & free shipping (China), which is cheaper than the http://www.bitcheslovemyswitches.com site mentioned above, even going on the 25x pricing and excluding the £10 postage.

ON/OFF/ON 3 Position 6 Terminals DPDT Toggle Switch - 6x for £2.94 & free shipping (China).

1590B boxes is £4.61 & free shipping (China) - but they look a slightly odd colour.

£6.98 for 10x white knobs - like used on Fulltone or Joyo pedals.

Jack sockets - £5.40 for 10x

Can anyone else in the UK either confirm these are good prices or tell me where they've seen to beat these?

Where do you get your stuff from if you're in the UK?

Want to build a load of pedals and a big loop switcher, so i'm open to higher quantities than 10x, but the ones above seemed to be the sane price point vs qty's on the ones I found.

Thanks!

Ian

[Rolf Poti]

hmm, are you sure that they are the same quality as the other components mentioned in this thread?
Nothing worse than bad switchers and jacks!

[ichilton]

Good question!

Where are other UK'ers getting everything from and at what kind of pricing?

Thanks,

Ian

[Madferret]

Hey Ian, If I need something fast and can't wait for the free shipping from China options I've recently tended to go to RS Components who sell 1/4" Jack Sockets for 50p, and Hammond 1590B style boxes from around £4.40, their polybox caps and resistors are reasonably priced if you buy them in quantity too.  About the only thing they're crap for is pots as they don't seem to sell alpha style ones.  You have to register a trade account but just tell them you're a sole trader selling guitar pedals and they'll set you up an account.  If I can wait then I tend towards Tayda or some places on eBay.  The only other place I buy from in the UK is BitsBox who have really reasonable P+P charges and have excellent service, I haven't had an order take more than a day yet.

[ichilton]

Thanks for that - I can wait for the shipping, would rather have them cheaper....unless the quality isn't great of course.

I've used BitsBox quite a bit before, and will probably get resisters & capacitors from them, but the likes of the switches are a lot more expensive from there.

Will check out Tayda - have you had any problems getting charged import duty?

Thanks,

Ian