Too much element14 - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Whales
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 29, 2015, 04:58:14 am
content: It's a slow day for me and I've been putting together an element14 order. To get past the $45 ($50 after taxes) free shipping limit I needed to fill the last few dollars.The e14 site lets you list all of their stock from cheapest to most expensive. Amongst the first ~1000 pages of SMD resistors and caps are a few gems: very cheap connectors, end of stock specials and interesting but odd parts. I added some cheap electrolytic capacitors to fill up my order (nb there's some cheap axially leaded 100uF ones at the moment) as well as a copy of the e14 catalog.Unfortunately you can't filter the SMD resistors and caps out of the results (as far as I know), so I spent this morning looking through a lot of pages by hand. I find it soothing to do this sometimes -- it turns out there is a nice break point around page 1200 where new components start coming in.NB you can enter page numbers by hand in the URL, you don't have to linearly searchAfter a while, however, the e14 site hinted that I need to get a new hobby:I guess not too many legitimate users find reading search results as relaxing as I do. I'm blocked (probably temporarily) from the whole site, so I might just make the order next weekend insteadI have a few more things I want to buy anyway.Does anyone else enjoy looking through lots of parts on online retailers? I find it stressful when I need to find something that's cheap and meets some criteria, so I really enjoy times I can spend just looking around at what's available without a purpose other than filling a few dollars.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 29, 2015, 05:55:43 am
content: My hierarchy of suppliers is something like...1st tier: Digikey, MouserGood (or good enough) parametric search, huge inventory, expensive but not egregiously so. (And anyway, if you're doing production, you don't look at single quantity pricing, you might be buying resistors by the millions -- which as I understand it, Digikey does a fair bit of their business just this way, despite the tiny price of resistors and capacitors!)2nd tier: Newark/E14/Farnell/etc., Allied, etc.Not as good search, not usually as good selection. If you have a part number you're looking for, give it a shot. If you don't, browsing the catalog is often better. I haven't had an Allied catalog in some years, but back then, their web interface was much the same as today, and it was much nicer browsing through the catalog.3rd tier: Amidon/Elna Magnetics/Adams Magnetic (for cores), Surplus Sales of Nebraska/All Electronics/Electronic Goldmine/etc. (surplus, more or less?), local (American Science and Surplus, etc.).Anything that's special purpose, or "what you see in the catalog is what's there". Or anyone that wants you to look at their line card first...Either you know exactly what you want (like cores or other special parts), or you're just browsing for neato or general purpose gadgetry.Also, hopefully they'll have an online shopping cart, but many (especially in static businesses like magnetics) still do things the old fashioned way, by quotes, or over the phone.I suppose 4th tier would be whatever you find laying around, hand-me-downs, stuff on the curb, or at the scrap yard, etc...Tim

author: mrpackethead
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 29, 2015, 09:04:11 am
content: www.octopart.com