Good component suppliers?

[jonb]

Hi chaps

I'm after a little advice here. I have some electronic devices (amplifiers, mainly) that are in need of an overhaul; this normally means replacing 30 year old capacitors and some resistors with quality equivalent items.

The problem is, I'm not sure where to get the components from (in the UK). We have Maplin, of course, but they are prohibitively expensive for large numbers of discrete components, and they are not selling quality.

RS and Farnell have stupid postage and handling fees, do they not?

So where best to go if you are a hobbyist like me?

Regards

JonB

[danielj]

CPC.

http://cpc.farnell.com

Or RS if you're near one of their trade counters. You can pick up there for free and there's no minimum order.

d.

[CanonMan]

Rapid Electronics are pretty good as well.

http://www.rapidonline.com/

[1024MAK]

RS and Farnell have stupid postage and handling fees, do they not?

I live in the UK and normally buy from Rapid, Farnell, CPC, and ESR.
I have in the past used RS mail order and also the RS Bristol trade counter.
I don't normally find the small order/handing fee to be a problem, as normally I order parts for multiple jobs/projects at the same time so that the value of my order is above the threshold. Also compare the postage costs vs. the small order/handing fee.

Edit: I've decided to expand my post with more info and links:

Mark at RetroClinic and BeebMaster are respected members who also sell various items. As well as his eBay items, Mark can also supply various spares and refurbished parts/modules/PSUs/computers...

You can get hold of Mark, Mr RetroClinic via his web site http://www.retroclinic.com/

BeebMaster's site including his shop is here: http://www.beebmaster.co.uk/Default.html
He used to give discounts for stardot members but check with him first

Dave H. can supply various chips related to Elks and Beebs including EEPROMs as well as various new fully built Elk expansions and some items are available as kits . Dave H is continuing to expand his range

I've traded with all three and can recommend all of them .

If you are a new member, you can't use the Private Message (PM) function yet. So instead put a post in the 8 bit hardware section about your problems and put a post in the wanted section for what parts you want, and we will go from there
Once you can PM, you can of course contact all of them directly via PM.

For electronic parts, I use these (in no particular order):

• ESR
• Rapid
• Farnell
• CPC
• RS

I have used all of the above.
There is also:

• Bowood
  which I myself have not used, but which has a good reputation from other members on both this forum and another forum I'm a member of.

Former suppliers:

• Quarndon Note, Quarndon have ceased trading.
• Maplin Note, the original Maplin Electronics company ceased trading. A new company have bought the name, logo and URL. They don’t currently sell components.

Mark

[Advance]

I find both ESR and Quarndon Electronics to be helpful and very tolerant of this hobbyist and his very small and occasional orders. It also helps that they don't place ridiculous carriage charges on orders from NI. Also, don't rule out ebay for bits and pieces.
H.

[danielj]

Another vote for Quarndon - and yes, definitely ebay - particularly Telec in the Netherlands for small batches of obscure logic ICs - they also let you combine postage.

d.

[CMcDougall]

don't rule out eBay for bits and pieces

this is what i have used, to get 5x capacitors or 5x SN74LSxxxN chips.
I don't want x50 and £5 postage

usually find the stuff cheaper than the other places, but included postage too!

[baldwint]

I quite like bitsbox http://www.bitsbox.co.uk/ too.

They don't have anything like the range of Farnell or RS, but they will still sell you just one resistor - if that's all you want! Postage is reasonable too (assuming you're not actually just buying one resistor).

[PhilYoung]

I quite like bitsbox http://www.bitsbox.co.uk/ too.

They don't have anything like the range of Farnell or RS, but they will still sell you just one resistor - if that's all you want! Postage is reasonable too (assuming you're not actually just buying one resistor).

Similar to bitsbox but with a slightly greater range is spiratronics : http://www.spiratronics.com

Cheers,

Phil Young

[Halifask]

Thought an update might be useful.

I needed an SN7438 and some 14 pin DIL sockets.

The only two suppliers listed above who returned a result from a search on their website were Bowood Electronics and RS components.

For 4 x SN7438 and a pack of 12 14 pin sockets, Bowood Electronics £7.95, RS Components £19.75.

Ordered them from Bowood on Sunday, they arrived on Tuesday, happy days

Arthur

[gordonDrogon]

I've used Mouser (mouser.co.uk) in the past, but also CPC (Farnell). Recently Mouser was unwilling to post me something but RS sent it next day. Free postage for over £50 I think.

I used to use RS a lot and had sort of forgotten about them - mostly as Mouser is a WDC distributor, so getting new W65C02s etc. was only possible via Mouser, so stuck with them for a while, but now, I think RS will be my first port of call.

Maplin? Are they still a thing?

I've also used Tandy too - https://www.tandyonline.com/ but not for a good few years. The history of them is somewhat curious, however...

-Gordon

[Clive]

I have, recently, used Digikey. Their service is excellent. Parts arrived from Minnesota (USA) to UK in 2/3 days and free postage over £33. Cannot recommend them highly enough.

[OneSwitch]

RS are a remarkably good company in my experience. Very fast delivery.

https://uk.rs-online.com/web/

[lushprojects]

For common-or-garden parts I like https://bitsboxuk.com/. Rapid Electroncis used to be good, but seem to have drifted off. Otherwise the big names like RS, Digikey, Mouser.