A Perfectly reasonable and good place to spend money..

Here is a place I found in my wanderings that seems to be a perfectly reasonable and good place to spend money. Here is a part we all use that sells for $10 - $20 from China...
Here is a place called OddWires, It's in the northern part of California and they have some fair prices.. $1.50 for 85's, $1.99 for 28 pin zif sockets and $9.95 for this FTDI adapter:
http://www.oddwires.com/ftdi-ft232rl-usb-to-serial-adapter-module-usb-to-rs232-for-arduino/.
They ship as promptly as does Evil Mad Scientist's does and the value is a 'little' better. Each place has it's great deals and the 'not so great' but these are worth looking at.
Evil has great quality.. Oddwires is a "little" better (cheaper) at least on what I've purchased so far.. Always same day shipping, If I order before noon from both.

Doc

Thanks for the tip, that is only about 25 miles from me. Goggle map shows it's running out of someones house, but that doesn't mean much for a startup.

Lefty

I just glanced at that site, and most things are not even close to being cheap, eg
http://www.oddwires.com/integrated-circuits/
http://www.oddwires.com/chip-amps/

I think he may have bought the serial adaptors from CN for $2/ea, and is selling
them for $10/ea.

Still a better buy than China... Who cares what he paid for them... I really don't see where it is relevant... I would think what was more important was what I had to pay for them.
It's a new 'company' based in the US, They are very responsive to email and they are local.. at least to me (550 miles away... But in the Great State of California.. and a whole lot cheaper than the competition. I did a little research before I bought from them.

Doc

I agree Doc. It looks good to me. I'm going to give it a try.

I bought a bunch of stuff from them on ebay, and they seem like good people. They were quick to resolve issues, which is the most important thing to me. I got an order that was missing an item, and had the replacement with a few spares (just some 555's to play with) 4 days after sending an email about it. Not bad for a small operation.

My 2 cents:

USB to serial for $ 7.50

Shipping is free, if you can spare the time to wait three weeks it's a good buy, I got a couple and have used them without problems.

And here is another for $.90 more (including shipping)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/251230783985?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649
and I am quite sure that the return policy is just as good as any of the other vendors on Ebay... (He, he, he...)
Once you prove you didn't damage it.. You Might get some satisfaction... I have... Exactly Twice.
Twice in the last 4 years of purchases have I been shipped a replacement part for a bad one and both times it was before I left feedback. After you leave that feedback AND those 5 Stars... They could give a da*n about you... There's another suck.. Customer right behind you. (FWIW, both times it was 90+ day's before the deal was done or at least a similar part or refund for me)
I have been looking more and more at things produced or at least sold by others for a long time and my final conclusion is simple.. If saving the last penny is of prime importance to you and you don't care if somethings don't quite work as advertised and it really doesn't bother you to know that all you have is Ebay to arbitrate the transaction and virtually no recourse then by ALL means Buy Ebay...
But I found that If I shopped carefully I could find local people selling the same items at prices not more than 10 to 20% higher and in fact I have yet to get a bad part from this guy or several others that are local or at least in this country. I am reasonably certain that deals of similar proportion (VAT included) can be found in most countries as well or at least from what I've seen and if not then my heart goes out to you...

Bob

Not bad, but I like these guys, especially since I can just drive over there. :slight_smile:

http://www.microcenter.com/product/392678/USB_2_Serial_Converter

Here's one that does dual 5V and 3.3V for a few bucks more:
http://www.microcenter.com/product/389986/OSEPP_FTDI_Breakout_Board

My 2 cents:

USB to serial for $ 7.50

Prototype Expansion Board with Mini Breadboard for Arduino (Works with Official Arduino Boards) - Free shipping - DealExtreme

Shipping is free, if you can spare the time to wait three weeks it's a good buy, I got a couple and have used them without problems.

Update:

  • Scotty

There are some of us that have less than wonderful results with dxtreme and therefore no longer consider them an option... no matter the price. Heck, for me... even free would not bring me back as a customer to dx.

Thanks Doc, I've order some items and awaiting there arrival.

//LiNK

If you look carefully, you'll see they almost all have different pinouts on the 6-pin
headers, and none are consistent with the adafruit FTDI Friend, if that matters.

IOW, headers on pcbs that currently accept FTDI Friends, or the std FTDI Cables
[ie, the first original devices], may not accept those not-quite-a-proper-clone
boards.

How? A CP2102 is a CP2102 and to the best of my knowledge supports the RS232
TTL Standard 0 - 5V... What could be different?
Are you trying to say that we will blow up our boards if we don't use the Official..

and none are consistent with the adafruit FTDI Friend, if that matters.
FTDI Friend + extras [v1.0] : ID 284 : $14.75 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits

IOW, headers on pcbs that currently accept FTDI Friends, or the std FTDI Cables
[ie, the first original devices], may not accept those not-quite-a-proper-clone
boards.

How is any of this relevant? If I build a board I make provisions for jumpers only
it is my take that most do as that is what I see in 90+ % of all the pictures presented
here and it is useful to me to NOT be tied to a pinout... I make my own.
When and where I need them.

Doc

Interesting statement of delivery time..

Delivery:
Typically ships in 7 - 10 business days

I don't quite know how to read that but regardless of the price I'd not order there...
If that kind of error is in front.. What's going on inside?

Doc

The Main point in mentioning this site is to provide a reference to a place where there is a live body, not around the world and a day later, A place where the prices are reasonable, Just reasonable.. I'm quite sure thata the example I choose could be found somewhere for $1.98 and free shipping too.
I However like the idea of a company semi local that is priced to be affordable for the majority of what they sell. I can beat every price shown by buying the part somewhere in the world. When and and If I want more or I have an issue, I can buy more or I can return it, locally.
Here is a disconnected example.. Similar but good enough to illustrate the issue.. I can buy the 3.2QVT 3.2" 65K color displays for 16.95 - 17.95 from a dozen places on Ebay including SainSMart... and get it in 10 day's.. Free Shipping. I can buy the same part from Amazon and get it in 2 (I have Prime) days and if I need to return it. It takes 10 minutes to get an RMA and pack the display for return. Anyone care to try SainSmart through Ebay?
I've not had the occasion to return anything to OddWires..
But I can say that there was a problem with a delivery where it was clear that either I was lying or it wasn't put in my mailbox and OddWires shipped me a replacement.. With an apology and not an argument or "Could you please wait a week before..." Immediately, Not later.
The Same day and hour almost, as I complained the parts were missing from my mailbox and the Post Office showed them as delivered..
This is probably the first small company to do this for me... I buy from Adafruit I really like their selection of parts and breakout boards but I do find them overpriced.
I like buying from Evil Mad Scientist's too and their prices reasonable.. For some things..
I am retired Arduino C and C++ are what I have chosen to use to structure my retirement time and what I buy are my toys. I'm an older man now and my priorities are really different then when I was a younger man. I enjoy sharing some of my experience as an embedded designer who didn't write code. I specified what the code should do and sometimes exactly how to write the code but I wrote very little Pic assembler except to patch code once in a great while.

Doc