Buying sensors - Recommnded websites

[Skycleaver]

Evening everyone.
So, after a long break I'm returning to Arduino with a project involving comfort management. I need several sensors to quantify temperature, humidity, air speed, luminosty and maybe even air quality.

First of all, I'm trying to do some market research to buy the ones that best suit the project needs. Which websites/distributors do you usually get your sensors at? I've taken a look at sparkfun, mouser, seeedstudio, bricogeek, cooking-hacks and parallax.
Thanks in advance, and I'll post in the near future describing the project in more detail.

Cheers!

[dhenry]

digikey: best selection, fast shipping and good service. worst pricing.

[CrossRoads]

Worst pricing? I don't think so.
Overgeneralized commenting perhaps.

[Nantonos]

I need several sensors to quantify temperature, humidity, air speed, luminosty and maybe even air quality.

I'm hoping you plan to measure luminance rather than luminosity.

[Skycleaver]

I need several sensors to quantify temperature, humidity, air speed, luminosty and maybe even air quality.

I'm hoping you plan to measure luminance rather than luminosity.

You're right, I translated the word directly into English -didn't know what luminosity was, so thanks!

As for the others, thanks for the answers. I'll have a look at digikey.

Any more suggestions?

[MichaelMeissner]

I haven't bought too many sensors, but general places I look for electronics gear besides the local shops include:

US based distributors (faster delivery if you live in the USA, possibly higher cost):

• http://www.robotshop.com/store


• http://www.pololu.com/


• http://www.adafruit.com/


• http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StoreCatalogDisplay?storeId=10001&catalogId=10001&langId=-1


• http://www.dipmicro.com/store/index.php (I haven't bought anything from them at the moment)


• http://www.sparkfun.com/ (I haven't ordered from them directly, I don't know if they ship from a US location)

Other distributors (I've bought from arduino-direct.com, and I've bought dfrobot.com boards from other distributors):

• http://arduino-direct.com/


• http://www.dfrobot.com/index.php


• http://www.taydaelectronics.com/


• http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/


• http://imall.iteadstudio.com/

[Nantonos]

European sites:

Alpha-Crucis (ch)
Antarek (be/nl)
Evola (fr)
Farnell (uk)
Floris (nl)
Gotronic (fr)
Lipoly (de)
Lextronic (fr)
Maplin (uk)
Reichelt (de)
RS Components (uk/intl)
Snootlab (fr)
Zartronic (fr)

If these sites have bookmarkable language selections, the links above are to the English language ones. The Lextronic language selection does not work, its always in French regardless of which flag you click. RS ship from various locations worldwide (note to US readers, RS Components is unrelated to Radio Shack).

Postage varies between these suppliers, depending on their policies and on whether you live in the same country or not; minimum order quantity also varies. Most let you order either in Euro or in their local currency if that is different (ch, uk).

[Nantonos]

• http://arduino-direct.com/

Arduino-direct look a bit dodgy (unless they really have licensed the trademarked Arduino logo, and really do get their boards fabricated in Italy and shipped to the US).

[MichaelMeissner]

Arduino-direct look a bit dodgy (unless they really have licensed the trademarked Arduino logo, and really do get their boards fabricated in Italy and shipped to the US).

You would have to bring that up with Terry King who is one of the owners of the store and who posts in this forum quite frequently.  FWIW, the processors he sells are labeled Arduino compatible and not official Arduinos.  Also, when I've bought from them, they are shipped from China, where most of the electronics is frabicated these days.

I like his site, because he has tutorials he wrote for the various sensors and add-ons.