Where do you buy your components?

[vristang]

I'm a noob to this stuff, and this has been one of my frustrations.

What electronics suppliers do you guys use?

So far, I've ordered from
Digi-key
Jameco


When I am done testing on the proto breadboard, where is a good place to have custom boards done?

[AlxDroidDev]

What electronics suppliers do you guys use?
(...)
When I am done testing on the proto breadboard, where is a good place to have custom boards done?

I buy lots of components from www.dx.com (DealExtreme) They don't have everything I need, but their prices is unbeatable. The delivery time, however, can vary from 2 to 6 weeks. I bought a pack of 4,000 resistor (1/4W) of varied values from them. I've also bought packages of capacitors, diodes, crystals, connectors, etc. Only when I need something very specific to my needs, in low quantities, I go to local stores.

For making PCBs, this is everyone's (or almost everyone) favorite: http://imall.iteadstudio.com/open-pcb/pcb-prototyping.html

I've ordered from them in the past. Got 12 boards for the price of 10.

[perhof]

I would not recommend DealExtreme. Their customer service is of the worst kind. They like to come crawling and apologizing and saying "thank your for it's understand" or other gibberish but they never do anything about your problems.
They are not fast to deliver either and they are not the cheapest.

Go to eBay instead if you want cheap chinese clones and cheap components of unknown origin. I do it all the time.
eBay sellers do almost anything to get a good rating and they almost always ship within a day. Shipping is often free and the shipping time is the same as for DealExtreme (when they actually dispatch anything).

For other suppliers I think you need to tell us where you're located in case you want recommendations.

Edit:
I often buy from www.electrodragon.com and www.taydaelectronics.com
They both have good prices and low shipping costs worldwide. Shipping can still take a while.

[Leon Heller]

I mostly get mine from Farnell and RS, as I'm in the UK (free shipping). I sometimes use Digi-Key and Mouser.

I get my boards made by ITead Studio.

[vristang]

My bad on the location...

I'm in Seattle Washington, US.

[CrossRoads]

In the US ( you are WA, yes? update your profile)
Digikey, Mouser, Avnet, DipMicro, TaydaElectronics, Newark, MDfly.com for MP3 modules.
Can also find lots of surplus houses
mpja.com
surplussales.com
many others
I do not buy ebay unless there is no other source - place in Niagara Falls for WS2801/2803/2811 parts for example.

[fungus]

eBay is by far the cheapest/easiest if you don't mind waiting a couple of weeks.

(...although mail from China seems to be faster lately, plus many sellers now have a faster shipping option for an extra $3)

I take time to pick out a seller I like the look of and I never had any problems.

I made some PCBs on itead and they worked out fine. I also made some on OSH Park and they were good too. itead is cheaper, OSH Park is all-USA.

[Sembazuru]

The place I often go to start searching with is octopart.com. You can't buy from them, but they are like froogle.com for electronic parts. (I haven't seen any price quotes from E-Bay on there though....) I also go to octopart first when I need to look up a datasheet.

Hmm.. I haven't tried looking for a generic 1K resistor there though. I'm kinda afraid of search result overload if I try...

[DVDdoug]

Jameco & Digi-Key.    I've been buying from Jameco for more than 30 years!!!!  Digi-Key many years too.

I haven't had any custom boards made (or made any myself) since I was in college.   Usually, I build the project permanently on a plug-in breadboard.  It can be very reliable.  I built a car-alarm on a breadboard about 20 years ago, and it's still working.   I've also use various perfboards, wire-wrap, terminal blocks, etc. to avoid the cos to a custom board

The last perfboard I built was an ugly mess (I didn't have space for the breadboard), so I'm probably going to use a real PCB next time i build that circuit.   There are also a couple of circuits I seem to build over-and-over, and I'm thinking it's time to get some boards made for those.

[retrolefty]

E-bay junky here. 

Lefty

[PedroDaGr8]

Huge TaydaElectronics fan.

Recently had to get some TIP35C power transistors to replace some that were blown in a supply. Also, wanted to get some op-amps preventatively since I didn't know what else was blown. Considering that TIP35C, and most other power transistors/MOSFETS, are commonly fake on ebay; I didn't want to go there. Turns out Tayda had a better price than even the fake ones on ebay and these were the real deal. I ended up getting a huge variety of stuff from there because of the prices, comparatively sites like digikey, mouser and jameco would have cost 2-3x as much. Unless I wanted to buy in the 2000-10000 unit categories (which i guess is how they get the prices this low).

Anyways, I received them and they are exactly as reported. Very high quality, clearly NOT fakes. Oh yeah, also I received my parts in about 1 week (unlike chinese sites which can take 3-6 weeks).

Their machine pin headers are steal, albeit they are hidden as a SIP Socket (single inline package) and not located under the header section. For $0.39 each its hard to beat.


Also a quick hint on ebay, Hong Kong Post and China Post are two entirely separate entities. HKP typically takes ~1week to reach here, China Post around 3 weeks. So if you can find a vendor for the item you want from HK then you will likely get it much faster.

[Bernarr]

I, also, am a huge TaydaElectronics fan. I also use Mouser and Digi-key. But for caps, resistors, and basic color LEDs (red/green/blue/yellow), you simply can't go wrong with Tayda on pricing.

[sonnyyu]

It doesn't matter you get your components from ebay via Hong Kong Post or China Post, or even Tayda Electronics via Thailand Post. Most of them if not all come from Hua Qiang Bei, i.e. the Electronic Market District of Shenzhen, China.

Distance between Hong Kong and Shenzhen is 17 km, 11 mile.

I put a little visual tour of Hua Qiang Bei, Shenzhen. You might be interesting.

http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,155946.msg1169500.html#msg1169500

If you plan to visit China, Shenzhen should be at your top list.

4 Shenzhen restaurants named Top 50 restaurants in China, it is very impressed if you count Shenzhen's population in only 10 million, but population of china is 1.344 billion.

While you are in Shenzhen do not forget enjoy nice food.

Great China Chiu Chung Restaurant in Sheraton Shenzhen Futian Hotel



Great China Chiu Chung Restaurant in Sheraton Shenzhen Futian Hotel is the largest restaurant for Chaozhou cuisine (subset of Cantonese food)  and Cantonese cuisine. The expensively decorated restaurant features a main hall that can accommodate 1,200 people to dine

Per capita consumption: US$32 - US$127

To completed picture, I might have to point out dark side.

Inside Dongguan, China's Sin City, The Telegraph UK

Distance between Dongguan and Shenzhen is 69 km, 43 mile.

To calm my the other half down I removed Dongguan portion map from my GPS, How do you manage yours, you are on your own.

[Bernarr]

So do you know of any services that will shop for you? You give them a list, they go buy it (in Shenzhen) and ship it over to you (in the USA)?

[sonnyyu]

So do you know of any services that will shop for you? You give them a list, they go buy it (in Shenzhen) and ship it over to you (in the USA)?

What you asked for is China buying agent, China sourcing agent, China online shopping agent, Taobao English agent ... Google it.

www.dx.com (DealExtreme) is one of them.

Taobao=Chinese Amazon+Chinese Ebay+Chinese Paypal.

As far as I know we have member(s) on this forum come from local (Shenzhen), which item are you looking for?  list here and ask them advice.