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quicksilver

Tue Nov 23 2010, 04:22PM

Registered Member #1408 Joined: Fri Mar 21 2008, 03:49PM
Location: Oracle, AZ
Posts: 679

I have been thinking about this thread for awhile now. I've been in this hobby for a few years and been an electrician in my younger days. I've built up a list of several companies that have some SWEET deals, some that can get some superior items & thought n ongoing list may be a great help to many. I hope others will add to this & if permitted I will as well in various formats of more narrow a perspective.

-=Disclaimer: This is opinion only! This list in NO way reflects the actual workings of the company; only the personal experience an individual has had with them.=-

Most all places have web presence: if not ask the OP of the place in question. This list only reflects those places that the poster has himself used; therefore your mileage may vary. This thread would in NO WAY be any final say-so on a quality of activity of a company. It would merely be a list for those seeking certain items and the interaction of those who have used the company previously. If you have addendum, disagree with description or service related issues: please say so! And please add to list with anything that could be of use to experimenters, hobbyists, and businesses.
***********************************

Elliot Electronics: Tucson. Deals in SURPLUS electronics, will ship. This is a place I have gone to for years and been in business for decades. They get every sort of items from wire to Variacs and power supplies on a surplus basis. Items costing hundreds will sell for pennies. Worth a call. Customer service : moderate to good. SOME HV stuff: Very good to excellent prices on over stock. Some excellent prices on over-runs of some HV items. Large wire sales.: however coil wire selection limited many times during the year. Extremely large sales of coil wire. Often only very thin sizes available but at low cost.

Newark Electronics: Customer service: VERY GOOD. Middle-mans a great many manufacturers items at fair prices. Some selection of CDE caps - unfortunately no 942's. but Veshay caps and other components at somewhat better prices than Mouser. Some excellent prices on over-runs of some HV items.

Mouser Elect.: Good prices on moderate components limited HV materials. Customer service good. Sells very wide variety.

OT Electronics: Good to fair CS; Lots of HV items - Prices good to very good: select items. Lot sales. Items may be out of stock & limited quantity. One of the better HV diode places I've found. but limited in total stock. Mostly things for voltage multipliers: Caps, Diodes, & some HV wire.

Allied Electronics: Wider selection than Mouser for RELATED items (cases, connectors). CS: good to Very good. Sells very wide variety. Similar to Mouser; very competitive w/ same. Will seek to beat prices if you are speaking "to the right guy".

Dean Electronics; HV specialist, specializes in voltage multipliers diodes, caps. Prices rather high SC: poor.
Poor place to buy small lots.

Surplus Sales of Nebraska. SC: fair to good. Prices fair to high. Unique selection of items. Limited selection of unique surplus. Prices on surplus is fair to moderately high. Some very unique items.

Amazing One / Information Unlimited: SC: good to fair. Some problems with quality control. Prices fair to moderately high. HV and "toys". Unique with Tesla Coil parts (prices moderately high). Shipping;very high. They seem to "get you" in a limited shipping agenda and it's pretty high so sales need to be large to save any money. Poor place to buy small items. It has been the experience of some that their quality control is moderate.

RS Electronics; One of the better places to get CDE caps. Customer service: good. sales, brisk. They DO know that MMC caps are a wanted item and work to keep prices competitive. Moderately wide selection but they middle-man items, so limited selection through out a given time frame. Lot sales. Items may be out of stock & limited quantity.

Electronics Goldmine: Lots of "toys" very limited HV items. Occasionally has unique items for very low cost. Very large lot purchases: some items sell for pennies and may be of higher quality: others may be serious junk. SC: good to fair. Occasional surprises of quality goods / components. Some are very high quality right next to serious trash. Strange place to shop. Very important to ASK if a item exists as much is "warehoused" and not cataloged.

Thomas W

Tue Nov 23 2010, 06:29PM

Registered Member #3324 Joined: Sun Oct 17 2010, 06:57PM
Location:
Posts: 1276

hmm i cant seem to find Elliot Electronics :(

quicksilver

Tue Nov 23 2010, 08:19PM

Registered Member #1408 Joined: Fri Mar 21 2008, 03:49PM
Location: Oracle, AZ
Posts: 679

Elliot' is in Arizona. I live out not too far from from there (about 50ml but it's worth it). I don't know if they have a large web presence because they always turn over and get stuff SO fast. You simply call them and see if they have what you're looking for. I know they got in a bunch of new cheapy Variacs and they have a larger one unenclosed.They are a pretty big place but they move stuff very fast.
Their buyer is a guy named Rodger. Unfortunately everyone have places that are local to them. Elliot's has a whole WALL full of power supplies (surplus) but since they buy and sell I'm not sure if they sell actively through the web. They ARE helpful IF you know what you need prior to calling.For instance say you live out of town & call with a question like "I need a 15amp 5v power supply: I live out of town, what do you have available?" Or "do you have any xxx Variacs"?
It's really similar to Surplus Sales of Nebraska. They buy a lot also. But again it's a local thing. Several member live in Phoenix, so they have places like that near them or use Elliots. It's fairly large. The wire selection is really big but again; you really need to know what you want because it's a surplus place.
MOST of the electronics comes from local large companies like HUGHS and Raythion: very similar to S. S. of N. gets stuff from Los Alamos labs in Mew Mexico and their own Nebraska sites.

Their info is:

Elliot's Electronics
520.883.7398
1301 S Tyndall Ave.
Tucson, AZ 85713

HazzWold 1993

Tue Nov 23 2010, 08:23PM

Registered Member #2563 Joined: Mon Dec 21 2009, 10:17AM
Location: Australia
Posts: 280

Farnell or "Element 14" as of late, has always had incredible service in my personal opinion. They offer free postage and for anything thats in stock it will arrive within 2 days and everything Ive ever ordered has been to me by the next day.

- they are also pretty decently priced and have good quality components.

quicksilver

Tue Nov 23 2010, 08:28PM

Registered Member #1408 Joined: Fri Mar 21 2008, 03:49PM
Location: Oracle, AZ
Posts: 679

Element 14 is fantastic (IMO) Really worth a look, especially if Newark doesn't seem to have what you need - like 942 CDE caps, etc.

"Element 14" is the "forum" for Newark Electronics. Find Newark and you'll get their "gateway".

GluD

Tue Nov 23 2010, 09:22PM

Registered Member #1221 Joined: Wed Jan 09 2008, 06:17PM
Location: Odense, Denmark
Posts: 196

I buy practicly all my electronics related stuff from RS, when I started in this hobby I bought a few things from this local store but soon I found myself requiring more advanced componets then the local store could provide, and then switched to RS and that was like 4 years ago.
Bought stuff from RS ever since.

Steve Conner

Wed Nov 24 2010, 10:19AM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

Farnell, CPC, Newark, Buck Hickman, MCM, Element 14 etc. are all basically the same company.

Do you guys have RS

in the states? RS and Farnell are our two major stops for R&D supplies. We have an account with both. The old Farnell account manager gave me a customer number and encouraged me to buy stuff for personal projects on my credit card, and then they got a new account manager, and he called me up and told me that I wasn't supposed to do that.

quicksilver

Wed Nov 24 2010, 01:37PM

Registered Member #1408 Joined: Fri Mar 21 2008, 03:49PM
Location: Oracle, AZ
Posts: 679

Well Newark has a printed catalog, a great deal of outreach, a walk-in facility(s) but in the States (IMO) there are so many areas with greater or lesser buying populations that they may not have as many outlets (or "feeds") as RS / Farnell. I think they (RS) have captured the UK. While many in the US have not even heard of Newark (which have been very helpful, personable & decent to work with).
I had heard of "Element 14" from a customer service call making sure a mid-sized order came on time. I was impressed with a company that cared about a guy buying less than $1000 worth of merchandise.

If RS / Farnell is an indicator of how customer relations works in the UK; we have a long way to go in the States to come close.

I DID want to add a note about shipping. - And I am speaking for the USA now but in my past experience the least expensive company is Fed-Ex. UPS is much higher in cost overall.... Places like O.T. Electronics will often give free shipping on orders over $500.
I live in a rural area, away from Tucson; so my postal service is not the best. I generally prefer most anything over the post & that's saying something. But in different places in the world postal service differs of course. I've heard the UK is not bad.
With this "BLACK FRIDAY" coming up many places are trying to get folks to buy from the net.

Nicko

Wed Nov 24 2010, 07:03PM

Registered Member #1334 Joined: Tue Feb 19 2008, 04:37PM
Location: Nr. London, UK
Posts: 615

When I order from Farnell, it arrives next day, even if I order at 5pm. They are astonishingly good.

RS are pretty much the same.

If you are a corporate customer, both deliver free however small the order - I have ordered single resistors (say, a 50W 4.7ohm al) and have it arrive at 9am the following day.

I get the impression Farnell is far larger than RS, certainly in the UK. Both have now spread their wings wide, but Farnell is especially acquisitive.

Cheers

dingo27

Wed Nov 24 2010, 07:17PM

Registered Member #890 Joined: Tue Jul 10 2007, 10:06PM
Location: Slovakia
Posts: 180

Something from europe?

Well i got nothing but good experience with tme.eu, they have prices which are ok here, but awesome , emm ... "ability to choose the right part for you"

They got far more parts than most SVK suppliers here.

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