Pricing parts...

[Noplasticrobots]

I see that everyone here has a certain place they prefer for parts, but I was looking at various websites and found one that seems to have good prices and was wondering if anyone has any experience with them. It's www.allelectronics.com
I know a lot of their stock is excess surplus though, is this something to avoid? Any advice?

[smallbearelec]

Because their stock will vary with what they buy as surplus, you can't depend on All Electronics, Electronics Goldmine and other such companies for commodities. But if they happen to have something you want and/or can make to work, the prices are unbeatable. You should also be aware of and check out:

Mouser
Digikey
Jameco
Futurlec

Even though I run my own store, I have shopped from all of these. While each has a different emphasis, they are all small-order friendly, Mouser in particular. My colleagues here will have their own lists of favorites to share with you.

Regards
Steve Daniels

[Connoisseur of Distortion]

i bought a 50 lb care package from allelectronics. it was full of totally random things (found tubes, Ge trannies, hard drive, tropical fish caps, microcontrollers, knobs, about 10 lbs of asst components) but i don't think i would buy one again... i don't have money to spend on unreliable sources. 

mouser is absolutely wonderful. they have good parts at (usually) competitive prices. they seem to lack certain parts though, and so you usually end up buying from 3-4 different stores 

small bear is a good place to stock up. you can buy every part you need for any pedal you want to build (well, USUALLY) and it'll all come in one big package. only store i know of that holds all of the parts you need. GREAT service if you plan on multiple builds!

[Hal]

yea, goldmine is a toy store :-D.  Its especially good if you're into all kinds of electronics, not just stompers.  I had fun playing with their latching hall effect switches...

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

I'm in Australia, & I'm a happy customer of ALL the above! (except Futurlec, havn't gone there, I'm not a gambling man..)
And in Australia, it's always worth checking the specials & clearing items at www.rockby.com.au
Speaking to Eugene there, a suprising amount of his stuff goes to the USA!

[Toney]

Futurelec for pots!

Had three orders each arrive on average in four days.
66c Au each for 16mm Alphas.... usually $4 shipping per postpac, pretty happy.

I know others have had issues......

[Aurin]

I've only ordered parts once... That was from Small Bear ... I got everything real quick and the packaging was real nice... the prices weren't shabby either =D ... I can't really recommend one place over another as I've only got the one experience so far BUT if Small bear has it I'd suggest ordering from him =DD.

[Noplasticrobots]

Thanks for the great suggestions!

Now, can anyone reccomend some common audio taper pot values? RS is way too expensive to be paying 3 bucks/pot for each project. Ideally I'd like to have a small stock of parts ready to exeriment with, and finding the right value pot at RS is nearly impossible..

[Aurin]

The most common pots I've seen looking through all kinds of schematics from here, tonepad, ROG seem to be these (But not necessarily just -audio- taper.... ) :

1K, 10k, 50k, 100k, 500k and 1 M

Hope that helps a little, at least.

[transient]

You'll need lots of 100K A pots. Most circuits require at least one of that.

You can buy quality Alpha pots for $1.25 at SmallBear. I like the 16mm pots there, as they take up less space than 24mm ones.

.
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[no one ever]

i bought a 50 lb care package from allelectronics. it was full of totally random things (found tubes, Ge trannies, hard drive, tropical fish caps, microcontrollers, knobs, about 10 lbs of asst components) but i don't think i would buy one again... i don't have money to spend on unreliable sources. 

mouser is absolutely wonderful. they have good parts at (usually) competitive prices. they seem to lack certain parts though, and so you usually end up buying from 3-4 different stores 

small bear is a good place to stock up. you can buy every part you need for any pedal you want to build (well, USUALLY) and it'll all come in one big package. only store i know of that holds all of the parts you need. GREAT service if you plan on multiple builds!

where'd you get that care package? i mean, where on the website...

[KORGULL]

 All Electronics is good. I've ordered from them a few times - haven't had any problems.
I also like:
www.jameco.com They have the power jacks I like and cheap semiconductors.
www.elexp.com  They have cheap PCB making supplies, soldering irons, and test equipment among other things. I would advise against trying their grab-bag pot asst. though - mostly junk in that one.

[Connoisseur of Distortion]

look in the assortments section...

EDIT: sorry, the care package comes from alltronics 

[phaeton]

Futurlec is my first choice, as they are the most economical, have decent parts and they all come in nicely marked lil baggies.  The downside is that they don't have everything and orders take a month to arrive to the U.S.

Jameco is great.  I buy stuff from them all the time.  Costs a little more but they have lots of stuff and everything comes quickly. (2-3 days in my case).

Smallbear is the place to go for all the oddball 'DIY Stompbox' only stuff.  The folks above don't have germanium transistors, Smallbear does, even matched sets.  Jameco has germanium diodes but they are questionable.  Smallbear has the smaller pots which are a good choice.  AFAIK Smallbear is the only place to get the optoisolator chips that are featured in a lot of older Craig Anderton designs.  Smallbear beats most everyone for perfboard, enclosures, DPDT stompswitches, knobs, etc.  You can buy many variations of those from other places but *these* are the switches, diodes and stuff that you want to put in your stompboxes.    Stuff from smallbear shows up carefully packed and well packaged.

I haven't bought anything from AMZ or Aron Nelson yet, but I'm sure i'll make the rounds eventually.  I always hear good things about mouser but i haven't bought there yet.

Radio Shack is typically for stuff you need Right Now.  There isn't anything at Radio Shack that you couldn't find somewhere else at 10x the quality and 1/5 the price.  Their selection is very watery these days.  Their only benefits are that there's no shipping time/cost, and you can actually pick stuff up and look at it before you buy it.

[cmat]

Small bear is the first place I always goto.  I do have to buy from mouser because steve doesnt have a few parts I need.  I hate mouser it is so hard ordering stuff from there   I do buy from effectsconection good prices on 3pdt's and I used about 40 of them with no problems and pedalpartsplus has geat prices and will powdercoat or paint your box they will even drill it for you!!  They have 3pdt's for $4 also   and carry 1% resistors!!