I need a good site for electronics components that post to the UK as I'm starting a small yet complicated project. I don't mind a US or Canadian site either as I can pay by paypal. It just needs to have decent prices and generous pricing for postage. Anyone got any ideas?
well, for small stuff, free postage, but limited stock range http://cpc.farnell.com/ (very free postage from here, my smallest order was 28p for 10 0805 diodes, which they posted to me for free) for full stock range, 20 quid minimum spend, but free postage over that, big boys farnell http://uk.farnell.com and, then there is always rs components - you don't get free postage here, unless you hold a credit account - they have decent stock range, sometimes prices are a little keener here, but negated by the 5 quid for postage on small stuff http://uk.rs-online.com I buy from them in the above order, try cpc first, farnell after that, and RS if I really must. Spill about the project Sounds fun!
http://www.coolcomponents.co.uk/ http://www.hobbytronics.co.uk/ Can be slightly pricey but it depends what you need its mostly based around micro stuff
For CPC farnell, minimum spend is now £5 before Vat, placed an order for some light fittings there yesterday which were delivered today.
Well that's annoying, maybe it's becuase I kept buying things that were less than a quid. haha. oopsie.
Annoyed me too, wanted a little 86p plug for a project, ended up having to pay £2.80 something from ebay.
a good site that does send post to the UK for pc parts use this one is https://www.4launch.nl/shop/ it is 1 of the cheapest ones in the netherlands for other kind of electronic parts (IC components) http://www.conrad.com/ce/ this one has the largest supply of different parts
Whilst not wanting to hijack the thread, it is sort-of related- anyone had experience dealing with oomlout? Likewise i'm in a 'try and source locally or import from the states' quandary...
This is pretty much what I do, can't recommend CPC/Farnell enough. Always fast free postage and usually have most things in stock. Normally it isn't too hard to get your order up to the £5 required as they have so many interesting things! My only complaint is that they don't seem to have an option to send all items at once. I recently purchased a few things knowing that some were out of stock, however they insist on sending out what they can, then when one item comes into stock, they send that by itself. Must be costing them a fortune in postage, and although it is great that I get the items I can as soon as I can, I would be more than happy to wait for everything to be in stock so it can be sent together.
Yeah I think I could always find £5 worth of stuff I want to buy! I always manage to find £20 of stuff to buy from farnell! I didn't know this, but I've never ordered things that are out of stock, they normally have a few different brands so I normally just try and get something that is in stock. That being said - stock kind of does dictate where I go, certain things some places just don't stock, which then means I end up getting all the things I want from somewhere else. Annoyingly, sometimes that's RS! I really dislike RS, I really really like CPC/Farnell. RS have messed me about a few times in the last few weeks, from parts coming labelled, but the actuall product inside being wrong, sales invoices not matching transaction values and refunds that haven't actually gone through. Annoyingly though, sometimes they are the only people with what I need.
