Jason S wrote:
>
> What if you only need a few dollars or even a few cents worth of parts?
> You're still looking at at least $6 in shipping costs.

Yep.

>
> I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that without a local retail parts
> store, it's simply impossible to do electronics work as a hobby.

Yep.

Unfortunately I got used to driving by Active on my way to work
to pick up whatever I needed that day. With the change in ownership
there is so little useful inventory that I now just order my stuff
from Digikey, pay the shipping and be done with it (my time is worth
quite a lot, unlike a hobbyist). It's still on my desk the next day.

Part of the problem with doing 'hobby' design is that you often
don't always know what you need until AFTER you've sent in your order.
So you either have to plan better, accounting for all likely needs,
or live with the minimum purchase and shipping costs.

I always order a few extra of whatever I purchase so that my 'junk'
draw is pretty well stocked, so I need to order much less often now.
One always needs IC sockets, capacitors, connectors, etc. etc.
so ordering 'just enough' has its shortcoming, particularly if
ordering 10 of something makes the extra 2 pieces 'free' because
of a price break.

The big killer for hobbyists, as I see it, is the MOQ (minimum order
quantity) that most distributors now have. If I only need 25 molex
connectors, why the bleep do I have to place a factory order for 500?
For SMT IC's it's even crazier. 500pc on some things where you need
only 30 (so sampling won't get you what you need).
It is stupid that one of my criteria for designing in a part must now
include whether I can get it in small production quantities (10's or 100s).

Robert

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