I feel spoiled...

I live in Toronto, and there is Supremetronic and Active Surplis (not to
be confused with Future Active) to go get parts from.

I totally agree that Radio Shack (Canada) sucks. I just found out this
weekend that even "major" items like antennas that are carried by the U.S.
store aren't necessarily carried here, or even "orderable".

-marc

---
Marc Nicholas - Geekythings, Inc.
Vox: 416.543.4896 SMS: 4165434896@pcs.rogers.com

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004, Robert Rolf wrote:

> 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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