Digikey's great, but my volume sales rep moved to another position within the company and the next person that was assigned to me said that we're not large enough for her to deal with, so I should just call the regular sales number from now on. =8-O But in general, they ship when they say they will, and will match Mouser's prices, and having a Net-30 credit line is nice. Newark scammed me -- won't touch them again. Mouser works fine, but very often miss shipping dates, even if I call up and place an order asking if it will go out today. Since I've bought a bunch from them in the past, they've issued me a Net-30 credit line w/o asking for a formal application/reference/etc. They will also try to match Digikey's prices. Arrow is a joke -- they every time I call for pricing, I get a runaround saying that some other department (another state) should be handling my account, so I call there, and then they ask me how come I'm calling them In 3 such experiences over the past couple years, I've not been able to purchase a single thing from them. Avnet is a good company, but generally requires higher volumes, so I only use them for specific products. I've also found better pricing from some of the more "corporate" sellers such as Abstract electronics, etc. Don't care for Jameco -- ordered a couple hundred SOT-23 transistors and got a whole bunch of strips with 10 pcs each, and have no clue why a substitute part needs to meet certain specs to be considered a substitute. They're a hobby-level company, and I can't use them for my work stuff. Since you mentioned McMaster, I begged them for a catalog for years, since they had many things I use, and their website was buggy then. Kept saying they would but never did, and I eventually found out that they would not send me one cause I was not big enough for them. Nowadays I place about 20 orders a year with them for at least a couple hundred dollars each, and suddenly a catalog showed up recently. But their website is much better nowadays so I don't need it now. Cheers, -Neil. Quoting Chris Smolinski : >> >>> Jameco's site, by comparison, is really horrible. >> >> Its web is really hard to use. But it's catalog seems well designed >> (but not as heavy as Mouser or Digikey). > > Yeah, having fewer products makes their catalog easier to wade > through, and they have a lot of esoteric stuff that the big guys > don't have, or charge too much for. > > DigiKey and Mouser seem to be in some sort of catalog arms race, each > trying to make a heavier catalog than the other. > > Speaking of that... McMaster Carr. I still have my ten or so year old > catalog from them. I've never been able to get them to send me > another, I guess I don't buy enough. But they also have a fantastic > website, very easy to find stuff. And their warehouse must have a > conveyer belt right into the UPS/FedEx hub, because I'll place an > order at 4 PM and the box is on my doorstep the next day. > > -- > > --- > Chris Smolinski > Black Cat Systems > http://www.blackcatsystems.com > -- > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist