Ten Suppliers of Components and Tools

In This Chapter

Understanding the difference between a manufacturer, a distributor, and a supplier

Finding hobbyist-friendly resources

Discovering the big five worldwide distributors

No matter what project you undertake, you need the right components, the right tools, and the idea. Most of this book is about the idea, but components and tools are vital for any project’s success, and that’s where this chapter comes in.

Farnell/Newark

Farnell (known as Newark in the United States) is a major distributor and partner of the Raspberry Pi Foundation. It has a vast range of parts, but it does tend to charge top price, and some one-off delivery charges on some items are high. You can start shopping at www.farnell.com or www.newark.com. A subsidiary of Farnell, called CPC, handles most hobby orders. Next-day delivery ensures minimum disruption to your projects.

Farnell also runs element14, a forum for developers and hobbyists, with web events, video tutorials, and webinars. You can find out more at www.element14.com.

RS Components

RS Components is the other major UK distributor. It used to be known as Radio Spares (not to be confused with Radio Shack in the United States). RS Components is hobbyist friendly and carries a great range of stock. Along with Farnell, it oversees the production and distribution of the Raspberry Pi. Find out more at www.rs-online.com.

Rapid Electronics

Rapid (www.rapidonline.com) tends to have some parts that are a lot cheaper than Farnell/Newark and RS Components, and it also has a specialized education section. Rapid’s website is more hobbyist friendly, and although it doesn’t have as wide a range as some distributors, it’s worth looking at.

Mouser Electronics

Mouser (www.mouser.com) is another major distributor, bigger in the United States than in the UK, but still accessible worldwide. It has a wide range of items in stock and offers free shipping in the UK on orders over £50.

Digi-Key

The last of the big five major distributors, Digi-Key (www.digikey.com) ships product to more than 170 countries worldwide from a single location in Thief River Falls, Minnesota. It has a wide range of products and easily accessible data sheets, along with a good search section.

Proxxon

Proxxon (www.proxxon.com) is a German manufacturer of small, high-precision tools. Its tools aren’t the cheapest, but they’re the best we’ve come across. Often, small tools are just cut-down versions of larger ones, but Proxxon understand that, as you go smaller, you have to push up the precision of the tool. One of this book’s authors, Mike Cook, couldn’t be without his bench drill press, bench circular saw, and disc sander. They’re made for light work and are ideal for model making and prototyping.

Adafruit

Adafruit (www.adafruit.com), founded by the now legendary Limor Fried (one of the founders of the open-source movement), is a strange hybrid of supplier and designer of hobbyist-friendly boards and sub systems. It supplies its own designs, taking advantage of whatever interesting components come on the market. Adafruit has produced a number of Raspberry Pi expansion boards, which it calls plates. It also organizes competitions and has regular live podcasts with a strong learning/teaching bias. Adafruit is based in the United States but has distributors in many countries.

SparkFun

SparkFun (www.sparkfun.com) is another hybrid supplier/designer like Adafruit, with its own manufacturing facility. As its name implies, SparkFun is enthusiastic and puts the fun into the subject. It offers a great many breakout boards, which are small PCB boards with a surface-mounted IC with easy soldered or breadboard access to the chips. Mainly a U.S.-based company, SparkFun has some worldwide distributors.

Electronic Goldmine

Electronic Goldmine (www.goldmine-elec-products.com) specializes in surplus components and equipment and is a veritable treasure trove of electronic delights. This is the sort of place you don’t so much go looking for something specific, but instead look through its catalog and think, “Ooh, I could use that for… .”

E.M.A. Model Supplies

Electronic components are important, but so is the enclosure you put them in. Companies like E.M.A. (www.ema-models.co.uk) supply parts for making the mechanical components of a project, from sheet plastic to plastic beams, screws to glue, as well as a few tools.

Straight talk about pricing

The main problem with components and tools is that consumer electronics have given people the wrong idea about cost. In the past, it was always cheaper to make something yourself. Unfortunately, electronics doesn’t work like that today. The process needed to make integrated circuits is, by and large, the same no matter how complex the circuit is; but when you go to buy one, you’ll see a vast range of prices. This range of prices is mainly due to how new a device is, where the manufacturers are trying to cover their development cost, what the yield is (how many actually work off the end of the line), and last but no means least, the number you want to buy. When buying parts, quantity is everything.

Now, we’re not talking about the quantities that the average hobbyist may buy. We’re talking about industrial quantities that are measured in the millions of parts. Sure, there are small price breaks (sometimes for 10 or 100 of a single part), but most manufacturers won’t get out of bed for anything less than half a million. This is where distributors come in. They buy in bulk and sell to smaller buyers, taking a cut.

The last in the chain are the suppliers, which are different from distributors in that they’re specifically geared toward hobbyists. By and large, suppliers sell you quality parts. But the new players on the block are the many suppliers on sites like eBay. They may have prices that look too good to be true — and in some cases, they are. A lot of these suppliers have limited quantities of end-of-line stock picked up for next to nothing, or even access to the reject bin of manufacturers, so you don’t always get what you think, or the supply is limited. You can get some bargains, but you can also end up with junk. You can even find yourself with some fakes, where the chip actually looks fine but nothing is inside. Buying from less-than-reputable sites is a gamble, and there is little chance of getting your money back if anything goes wrong. You can’t go wrong with the suppliers we mention in this chapter, but when you start shopping elsewhere, do your research and be prepared to get what you paid for it.

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Table of Contents for Chapter 21: Ten Suppliers of Components and Tools

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