Is it just me or is the pricing at Digikey getting ridiculous?

[Hammy]

---
I didn't see one, but after all is said and done that's generally what
drives the cost of finished goods up or down.

Consider a fantasy: The US and China have a throwdown where the goal is
to assemble, say, a GPS, with the winner being the one who can build one
on the cheap that works like it's supposed to.

First off, where are we going to get the cheapest resistors?

China of course, because even if we both had identical machines making
the resistors, the folks running the machines in China would make less
than the folks here, doing the same thing, so we lose out there and have
to buy our resistors from China.

That's cost of labor, bucko, and it permeates everything we have to buy
because it costs us more to do it than it does someone else, if we're
participating in a global economy.

Now, there's also the question about whether the cheap shit is better
than the shit that costs a little more, and my experience with that is
with transformers that were to be used with electroluminescent displays.

We got quotes from China which asked us to increase the thickness of the
laminations in order to get cheaper transformers, but the ultimate price
to be paid was that the transformers with the thicker lams were less
efficient.

Tradeoff?

Save a dime on a transfomer and pour an extra nickel's worth of heat
into the environment.
---

You're talking consumer electronics your typical consumer could care
less whether your product is 5% more efficient, more reliable or
better engineered. They just care its cheap and when they plug it in
it works. Flip over most of the stuff in your house does it say where
its made; China maybe?

---
So what?

If you only need 5%, why would you pay extra for 1%?
---

You don't have a clue here it's called making a point? I'll spell it
out for you ;people don't spend more then they have too. Is that clear
enough for you?It was an estimate based on comparison of my typical orders from
Newark compared to what the same thing Digikey charges me. I usually
get a difference between 20 to 30 bucks. I figured with you being a
pro your orders would be larger and more frequent. I guess though if
you're talking 10 transistors you're not building things for
production runs.

---
When the amount of time required to find a part is minimal.
---


---
I thought so...

You don't have a fucking clue.
---

I have enough of a clue to know if I had been doing this
professionally for 25 years I would already have a stock of inventory
of regularly used components. I don't do this professionally and I
still have a nice stock of components. I keep on hand enough stuff
that I can build most common things and possibly improvise for less
common things.

---
So, you'd rather charge a client several hundred dollars to find that
Arrow can supply you with 20,000 transistors at a penny a piece when all
you need is ten that you can get from Digikey for a couple of bucks?

Figures...
---

Several hundred dollars to search arrow? What do you charge $100 a
minute? So I guess you don't have a purchasing department who does
this stuff for you?

---
Sometimes, yeah.

It depends on what I'm looking for and whether I've been there before.
---

You've been doing this for 25 years and you're still buying from
Digikey and other Mickey mouse disty's? Why don't you have contacts
with the actual manufacturers they all offer samples for companies?
Could it be your abrasive personality? They always gave me samples in
school? I'm sure after 25 years you must have developed some type of
network within the manufacturing segment?

 

[Hammy]

On Sun, 28 Mar 2010 07:59:27 -0500, John Fields

snip

Well John I have no desire to argue anymore. I have better things to
do with my time as I'm sure you do.

I'll leave it at this you do what works for you; I'll do what works
for me.

 

[[email protected]]

[...]

Did you guys get the transformer issue licked?

Not completely. We received a small number of samples of the new transformer
but without manufacturing quantities we don't _know_ that it's solved. Only
something like 5% were failing in reflow so it's pretty hard to test three
samples for the problem. We have a very good manual test for the failure now
and an in-circuit test that tests ten out of fifteen of them. When we get
production quantities we can remove the manual test and will then rely on ICT
to flag any regression. Completely solved, no. We have a very good handle on
it and it's no longer impacting deliveries, so it's 95% of the way there.

If there is time you could cook two transformers. One from the old batch
and one of the new samples. Ratchet up the oven temp and see which one
is going at what temp. At least that'll tell you whetehr they really
used wire with better coating.

The samples are not usually the problem. Quality has a tendency to
grow fainter with time in some cases.

True, which is why I wanted a good in-circuit test to alert us if something
goes wrong down the line. In this case, it's either the wire is right or it's
not. If they switched wire on a batch it could be ugly. Unfortunately, we
can only catch 2/3s of the failures but at least that's a good sampling plan.
;-)

 

[Don Klipstein]

---
Sure, but why?

Because the labor to build it costs so much less there than it does
here.

Even if we had the same parts and paid the same for them as they do, it
still costs them less to build and test and box and ship than it does
us.
---


---
Sure, so what else is new?

If I buy parts from Digikey I'm not paying more than I have to, I'm
paying exactly _what_ I have to for the convenience.

Plus, if I order a bunch of parts that I'd normally have to buy from
separate disty's I'm only stuck with a single freight charge instead of
many, and _that's_ money saved.

<SNIP from here largely because I have 1 point to respond to>

I have used Newark several times, and I have experienced (a goodly
decade ago) what I suspect as getting better-than-catalog prices to those
who actually do some decent amount of business with them.

On the other hand, when I ordered from Newark more than 1 product line
of part, sometimes I ran into them having having these different parts
stocked in different warehouses. That often resulted in 2 shipping
charges for 1 order.

Which is not much of a problem to the few doing electronic
circuit/product production in USA, and a minor extra cost to those doing
product development work.

Hobbyists appear to me to be something that Digi-Key caters to somewhat,
especially in the times of Rat Shack doing many things that repelled
hobbyists.

I also seem-to-think that Digi-Key has a bit of liking to electronics
repair types, as well as for product development types. For one thing,
back in the 1980's and early 1990's when I bought and read a lot of
electronic hobbyist magazines, I remember Digi-Key advertizing
significantly.

Back to Rat Shack:

Can I say: Some of their stores have 4 "sets of drawers" of small
parts, and some of their stores have only 2 "sets of drawers", not
stocking roughly half the parts that are in the 4-sets-of-drawers.

And they have a store in the University City section of Philadelphia,
a little less than a mile from Drexel U. and even closer to University
of Pennsylvania, both of which have engineering schools that have
electrical engineering departments, and the Rat Shack there has only the
2 sets of drawers?

- Don Klipstein ([email protected])

 

[Hammy]

<SNIP from here largely because I have 1 point to respond to>

I have used Newark several times, and I have experienced (a goodly
decade ago) what I suspect as getting better-than-catalog prices to those
who actually do some decent amount of business with them.

On the other hand, when I ordered from Newark more than 1 product line
of part, sometimes I ran into them having having these different parts
stocked in different warehouses. That often resulted in 2 shipping
charges for 1 order.

Check "SHIP ORDERS COMPLETE" and that wont happen.That happened to me
once before I realized about the "SHIP ORDERS COMPLETE" I called
their free number and they took the charge off.

Which is not much of a problem to the few doing electronic
circuit/product production in USA, and a minor extra cost to those doing
product development work.

Hobbyists appear to me to be something that Digi-Key caters to somewhat,
especially in the times of Rat Shack doing many things that repelled
hobbyists.

In fairness the wide price discrepancy on PIC's between Digikey and
Newark isnt as wide as it used to be. I havent compared in a while but
I just did and Digkey is maybe 20-30% higher versus the last time I
checked in which they were typically 2 times the price for the same
PIC's.

I also seem-to-think that Digi-Key has a bit of liking to electronics
repair types, as well as for product development types. For one thing,
back in the 1980's and early 1990's when I bought and read a lot of
electronic hobbyist magazines, I remember Digi-Key advertizing
significantly.

Back to Rat Shack:

Can I say: Some of their stores have 4 "sets of drawers" of small
parts, and some of their stores have only 2 "sets of drawers", not
stocking roughly half the parts that are in the 4-sets-of-drawers.

And they have a store in the University City section of Philadelphia,
a little less than a mile from Drexel U. and even closer to University
of Pennsylvania, both of which have engineering schools that have
electrical engineering departments, and the Rat Shack there has only the
2 sets of drawers?

- Don Klipstein ([email protected])

I'm in Canada we have no RAT SHACK it's now the source we have two in
the city. We also have a college and two universities that have EET
and EE programs ( one of the Universities) so you would think places
like the source would stock decent components but they dont.

I went into the source asked for a PCB blank and the guy gave me a
blank look. He didnt have a clue what I was talking about. I bought a
decent soldering iron there I went back about a month later looking
for a replacement tip and they didnt stock one and didnt know where to
get them. They now carry replacement tips for their current soldering
irons so sometimes complaining does work.;-)

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

In fairness the wide price discrepancy on PIC's between Digikey and
Newark isnt as wide as it used to be. I havent compared in a while but
I just did and Digkey is maybe 20-30% higher versus the last time I
checked in which they were typically 2 times the price for the same
PIC's.

IIRC, Digikey's pricing for PICs is quite competitive at 25+ quantity.
Maybe not so much at 1pc or 1000+ pcs.

Eg. PIC18F13K22-I/P

25+

Digikey US site: 1.99 USD
Digikey CAD site: 2.25 CAD = 2.20 USD
Mouser US site: 1.99 USD
Mousr CAD site: 2.25 CAD = 2.20 USD
Microchip 1.99 USD
Newark 1.99 USD
Avnet 2.19 USD

 

[Hammy]

IIRC, Digikey's pricing for PICs is quite competitive at 25+ quantity.
Maybe not so much at 1pc or 1000+ pcs.

Eg. PIC18F13K22-I/P

25+

Digikey US site: 1.99 USD
Digikey CAD site: 2.25 CAD = 2.20 USD
Mouser US site: 1.99 USD
Mousr CAD site: 2.25 CAD = 2.20 USD
Microchip 1.99 USD
Newark 1.99 USD
Avnet 2.19 USD

Well yes they have started to become more competitive; it depends for
example two of the more popular PICs.

Newark 2.34 CT singles
$2.21 100+ quantities

http://canada.newark.com/microchip/pic16f887-i-p/8-bit-microcontroller-ic/dp/27M9657

Digikey same PIC Canadian site

$3.17 CT
2.35 100+QUANTITY

http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=PIC16F887-I/P-ND

That's the typical spread I'm seeing on PIC's I use.

It has improved significantly since the last time I did a direct
comparison there would typically be a 2x spread on CT, and a much
wider spread in quantities. The same for transistors (BJT'S FET). When
I was comparing FETS with Newark; Digikey's T/R price was the same as
Newark's CT price. I don't know about you but I'm not buying T/R's
(2500+) of transistors so that price is irrelevant to me. Why anyone
would buy production quantities off a distributor still boggles my
mind.

A single FET example. This is a good jellybean FET neither currently
has stock but Newark will soon. When Newark originally got these they
were less then a quarter CT now they are 0.35 cents but they couldn't
keep enough of them in stock 2500 one day 200 the next etc..

http://canada.newark.com/stmicroele...?whydiditmatch=rel_1&matchedProduct=STN3NF06L

Digikey
http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=497-3177-1-ND

Ones that both have in stock

http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=SI2308BDS-T1-GE3CT-ND

Newark
http://canada.newark.com/vishay-siliconix/si2308bds-t1-ge3/transistor/dp/16P3708

They still have some work to do on Transistors, for me anyway.

Before Digikey fans jump on me I know that there are some cheaper ones
at Digikey then Newark, but for me Newark is always cheaper.

 

[D from BC]

Everything I need for electronics arrives by courir.
I rarely go to electronic shops for parts because they seldom have parts
I need.
If a shop has all the parts you need, you're probably not building
something special.