Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#71

Post by nightfly » Wed, May 10, 2023, 9:09 PM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #13

nightfly wrote: post #3

"I had a bad experience with the cheap shipping, guess I should keep trying it until I hate the company *

Seems like there shouldn't be a shipping option that, when used, results in the customer hating the company. The fact that it took this customer so long to decide he hated the company indicates that he is quite patient — other customers might have changed their mind about Mouser sooner.

I will totally take low-priority shipping + cheap product occasionally. Like when ordering from Aliexpress where I know I won't get the item for 4-8 weeks

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#72

Post by bombcar » Wed, May 10, 2023, 9:13 PM UTC

paulmd wrote: post #28

WalterBright wrote: post #19

When the cable guy came to add another outlet to my previous house, I watched what he did and chatted a bit about his tools. He was using Digikey tools. I then ordered identical tools. For my later house, I installed all the cables and outlets myself, with the Digikey tools. All I can say is two thumbs up for them. Quick and easy, and not a single bad connection. I did this because of my troubles soldering, which all…

If you have the money, and you're going to use the tools regularly, it's often worth the 'buy once, cry once' premium. One of my cats passed away last year, and before I realized he was having kidney problems he'd taken to dusting a closet in a spare room. I tried and tried with my old carpet cleaner (10y+ old upright thing) and just could not make progress even with nature's miracle enzymatic shampoo/etc. I recently…

The problem now is the harbor freight ones are too good and basically will never break; so if you don't know what you're missing, you never find out.

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#73

Post by bee_rider » Wed, May 10, 2023, 9:14 PM UTC

nebula8804 wrote: post #2

Wow I am going through the same thing as the author right now. I recently placed an order with Mouser doing side by side comparison shopping with Digi-Key. The last time I used Mouser was 12 years ago in my college days. I thought hey they were good back then let me just compare the prices and Mouser came ahead this time due to the shipping cost. I am just ordering replacement capacitors for an old PC motherboard tha…

It’s funny, when I was randomly picking a parts website in school (electrical engineering), Digikey gave me much better vibes. I mean look at their websites!

One is clearly the result of getting a handful of hardware engineers in a room and telling them “we need to put our catalogue online!” The other looks like it has been infected by “UI” and “design” and other non-engineering concepts.

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#74

Post by oakwhiz » Wed, May 10, 2023, 9:20 PM UTC

Interesting. I've actually seen some increased delays from them as well, though I don't think I've encountered a situation that would require talking to them. I have had situations where I needed to reach out to Digikey to resolve issues and I would say my experiences with Digikey were good.

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#75

Post by Astronaut3315 » Wed, May 10, 2023, 9:20 PM UTC

I just reached out to Mouser for a second time for an Economy Shipping order that never arrived. I picked the slowest option as I was also having a PCB fabricated for those parts.

That PCB arrived a week ago and the tracking still shows nothing at all.

This does not inspire confidence.

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#76

Post by erremerre » Wed, May 10, 2023, 9:23 PM UTC

Trying to buy from either Mouser or Digikey from Europe is very misleading. They have European shops in European domain. But when you are going to pay. You get smashed with a ridiculous delivery price and the uncertainty of how much customs will charge you...

Wish we had a good alternative rather than having to get components in ebay/aliexpress.

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#77

Post by cushychicken » Wed, May 10, 2023, 9:24 PM UTC

ckemere wrote: post #11

I have had excellent experience with Digikey's customer service. They always answer the phone and resolve problems quickly. I've recently been using Mouser because their warehouse location means that the "standard" UPS option (@7.99) ships overnight to us in Houston. I greatly appreciate the fact that they autodetect the proximity and so actively block me from accidentally paying for upgraded shipping... I am curious…

I had one similar experience as the author, called them after the parts didn't show up in two weeks, and had the order refunded and replacements overnight after about seven minutes of phone convo and zero wait time for a real human to pick up.

Digikey's phone support is equally good for the one time they've borked an order in recent memory.

Don't be afraid of the phone, people.

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#78

Post by JohnFen » Wed, May 10, 2023, 9:25 PM UTC

Giorgi wrote: post #41

Wonder if they had management change recently? These kind of mishaps happen when CEO is replaced by the dumber one.

I got curious. I didn't find mention of a management change, but they did complete a pretty major expansion of their headquarters and global distribution center in 2020. That could have had an impact.

https://www.insidelogistics.ca/dc-and-warehouse-operations/m...

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#79

Post by wildzzz » Wed, May 10, 2023, 9:25 PM UTC

myself248 wrote: post #26

sschueller wrote: post #22

For small personal projects I have switched to LCSC in part because I can automate the BOM order when I generate the PCB gerbers all out of Kicad via gitlab pipeline. All I have to do is add the LCSC part numbers as an extra field in my Kicad schematic. If I order from JLCPCB I also get a shipping discount at LCSC. Mauser and digitkey are very expensive to ship here (Switzerland) so unless my order is larger it's not…

I'm baffled that Mouser and Digi-Key haven't put the same effort into a Kicad pluggin to replicate that capability.

Digikey doesn't give a shit about interfacing with a hobbyist tool. There's no money in it. They'd much rather spend the resources on developing interfaces for their customers that spend 100-1000x more money with them.

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#80

Post by rts_cts » Wed, May 10, 2023, 9:25 PM UTC

tinfever wrote: post #52

sschueller wrote: post #22

For small personal projects I have switched to LCSC in part because I can automate the BOM order when I generate the PCB gerbers all out of Kicad via gitlab pipeline. All I have to do is add the LCSC part numbers as an extra field in my Kicad schematic. If I order from JLCPCB I also get a shipping discount at LCSC. Mauser and digitkey are very expensive to ship here (Switzerland) so unless my order is larger it's not…

How does that JLCPCB / LCSC shipping discount work? I know they used to do combined shipping but I think they dropped that option years ago.

I've been building some prototype boards for work with JLCPCB recently. There used to be an option to bundle parts from LCSC but that kind of went away. However, if you have a PCB order open you can get super cheap shipping if logged into the same account on LCSC.

I've been using JLCPCB's Global Sourcing service a lot recently. I can get DigiKey/Mouser parts sent to JLCPCB's inventory for assembly. The shipping is a bit slow but it beats having to manually assemble a few components not available at JLCPCB.