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Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

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Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#121

Post by macjohnmcc »

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…

And back in the peak covid days they asked for donations to keep them alive and operational. They wanted the community to support them based on goodwill and now they seem happy to burn that goodwill to the ground.

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#123

Post by sokoloff »

wildzzz wrote: post #79
myself248 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They have several KiCAD specific items that they've spent resources creating.

https://github.com/Digi-Key/digikey-kicad-library

https://github.com/Digi-Key/digikey-partner-kicad-library

https://github.com/Digi-Key/KiCad-Push-to-DigiKey

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#124

Post by JohnFen »

fpgaminer wrote: post #115
JohnFen wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may not affect the economics of your situation, but if you do projects on a regular basis, this might help. When I order parts for a project, my baseline rule is "order 3: one to break, one to use, one to kick around in your parts drawer for next time". Then I go back through my order and increase quantities of parts I know that I'll be needing again for future projects until the order total is high enough to qual…

That's a good pro-tip, but the real pros order 10 of something they think will be useful in the future, and then let it sit in their parts collection for 80 years until they die.

> then let it sit in their parts collection for 80 years until they die.

Heh. I'm halfway there. I have parts in my bins that I bought 40 years ago. I even recently discovered I have an old 8085A microprocessor from the 80s left over from the first computer I built.

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#125

Post by sokoloff »

fpgaminer wrote: post #110

The high margin makes sense if their account is mostly ordering low-volume. The margins on cut-tape, for example, are nuts. As a distributor they order in bulk at low per-unit pricing, and then when hobbyists buy onsies twosies they can charge low-volume pricing for a huge markup. Doesn't mean they're making a lot of money on those types of orders. (That isn't an argument against the author's complaints, just providi…

I don't think the margins are that crazy. Looking at a bog standard 0603 0.1uF MLCC, they're often $0.02ea on a full reel of 4000 or $0.03ea at a cut tape of 100. So, Mouser makes a whole extra dollar to cut and bag a tape for me. For an 0402, they charge $0.02ea @100 or $0.011ea @50K. So, they make an extra $0.90 by letting me order 100 instead of 50K. 0603 10K resistor: $0.008ea @100 instead of $0.004ea @1000 (5000 is a reel).

That all seems pretty fair to me.

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#126

Post by m00x »

Even if it's cheap, never go with an untracked shipping option if you're expecting any kind of quality of service.

It sucks that mouser added it without really considering the implications. Any time I've used untracked shipping, the carrier loses it or gives 0 shits about how they handle it.

I've used Mouser every other month for the last couple years, using the $120+ CAD free shipping option, and I've always gotten it the next day with genuine, working parts.

I also order from LCSC, but from my 4 orders (~20 parts), I've had several fake parts with hard-to-debug issues that have wasted days if not weeks of dev time. I decided that my time was more valuable and I only order from Mouser now.

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#127

Post by KennyBlanken »

macjohnmcc wrote: post #121
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…

And back in the peak covid days they asked for donations to keep them alive and operational. They wanted the community to support them based on goodwill and now they seem happy to burn that goodwill to the ground.

A $4BN/year revenue corporation, the seventh largest electronics distributor in the world according to Wikipedia, asking for donations...wonders never cease.

....they're owned by Berkshire Hathaway. So, basically people were 'donating' to Warren Buffet. Nice.

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#128

Post by sokoloff »

codetrotter wrote: post #34

How do people on HN feel about Arrow Electronics? https://www.arrow.com/ I don't see any mention of them ITT yet. I've used them a bit in the past for a project I was involved with. They were not the cheapest but they seem pretty ok from my experience.

A few years ago, they switched tools partners away from Wiha (I think to Apex Group). Anyway, they ended up putting most of the Wiha tools on clearance and many of them were 80-90% off. To say I bought a LOT would be somewhat of an understatement. Sadly, the Wiha precision screwdriver large kits were sold out before I found out about it, but I got loads of other great Wiha tools at prices under the home center craptastic specials.

In the course of buying those, I also added several electronics components that I needed and they came in entirely as expected; zero drama.

Re: Why I'm done with Mouser Electronics

#130

Post by KennyBlanken »

vanchor3 wrote: post #86

I'll just add in that I've placed around 30 orders with Mouser over the past few years and have never really had any trouble. I only ever order UPS 2nd day, because FedEx loves to find excuses to not deliver packages and UPS Mail Innovations usually makes packages disappear, and I don't really see a good reason to save a few dollars for the package to take 5 times as long to arrive. The only time I had an issue was r…

FYI if you're shipped something you didn't order, at least in the US, you never have to send it back. The rule exists to prevent scams related to shipping stuff people didn't order and counting on people's hesitancy / forgetfulness.
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