5 replies to this topic

[Eric Burdo]

Figured this would be useful to everyone... just post a link (or explanation) of places to get parts.

http://sparkfun.com/
http://makershed.com/
http://www.mouser.com/
http://www.jameco.com/

http://www.dealextre...dx/category.410

Broken toys
Non-broken toys.
Old computers
Unused electronics

Dumpster Diving

[Mark H]

also, consider digikey.com(i prefer over mouser 90% of the time) and farnell.com- farnell is great for international people without access to a decent electronics store. In most countries it's free overnight delivery - however they can be considerably more expensive.

Be wary of dealextreme, some of their stuff is absolute rubbish (get what you pay for).

[Fred]

In the UK there's two places I've used to get Netduino stuff http://www.coolcomponents.co.uk http://www.skpang.co.uk For general electronics bits it's always handy to have a retails store you can pop into. There's probably one of these near you. http://www.maplin.co.uk

[hari]

Places I've ordered from before that I have not seen listed in this thread:

• HobbyPartz has r/c servos for $2.77 with free shipping to USA!
• SureElectronics has good prices on led matrix and other displays. They are in China, so it takes a while for items to reach USA.
• FunGizmos - lots of Arduino related items - think of it as a smaller version of SparkFun.
• Octopart is not a vendor, but cool place to browse and search for parts.

And don't forget eBay. There are surprisingly a lot of electronic chips and parts available on eBay. Just be careful with their location and shipping cost. I've purchased jumper cables, LEDs (sureElectronics is on ebay too), shift registers, breadboards.

[dab]

This is a timely topic . It would nice to make this a sticky thread for future reference (and a place to point somebody to when they ask where to find things).

I'll add a couple more:

• Evil Mad Science Shop: This is the companion store for the Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories blog. A smaller but more eclectic shop. They mainly sell kits of their own design, and also have some good deals on components (like RGB LEDs). Also check out the EggBot.
  
• Adafruit Industries: The companion store for the LadyAda.net blog (aka Limor Fried). Like Evil Mad Science, the store carries a lot of kits designed by LadyAda, as well as lots of Arduino boards and shields. There's some overlap with MakerShed and SparkFun, but a lot of cool stuff.

[stan4th]

Broken toys
Non-broken toys.
Old computers
Unused electronics

Hi Eric,
good idea, have you found any parts in particular which you've found interesting/useful?
Cheers