Where are you buying parts

[beneharris]

I've been getting my toes wet building again on and off for the past few months, and I'm starting to need some stuff. Where is everyone buying parts at now? I still use Mouser for my caps and resistors and such, but I need things like transistor sockets, vero board, etc. Small Bear doesn't seem to have the same selection they did before they were bought out, and I just flat out can't remember the other shops I used.

[mauman]

There are additional sources linked at the top of this page...

[jessenator]

Depends on what I'm getting

Smallbear: hard to find stuff like good LDRs, esoteric caps, WIRE (can't do anything but their prebonded wire), transistors I can't buy in bulk, FETs

Mouser/DigiKey: electrolytic caps, especially bipolar, maybe harder to find buts, but like one-off parts

Love My Switches: certain spec toggles I can't find elsewhere

I tend to shop around if I need premium quality knobs.

Tayda: pretty much everything that I didn't note above. They have the highest concentration of everything, and I hate splitting orders if I can help it at all. They're not paying me to say that, it's just where I've settled down to find nearly everything I need: film caps, resistors (in a much wider array of values), pots (house brand and Alpha), switches (taiway/dailywell, etc), and some which claim to be the same factory as other places' white label switches), and some of their diodes. They also have decent enclosures, as well as drilling, powder coat, and UV printing all from one shop.

PedalPartsPlus: has started a powder coat and UV print service, which appears to be pretty slick. They even do all of the enclosure faces (Tayda, as of now, only does the top), and will do runs of them, for the up-scale builder. I'm interested to see how this works. I haven't priced it or anything, but I'd like to do one in the future.

[beneharris]

Depends on what I'm getting

Smallbear: hard to find stuff like good LDRs, esoteric caps, WIRE (can't do anything but their prebonded wire), transistors I can't buy in bulk, FETs

Mouser/DigiKey: electrolytic caps, especially bipolar, maybe harder to find buts, but like one-off parts

Love My Switches: certain spec toggles I can't find elsewhere

I tend to shop around if I need premium quality knobs.

Tayda: pretty much everything that I didn't note above. They have the highest concentration of everything, and I hate splitting orders if I can help it at all. They're not paying me to say that, it's just where I've settled down to find nearly everything I need: film caps, resistors (in a much wider array of values), pots (house brand and Alpha), switches (taiway/dailywell, etc), and some which claim to be the same factory as other places' white label switches), and some of their diodes. They also have decent enclosures, as well as drilling, powder coat, and UV printing all from one shop.

PedalPartsPlus: has started a powder coat and UV print service, which appears to be pretty slick. They even do all of the enclosure faces (Tayda, as of now, only does the top), and will do runs of them, for the up-scale builder. I'm interested to see how this works. I haven't priced it or anything, but I'd like to do one in the future.

Thanks. I remembered Love my Switches, their name was hard to forget, lol.

Pedal Parts Plus was one I used but forgot, and Tayda was another. Thanks for reminding me!

[jessenator]

Thanks. I remembered Love my Switches, their name was hard to forget, lol.

I'll be honest, I completely forgot their original name until I hovered over the link at the top that mauman pointed out. lol

[WonkoTheSane]

Mouser, Small Bear, Antique Electronic Supply, Tube Depot, Amp Repair Parts, Love my Switches, Stomp Box Parts, Digi-Key, Arrow, Ebay (but know what you're looking for), Newark, Tayda.

[beneharris]

Thanks. I remembered Love my Switches, their name was hard to forget, lol.

I'll be honest, I completely forgot their original name until I hovered over the link at the top that mauman pointed out. lol

Well it used to be "Bitches Love My Switches", so that stuck out a little better lol. Even though they changed the name, I always say it in my head.

[beneharris]

Mouser, Small Bear, Antique Electronic Supply, Tube Depot, Amp Repair Parts, Love my Switches, Stomp Box Parts, Digi-Key, Arrow, Ebay (but know what you're looking for), Newark, Tayda.

Thanks. That should give me everything I'm needing.

[derevaun]

These days, I hit BLMS first, then try to string together something at the others. They're geographically close to me, but their prices on pots, switches, and jacks are close-to-the-same-or-better than the others.

GuitarPCB.com has good sales on transistors and ICs, and they have  several unique boards.

Looking for cool knobs is a whole other level of searching/browsing. There just seems to be no order or reason to who has what, when.

[greysun]

BLMS is great for certain things - they have Gorva enclosures, which I really liked for my recent 1590a builds (they have extra room in them so it's not so tight). Jacks, pots, knobs and switches are top notch there, too, so it's the best place to start out

Stomp Box Parts is where I got most of my other recent parts from - this is what Mammoth Electronics turned into, I believe... They're priced pretty good and have a really good selection of parts that's easy to navigate on their site. Unlike mammoth, however, they do have minimums, so if for example you only need 1 or 2 resistors of a certain value, you're getting 10 of them - again, pricing isn't bad, but something to be aware of. They also still have powder coated enclosures, though not as large a selection of colors (but still pretty good ones).

mouser was always a lot for me - unless I knew exact part numbers, I was always nervous to try and navigate what I needed there - I liked small bear and mammoth cause their sites were easy and parts were more specific to pedals, which is probably why I stuck with stomp box parts. ymmv.

Good luck! :-)