Parts

[Steven Feinsmith]

I want to share with you after I had experience with electronics vendors, eBay, and others.

My poor power supply for my amateur radio is dying. I discovered four capacitors and eight pieces of 0.33 ohms 5-watt resistors were out of specification. I decided to pull everything out and replace it with new components except for the MC6030 or 78MGT4 voltage regulator that is still functional.

I realized it has become hard to find the parts from well-known electronic distributors such as Newark, Allied, Vertical, Digikey, Mouser, Jameco, and others. They tend to have out of stock, spread out with obsolete very fast.

I got a pair of integrated circuit chips that took me four months to wait because they came from the United Kingdom because the US did not have it in their inventory.

I searched for filter capacitors which were near impossible because they were out of stock, and some of them will restock sometime in late 2022 or early 2023. It was hard to believe how long we have to wait for the new parts nowadays.

At this time, I have to order several vendors to get the parts because some of them did not have it in stock while others may have it. It impacted the cost of shipping. It already burned my pocket for nearly 40 dollars worth of shipping.

I was shocked to learn that CTS trimmer potentiometer neither vertical nor horizontal positions were no longer in products. I spoke with a representative who said there was no longer a demand for the parts. That was true BS because it was a popular part for everyone. He claimed the company wanted to cut down the inventory because it cost them a lot.

I could not get metal film resistors or mylar capacitors because they were not available at all. Now, it takes a toll on my time to search and search everywhere. The prices for the parts are already double or even higher. Also, it is impossible to find RF high-frequency transistors unless they have to charge as much as 500 dollars for four matched pieces. Unfortunately, they did not have it in stock as possible put on as obsolete. What is more, I need three transistors from one of the available vendors. They should cost about three dollars each which I bought five years ago. Now, the distributor representative said it cost me over a thousand dollars each. Tell me, who will buy with the cost? Elon Musk? Fortunately, I dug my organizer boxes. I found that I have ten transistors that I almost forgot about. I wonder if I can sell them on eBay for a thousand dollars each?

I avoid buying any capacitors from surplus because they tend to be new old stock. The prices tend to be the same or higher compared with the distributor cost.

Also, I have loathed eBay or Aliexpress related to China. Because I noticed the prices skyrocketed and added shipping costs. It may take three or more weeks to arrive in the US. eBay or aliexpress failed to honor the protection plan because I got defective or damaged components or lost them in the mail. I had to bring this issue to BBB against eBay and Paypal.

This same incident with automotive companies was not able to get microprocessors/microcontrollers for their new vehicles. I got plenty of stories saying that due to the pandemic incident, everything went screwed up. It was FAKE! They made a lot of excuses.

The problem was the US businesses became more and more greedy by moving or selling leading electronics companies overseas due to cheap labor. We lost so many US companies and put us into the bottom leading in the electronic industries. We were number one during the 20th century.

I hope the US government and businesses will change their behavior to restore electronic business.

Thank you,
Steven

[Lee Hart]

Yes, I'm seeing the same thing when I order parts for my little kit business. No one wants to maintain inventory for parts unless they sell a thousand a week.

Exactly what parts do you need? I have a pretty good "junk box", and might have what you need (or at least something that will work). :-)

Lee Hart